Swift survey of some of the links between Japan and 'the west' in the areas of fashion and architecture.

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Japan and the West: 11
Fashion 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 photography
Photographed “T-Rex” (Marc Bolan)
Met Bowie in 1972
“Heroes” cover 1977

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Kabuki meets
ukiyo-e meets
Bowie
Jonathan
Wakuda
Fischer

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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 Kinya
Imperial 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, 2012
Beijing

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