Japan and the West: 11
Fashion and Architecture
Outline
Practical Arts
Fashion
Architecture
衣食住 (i-shoku-ju)
Outline
Practical Arts
Fashion
Architecture
衣食住 (i-shoku-ju)
Fashion
Meiji-Taisho Period
1970s
Kansai Yamamoto
1980s
Issey Miyake
Kawakubo Rei
Street Fashion
Mix and match
Early Adopters...
“The undignified billy-cocks and pantaloons of the West are slowly but
surely supplanting the picturesque, aristocratic-looking native garb, a
change for which
the Government is mainly responsible, as it
obliges almost all officials to wear European
dress when on duty […]
In the year 1886, some evil counsellor induced the Court to order gowns
from [...] Berlin likewise corsets, and those European shoes […] In vain
the local European press cried out against the barbarism, in vain every
foreigner of taste endeavoured privately to persuade his Japanese
friends not to let their wives make guys of themselves. […] on the 1st
November, 1886, the Empress and her ladies appeared in their new
German dresses at a public entertainment.”
Things Japanese, BH Chamberlain 1904
Rokumeikan Era (1880s)
Dancing at the Rokumeikan
Empress Shoken
“Since then there has been a
wave of reaction, in
consequence of which most
ladies have happily returned to
the national costume. How
charming it is to see a bevy of
them thus dressed, dressed, mind
you, not merely having clothes on,
such a symphony of greys and
browns and other delicate hues of
silk and brocade...”
(ibid.)
Dualism...
Domestic → Traditional
“Official” → Western
Within the 'Domestic' sphere...
Exterior → Western
Interior → Traditional
Moga & Mobo
Paul Poiret
1879 – 1944
Influential designer in France
in early c20
“King of Fashion” in the US
“Kimono Coat”
1930s
Madeleine Vionnet (1876-1976)
'Bias Cut'
Pleats / Grecian Dress
1940: “Big John”
Ozaki Kotaro's Maruo Clothing given rights to 50
rolls of imported US denim.
1972: Kurabo Mills produces first denim in Japan.
Kansai Yamamoto
David Bowie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPvV
gFfwZTs
1972: Ziggy Stardust World Tour
A Japanese designer...
“Every artist has his own thing going
on. I often use Japanese motifs and
sometimes wonder if I’m choosing
them because I’m Japanese. Having
been all over the world and to
countries with various religious
backgrounds as much as I have, I
sometimes wonder where I’m really
from. I’m Japanese, so of course I
think of myself as Japanese, and I eat
Japanese food most of the time.”
2014 Interview in Vice Magazine - www.vice.com/read/some-cat-from-
japan-0000228-v21n2
BTW… Sukita Masayoshi
Born in Naogata, Fukuoka Pref (1935)
Worked in commercial photography
Photographed “T-Rex” (Marc Bolan)
Met Bowie in 1972
“Heroes” cover 1977
Kabuki meets
ukiyo-e meets
Bowie
Jonathan
Wakuda
Fischer
Fashion
Issey Miyake
Kawakubo Rei
Issey Miyake
After graduating in graphic design from
Tama Univ. (1965) moved to Paris.
Influenced by sculptors (Brancusi,
Giacometti)
Fashion inspirations included Vionnet
who “really understood the kimono”
New York → Tokyo
While taking English lessons
worked for Geoffrey Beene
“Godfather of American
Minimalism”
1970 returns to Tokyo to set up
Miyake Design Studio (MDS)
Influence of kimono
Importance of fabric -
texture, surface, form
Attempt to create clothes
without cutting fabric
'Rejecting the idea that
there is one way to wrap a
body in certain piece of
cloth'
Pleats Please
Collection launched in 1993, emerged from
design work for dancers in Frankfurt Ballet,
thus often uses dancers instead of models...
A-POC
• 1998: A Piece of Cloth
“There's no right or wrong
way of wearing it” -
“they're your clothes”
80% of sales in Japan
Origami clothes
“132 5”
collection
launched in
2010
2D→3D
Concern with
minimising
'waste'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gdxhNnytSs
Comme des Garçons
Kawakubo Rei
Est'd 1969/70 in Tokyo
Paris store opened 1980
Rejects conventional
gender roles and traditional
notions of beauty and
glamour
Yohji Yamamoto
Black…
“asymmetrical, oversized,
deconstructed, with exposed
seams, loose-fitting, and
overall a slap in the face to
the traditional idea that
women needed to be
constricted inside of tight,
perfectly tailored gowns”
• deconstructionism
KR: “Many designers cater to
the idea of what they think men
would like to see women as.”
http://paintingbohemia.org/culturalstudies/genders-sexualities/black-crows-how-rei-kawakubo-revolutionized-fashion-and-beauty/
1997: “Body meets dress, dress
meets body”
Clothing as
'burden'
Kawakubo everywhere...
2008 – H&M open in Tokyo
“Kawaii”
“Kawaii”
Dress: early c18
Architecture
Kyoto National Museum, 1895.
Katayama Tōkuma: grad. Imp.College of Tech. 1879
The Rokumeikan
Designed by Josiah
Conder (Imp. College of
Tech.)
Built 1880-3
Fell out of use after
1890s, demolished in
1941.
The Ryounkaku
'skyscraper'
凌雲閣• Built 1890
• Design: W.K. Burton
• 69m tall
• 2 electric elevators
designed by Fujioka
Ichisuke (Toshiba)
• Destroyed by 1923 quake
Imperial College of Engineering
• Architectural program started in 1877
• Design & construction technologies
"The science of Architecture has been laid in our college
as one of the main professional branches of study and the
true principles of European Architecture is being here
taught with the view of learning their true principles in our
country..."Funakoshi Kinya
Imperial College of Engineering graduation thesis, 1883
Dualism...
Domestic → Traditional
“Official” → Western
Within the 'Domestic' sphere...
Exterior → Western
Interior → Traditional
Yasuoka Katsuya (保岡勝也)
“The use of the two different styles of materials and forms
led to series of domestic homes that reflected the fusion.
Japanized Small Western Homes was a catalogue that
presented Japanese families with houses that were built in
varying European styles, but still had some Japanese
aspects to its design. These houses were described as
"seven parts Western and three parts Japanese" as the
catalogues advertised houses that were "Swiss chalet",
"pure German", and other European styles.”
“MEIJI ARCHITECTURE AND THE EFFECT OF CROSS-CULTURAL EXCHANGE WITH THE WEST”
Christine Manzano Visita
日本化したる洋風小住宅 (1924)
Japanised Western Homes
日本化したる洋風小住宅 (1924)
Japanised Western Homes
Mitsubishi Bldg, Karatsu
1908
Imperial Hotel
3 storey wood and brick structure
Designed by Watanabe Yuzuru (after a German
design)
Completed 1890
Frank Lloyd Wright
Imperial Hotel: 2
Constructed 1919 – 1923
During constructing the 1922 Kanto quake finished
off the old Imperial Hotel nearby
FLW's Imp.Hotel used new quake-proofing
Water pool in front for fires
Copper roof (safer than heavy tiles)
Seismic separation joints
Tapered walls etc...
“Mayan Revivalist”
“Mayan Revivalist”
Decline and death...
Foundations gradually sank…
Damaged during WW2
Too few rooms (280) for a modern hotel
1967 demolished and replaced
Arch:Takahashi Teitaro
Meiji Mura (nr. Nagoya)
Koshien Kaikan
Mukogawa Joshi Daigaku 武庫川女子大学
Endo Arato
1929
Metabolists
• Kurokawa Kisho
Built from interlinked modular
capsules in 1972
Nr. Shinbashi, Tokyo
Concern with large scale city
planning and ideas of organic
growth and flexibility.
Included Kenzo Tange
Shizuoka Press Tower
Kenzo Tange
1966
Ginza, Tokyo
Future Cities...
Developed in late 1950s to
increasing pressure on
population of cities in Japan.
Utopian dreams halted with
economic slowdown in 1970s
Metabolism rediscovered...
“Resilient urbanism”
Attention to the city as an “ecosystem”
Flexibility and adaptability
Rem Koolhaas
CCTV Building, 2012
Beijing
Next Week...