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Japan and the West: 11Fashion and Architecture

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Outline

Practical Arts Fashion Architecture

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Fashion

Meiji Period 1970s

Kansai Yamamoto 1980s

Issey Miyake Kawakubo Rei

Street Fashion

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Mix and match

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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

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Rokumeikan Era (1880s)

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Dancing at the Rokumeikan

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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.)

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Moga & Mobo

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Paul Poiret

1879 – 1944 Influential designer in France

in early c20 “King of Fashion” in the US “Kimono Coat”

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1930s

Madeleine Vionnet (1876-1976)

Bias Cut Pleats / Grecian Dress

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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.

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Kansai Yamamoto

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David Bowie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPvVgFfwZTs

1972: Ziggy Stardust World Tour

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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

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BTW… Sukita Masayoshi

Born in Naogata, Fukuoka Pref (1935)Worked in commercial photographyPhotographed “T-Rex” (Marc Bolan)Met Bowie in 1972“Heroes” cover 1977

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Kabuki meetsukiyo-e meetsBowie

JonathanWakudaFischer

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Fashion

Issey Miyake Kawakubo Rei

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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”

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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)

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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'

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Pleats Please

Collection launched in 1993, emerged from design work for dancers in Frankfurt Ballet, thus often uses dancers instead of models...

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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

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Origami clothes

“132 5” collection launched in 2010

2D→3D

Concern with minimising 'waste'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gdxhNnytSs

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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

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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/

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1997: “Body meets dress, dress meets body”

Clothing as 'burden'

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Kawakubo everywhere...

2008 – H&M open in Tokyo

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“Kawaii”

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“Kawaii”

Dress: early c18

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Architecture

Kyoto National Museum, 1895. Katayama Tōkuma: grad. Imp.College of Tech. 1879

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The Rokumeikan

Designed by Josiah Conder (Imp. College of Tech.)

Built 1880-3 Fell out of use after

1890s, demolished in 1941.

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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

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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 KinyaImperial College of Engineering graduation thesis, 1883

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Dualism...

Domestic → Traditional “Official” → Western

Domestic Exterior → Western Interior → Traditional

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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

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日本化したる洋風小住宅 (1924)Japanised Western Homes

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日本化したる洋風小住宅 (1924)Japanised Western Homes

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Mitsubishi Bldg, Karatsu

1908

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Imperial Hotel

3 storey wood and brick structure Designed by Watanabe Yuzuru (after a German

design) Completed 1890

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Frank Lloyd Wright

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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...

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“Mayan Revivalist”

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“Mayan Revivalist”

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Decline and death...

Foundations gradually sank… Damaged during WW2 Too few rooms (280) for a modern hotel 1967 demolished and replaced

Arch:Takahashi Teitaro

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Meiji Mura (nr. Nagoya)

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Koshien Kaikan

Mukogawa Joshi Daigaku 武庫川女子大学

Endo Arato

1929

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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

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Shizuoka Press Tower

Kenzo Tange 1966

Ginza, Tokyo

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Future Cities...

Developed in late 1950s to increasing pressure on population of cities in Japan.

Utopian dreams halted with economic slowdown in 1970s

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Metabolism rediscovered...

“Resilient urbanism” Attention to the city as an “ecosystem” Flexibility and adaptability Rem Koolhaas

CCTV Building, 2012Beijing

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Next Week...