New Japanese designers: Who will be the next CDG and Yohji Yamamoto
Japanese fashion has always been considered avant-garde, Yes, and the idea of it was limited to a couple of brands. Relatively new designers from Japan until recently had the status of brands for a narrow circle of knowledgeable people. Now they - Kolor, Sacai and Toga - got not so much as to the main concept stores, but to Russian department stores. Wonderzine understands how the Japanese fashion school has changed and why its representatives interest everyone now.
Many have Japanese fashion only associated with the names Yoji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo. But by the 1980s, there were three generations of designers in the country. Most of them are now interesting only in the context of the history of fashion - like Kensho Abe or Hanae Mori. However, some formed a new wave of Japanese designers, who debuted in Paris in the early 1980s and impressed the industry so much that they remained in France forever. Next to the grand collections of the houses of Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent, the deconstruction and reconstruction in the clothes of Kavakubo and Yamamoto - the start of a new wave - looked quite fresh. Since then, Comme Des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto have become international companies with impressive turnovers - and simply avant-garde classics, well, the more traditional Japanese style was represented by Issey Miyaki and Kenzo Takada.
At this Japanese fashion school does not end there. Now at least three local designers are winning the world market: remember Junichi Abe from Kolor, Chitose Abe from Sacai and Yasuko Furuta from Toga. All of them can not be called newcomers: they began a career in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Why is the Trinity now spoken of as the main hope of the Japanese fashion industry? The answer is quite simple: all three brands inherit avant-gardists - that is, they use the details of the aesthetics invented by them, but they do it in the spirit of our time. What does this mean: if Sacai and Toga show asymmetrical things with deliberately voluminous elements, neoprene stripes or ornate details with a cut along the scythe, then they are suitable for everyday life. There are a dozen people willing to put on a coat with foam inserts by Ray Kawakubo for a walk or a job. With similar things Abe and Furuta - on the contrary: Colette and Tsvetnoy are happy to buy them - they combine the appeal to traditions and technologies, and they are more commercial.
I studied at Esmod, but I was not a very diligent student: I missed a lot of classes. At that time I could do everything that I wanted. Now I understand that this is the most expensive thing for a fashion worker. It is a pity that in my youth I was angry, annoyed and rebellious and did not understand what wealth I had. Starting a designer’s career, I did just a few things every season, then I did a small presentation of these clothes. They started offering me some help - and I opened my own brand. In fact, this happened also because one magazine gave me five pages and offered to photograph absolutely any clothes I want. I do not bother about inspiration. I take some things from life - what I see, read or sniff, and turn it into my collections. I choose fabrics simply: I take only those that I like.
Perhaps most of the talented designers in Japan have gone the same way. To begin with, they graduated from Bunka, a private design school that released Miyaki from Takada and printed So-en magazine, which revealed the names of the second half of the 20th century. Then they settled down with the cutters in Comme Des Garçons or to the right arm of Rei Kawakubo, Juniya Watanabe. Thus, the career of two heroes of the article, Kolor and Sacai, was formed. Yasuko Furuta graduated from Esmod Paris School and started as a costume designer, and then worked as a stylist (like Ray Kawakubo at one time). Both Kolor, and Toga, and Sacai became crowded within the framework of the Japanese scene after their very foundation - and they began to organize shows in Europe, as CDG and YY did 30 years ago. Toga and Sacai are participants of the Fashion Week in Paris, and Kolor presented collections at the Pitti Uomo clothing exhibition. Therefore, it is not surprising that all designers are praised by Anna Wintour, then she carries Karl Lagerfeld himself.
You can not ignore another significant trend in the Japanese fashion design. Posted by Dazed & Confused David Helquist divides the country's brands into two broad categories. The first is the old school of avant-gardists, to whom Sacai and Toga inherit. The second is closer to Junichi Abe from Kolor: it consists of a dozen brands that focus on manufacturability and functionality. These include the pioneers of this trend - Hiroki Nakamura’s visvim, as well as younger brands such as Engineered Garments, Nanamica and White Mountaineering. In a nutshell, all these brands are close to the Moscow men's store Fott. They sew clothes from the fabrics of the latest design, make clothes as practical as possible: consider that almost mathematics worked on each stitch and pocket. Their other feature is the wide use of technical solutions for sportswear. It is these brands that are attracting the attention of buyers all over the world: they, like adherents of Scandinavian minimalism, are closer and more understandable to the average buyer than the Givenchy podium collection.
Japan often suffers from certain natural disasters, so the local fashion industry is in a vulnerable position: Tokyo Fashion Week can be easily canceled, as it was a couple of years ago, and then buyers and the press will be left with nothing - just like designers. Therefore, the best way out for a Japanese designer is to become part of the global fashion industry: for example, making shows in Europe or even moving the production process to the west. So do Kolor, Sacai and Toga. However, they are no longer about pure avant-garde: to stay on the international market, you need to compete not only among themselves, but also with Dior, LV and Prada. Apparently, the guys do it as well as possible: for the first season of shows in Paris, Sacai received 15 new accounts in different countries of the world, and now they have as many as 60 brands. Toga is sold even in Russia. And Kolor conquers all online stores: for example, strict visionary LN-CC from the brand without a mind. Perhaps this is exactly how Japanese fashion will develop: avant-garde will only have a place on the CDG and Junya Watanabe catwalks (which have 10 commercial lines each), and the stores will sell more wearable things created by all new generations of Japanese - tradition-oriented , but offering design and modern technologies that are understandable to Western buyers.