If the European history of fashion is familiar to us, the Asian fashion world is a realm for connoisseurs. Even die-hard fans of Chanel, Dior and Balenciaga may not name the five key designers of the East! But here we can. In our review, there are five Japanese designers without whom it is impossible to imagine modern fashion.
Rei Kawakubo
This woman is a true master of the fashion industry. The 74-year-old designer began her career in the textile department of the textile company, but quickly became a stylist in 1963. Kawakubo took ten years to figure out images for her model, and in 1973 she registered her own company, Comme des Garçons Co., in Tokyo, and opened her first boutique a few years later. In 1982, the designer first introduced the collection on the Paris catwalk, and since then the Comme des Garçons have been a must-see part of the Paris Fashion Week program. Comme des Garçons clothes that made at the intersection of fashion and art are an ode to deconstruction that inspired later generations of designers: Ann Demeulemeester, Martin Margiela and Helmut Lang. Kawakubo herself has repeatedly played the role of a fairy godmother, giving a tour of fashion to several well-known fashion designers, including Junya Watanabe and Gosha Rubchinskiy.
Junya Watanabe
As we said above, Rei Kawakubo played a massive role in Junya Watanabe’s career. Immediately after graduating from Bunka Fashion College, Junya entered an internship at Comme des Garçons as a print designer. In 1987, he was promoted to chief designer of the Tricot line and later was made responsible for the Homme men’s line. Under the wing of his protégé, Watanabe also launched his name line in 1992, and a year later began introducing it at the Paris Fashion Week, registering a separate brand in 1994. His mentor had a significant influence on Watanabe’s style. However, over time, the designer has crafted his handwriting, dubbed technocouture by journalists – so the media define his sophisticated clothes from high-tech materials.
Issey Miyake
Barely born on April 22, 1938, in Hiroshima, and having experienced the tragic events of August 1945, Issey Miyake guessed that he should become the first Japanese designer to become famous in Paris. After graduating from Tama Art University in Tokyo, Miyake went to work in New York and Paris to return in the 1970s and set up Miyake Design Studio.
Issey Miyake showed his first collection in 1971 in New York and since 1973 became a regular participant of the French Fashion Week. His unique concept of creating A Piece Of Cloth garments has instantly caught the attention of the world.
He believes that the primary purpose of clothing – to please, and the designer’s – to explore. It was he who developed the technology “A-POC” (“Piece of cloth”) – the method uses computer programs to create clothes from one roll of fabric in a continuous process, with the complete absence of seams.
In 2010, the first version of the 132 5. ISSEY project was released. The impetus for its creation was the invention of computer graphics programs that can build a three-dimensional model of the product with smoothly curved surfaces in one plane.
Yohji Yamamoto
This name is familiar to fans of high fashion more than ethical: the appearance of Yohji Yamamoto in the world of fashion was like a real explosion. The 1981 show made him famous, presenting models in black asymmetrical outfits, coarse shoes, with no makeup. In those years, the public was accustomed to the exact opposite, so critics immediately branded Yamamoto “the end of fashion”. But it was quite the opposite. The designer introduced into everyday life models of outerwear made of demonstrably coarse material: tarpaulin, raincoats, thick denim, canvases. Untidy sewing and asymmetrical elements are the highlights of Yamamoto’s cloth.
Since then, the style of this designer has been repeatedly changed under the influence of the era. But no one was able to fake the genius collections.
Takada Kenzo
First of all, Mr Kenzo is a fashion designer. Like Kawakubo, he is one of the veterans of Japanese fashion. In his early childhood, Kenzo Takada saw in a local magazine model of clothes that so hit the boy that he tried to redraw them. Many years later, this good desire led Kenzo to Paris, despite his complete lack of knowledge of the language, culture, lack of friends. Kenzo’s pilot boutique opened in Paris in the 1970s.
In 1984, the Ministry of Culture of France awarded Kenzo the Order of Arts and Letters, and in 1988 began the release of the famous perfume under the brand name Kenzo.
