2.0 The second segment
2.1 Introduction, the second segment
We will start in the second segment with how this affected the world of Fashion by looking at the three individuals who were responsible for this. And why this new look on clothing from Japan cannot be qualified under only Eastern clothing ideologies but can be best described as the mix of different influences that shaped new expressions, such as deconstructionism. This start with a brief overview of the term and history of Japan is important to have an overview of where we are, at what time this happened, and where it came from. This will not be the last look back to the far past in the world, from mostly Japan. We will talk about the influence of different styles and ideologies from the past and how this implied influence on the Japanese designers that took over the world in the 1970s and 1980s
2.2 Biographies
An introduction to the lives of Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, and Issey Miyake until their first show in Paris.
Yohji Yamamoto was born in Tokyo in 1943 and was raised in the neighborhood of Kabukicho, he was raised only by his mother, Fumi Yamamoto. He did not know his father. His father was drafted into the army when he was only 13 months old. When Yohji was 4-5 years old, he and his mother got a message from the Japanese authorities that his father died in combat. Yohji did not believe this, later it was announced that his father died already on the boat journey going to the combat. Yohji and his mother had been lied to. Yohji seethed about the loss of his father. ''I was furious at the people that started the war'' (Yohji, Rebel in Black. 2019, 23:11.) His mother started to study cutting and sewing at school. After she graduated from this school she wanted to continue with this. ''I had very hard working mother'' (Yohji, BoF. 15-5-16, 3:31)
His mother was a dressmaker who had a shop in Kabukicho, an entertainment neighborhood in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. She was always busy with sewing and making dresses for her clients. Fumi did not marry someone again and worked hard to raise her child and to make opportunities for her only son. A lot of Yohji saw a lot of disturbing things in his neighborhood. office types who were finding and buying a girl for the night. ''I would never want to participate in this adult world. I swore that then'' (Yohji, Rebel in Black. 2019, 23:48.) He never wanted to be seen walking around in an office suit like those he saw in his neighborhood, he would rather stay an outsider of this world.
After he passed the exam to enroll in a famous university in Tokyo, he did not want to continue with his study. He did know what to do in this unfair world he lived in, which he realized already at a very young age. He was angry many times at society and Japan. He wanted to stay in a moratorium status, where young adults are still in the process of exploring and crisis, do not want to make definitive connections already.
After graduation, he did not want to live in the current status of society or live in this kind of reality. So he talked with his mother about his future. He asked his mother if he can help in the shop. Her mother became more successful and had at this time her dressmaking shop in Kabukicho. after Yohji asked his mother to help her in the shop, she got angry at him to waste a bright future in law. ''She did not talk to me for two weeks'' (Yohji, BoF. 15-5-16, 6:00). She finally wrapped her head around it after Yohji told her his real intentions for his future. She said that he had to study at least at a fashion school because all her assistants knew at least how to cut and sew. So he finally could be a student again, as he wanted in the first place after he graduated from law school.
He went to Bunka Fashion College located in the Shinjuku district, which is a Japanese vocational school specializing in fashion design and related disciplines. When he started at Bunka, He never heard of careers that were about fashion design. Only after he stepped up to a physical design course he heard from a classmate about this path. Yohji did not understand his classmate, he was only studying to cut and sew clothing and did not get the idea of designing fashion. After he graduates he received a prize from his school, with which he went to Paris for one year. He became very hopeless after this, because when he studied fashion ''it was the last moment of haute couture in fashion. Even Yves Saint Laurent started to do ready-to-wear.'' (Yohji, BoF. 15-5-16, 9:36). During his time in Paris he saw that the time of Haute couture was almost finished and a new movement of ready-to-wear had risen in the business of fashion.
He decided to come back to Japan and started to help his mother again in her dressmaking shop. He only took orders, cut fabrics, and made measurements of the clients that entered the shop. He noticed that all the dresses, that the shop made for its customers, were all 'doll-like'; sexy, feminine, gorgeous, etc. Yohji did not like this kind of representation of the body of a woman and wanted to change that. This feeling to wanted to do something of their design came over the time he worked and helped his mother in the shop. His inner rejection of what he saw while working, became the start of his signature.
Yohji started to save money and invest it in his own company. At that time his small brand did not make money for as long as four years of its beginning of the company. After his shows in Tokyo, he thought he had done enough in Japan and wanted to move on to different places in the world. He hoped that there were people around the world who were interested in his clothes. Yohji and another already successful individual designer, Rei Kawakubo, were already close friends in the Business. Yohji asked her to come to Paris with him. Rei said that she did not see a future for Comme Des Garçons abroad in Japan. She said that Yohji can go first to Paris to see how the people would react to its new movement. At first, he began in Paris He started to open a small shop at the end of 1980 and the beginning of 1981 in Paris. His first show is the collection for Spring/Summer 1981. On the night the shop opened, there was a show in some hotel in Paris. It was from another Japanese Individual, Rei Kawakubo with her Comme Des Garçons. It was a coincidence for Yohji to see her in Paris, as she rejected his offer one year ago.
Rei Kawakubo was born in Tokyo in 1942. Her parents divorced at the young age of Rei, This was unusual during that time, unlike now. The action that caused this was because her mother wanted to start her career as a school teacher. Women with children and husbands, in that period, were only working in the house. The Husband did not accept this until they decided to divorce because of this difference. Rei was the oldest of the three children and the only daughter. Her father was an administrator at the famous Keio University, based in Tokyo. The school was founded by the Philosopher, educator, writer, and samurai Fukuwaza Yukichi (January 10, 1835 until February 3, 1901).
Fukuwaza made a strong impression of a change in Japan during the Meiji period. Fukuwaza's writings were maybe the most important during the Edo period and Meiji period. He was seen as one of the few who introduced Western Culture into Japan. Later we would see that this history of Japan made a strong influence on Rei's work.
After the divorce, Rei did not felt like his family was the same as other families, like from her classmates and/or friends. Her mother was independent now, raising 3 children. Rei, as the only daughter of three, saw later the courage and strength that this gave her, to pursue her independence in society. though she did not feel like she fitted in with other kids. Rei would empathize with the way she dressed. There were school uniforms, and still in Japan, which she styled in different kinds of ways. If Rei was not in school, she wore the clothing that her mother made for her. She became fascinated by her aesthetic, but could not find people with the same interests and hobbies. Tough, this made the path her way into the arts. She started to study fine arts at the school where her father worked, Keio University. At a later notice, fine arts would become a big motive in her signature.
After graduation, Rei moved to the Harajuku district in Tokyo. This district was a place for people who were into fashion. It was a hotspot for making connections with people with the same interests. For Rei, this was probably the first time she saw people who dressed like her, and felt this was a homecoming for her kind. She needed to support herself with money and started to work at a textile manufacturer in the advertising department. As an option to sell the textiles, she started to style the textiles on models for the companies' advertisements. Until a colleague noticed she was very good at it and said to her to pursue a new career in fashion. She took the step and resigned from the textile manufacturer.
Rei started as a stylist and did this for 2 years. Through this job she started to have a dilemma, there was a lack of different kinds of clothing, and her ideas matched as stylists. This made her make her own clothing to finally make her styling ideas come through. People picked up on this and got a demand outside her styling job also. As there came more orders and requests, Rei had to choose if she wanted to quit her job as a stylist to pursue her career in making clothes.
Rei officially launched her womenswear label in 1969, with the name Comme Des Garçons, which comes from the French song ''Tous les garçons et les filles'' by the singer Françoise Hardy. This translates to ''all the boys and girls''. One of the sentences in the song 'Commes les Garçons filles de mon age' translates to ''like boys and girls my age''. The song is about a girl who sees everyone around her getting into relationships, wondering when she, herself, falls in love. ''Comme Des Garçons'' on itself means ''like (some) boys''. After a time some of her clothes were sold in boutiques all around Tokyo. The customers were attracted to Rei's aesthetic, even when she was still kind of new to designing and making clothing. Then she already used almost only the color black with experimentation in shape and silhouette. It was seen as a balance between French and Japanese fashion. CDG (in this context we will refer to 'Comme Des Garçons', not to its later sister label 'CDG'.) gained a lot of popularity and attention in Japan before it was even something outside of Japan. Because of her success with the label, she opened her first CDG boutique in Tokyo, in 1975. This shaped the brand's following even more as a culture, as it was the hotspot for its label.
In 1978, CDG introduced 'Homme Comme des Garçons' (Homme translated from French: man), with its own menswear line. This made the brand even more popular, starting in the early 80's with people within the fashion industry saying that Rei Kawakubo will be the next great designer. With over 100 stores selling CDG by 1980, she wanted to move further internationally, out of Japan. She was first skeptical of the idea to go to Paris to present her collections there (read the end of Yohji Yamamoto's introduction). But by 1981, CDG had its first-ever runway show at Paris fashion week. This was the exposure that the label needed to go international.
To go further with the introduction of Issey Miyake, I have to notice that Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo were (you can say) from another generation of Japanese fashion than Issey Miyake. Issey Miyake was one before this together with, Kenzo Takada, Hanae Mori, Kansai Yamamoto, and Jun Ashida. With also a costume designer and most notably a sculpturist, Isamu Noguchi, who was already active in the 1930s. Isamu Noguchi lived in the USA, during both world wars and after. We will now go back to the introduction of Issey Miyake.
Issey Miyake was born in 1938, a child who was self-aware and- conscious during World War II in Hiroshima, Japan. He was a survivor of the nuclear incident.
Issey was riding his bicycle to primary school when the explosion happened at 8.15 in the morning on August 6, 1945. He was seven and was far away from his house where his mother was. But he went to it in the pure chaos that escalated around him. His family house was 2.3 kilometers away from the epicenter of the nuclear bomb. He escaped the blast without serious injury. He survived with his mother, who was badly burned, and with no medication in reach, raw eggs were placed on the open wounds.
Using raw eggs as medicine is very traditional. It helps to heal open, burned wounds. It provides a natural protective bandage that conveniently dried in place. Today, researchers in the UK are exploring the way of using raw eggs to fight cancer and more.
The mother of Issey died 3-4 years later. Issey needed nursing because of his interaction with radiation, he had an infection of a bone ( Osteomyelitis). He ended up being incapacitated, which means that he had issues with moving forward as such. While the city of Hiroshima was slowly rebuilding, issey was already interested in the arts. Though his family was too poor to buy brushes for him, so he painted with his fingers and every time he went to art class he would cross the peace bridge, which contains Isamu Noguchi's concrete balustrade, symbolizing the future of the city.
The bridge was built as part of a hundred-meter-wide road that would run from west to east. The road was officially named ''Peace Boulevard'' in 1951. The peace bridge was finished in 1952. The Peace Bridge is designed to stimulate a sunrise (the future), while the West Peace Bridge was designed to stimulate a sunset (the past). The designer of the bridge, Isamu Noguchi, would have been a hero for Miyake. A lot of his friends around died young because of radiation sicknesses. Issey thought he had nothing to lose. He wanted to be a designer just like Isamu Noguchi.
His sister had magazines with images of models wearing different kinds of clothing. This interested him, but it was an impossible subject for a male student to learn in 1950s Japan. To please his father he studied graphic design at the Tama Art University in Tokyo. He still really wanted to study clothing, but there was nowhere in Japan to study this. Once Japan was permitted to travel abroad, Issey went to Paris for a couture course at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture in 1965. There he interned for Guy Laroche and Hubert de Givenchy. The study evolved around Haute Couture, where Unfortunately for Issey, he did not learn to change or go further. Everything was already thought about and there were strict rules about how far you could go with Haute Couture. There were student protests against the Haute-bourgeoisie, customers for couture, in 1968. Issey was on the side of the students. He did not want to get prevented to make clothes for every age, gender, or fit and wanted the clothes to be wilder and more functional, which does not fit between the lines of Haute Couture.
Issey went to New York one year later in 1969, to be an assistant for Geoffrey Beene. there he learned about the mass production side of fashion, completely different than the made-for-order Haute Couture in Paris. But in 1970 he suffered from his radiation disease and had to return to Tokyo for treatment. During his time back in Japan, friends loaned him money to start up his dream, his own studio: Miyake Design Studio. In his first show in Tokyo, a model was stripped down in many layers until the model was nude. This made everyone clear about his originality and could not wait for what the designer did next. 3 years later after he arrived back in Tokyo, he had his first-ever runway show at Paris Fashion Week in 1973. He was far different than the other Japanese designers that would show their collections in Paris during that time. His collection came with high-end, sculptured clothing that was spectacular to see.
2.3 Development of Japanese fashion and the start of the idea in the 1970s,
For a long time, fashion trends in Japan were an imitation of Western trends. French designers showed their collections in Tokyo and films showed style icons for the younger generation in Japan. With also the uprising Ivy League style that rose during the 1950s and early 1960s. Japanese teenagers dressed likely the same as the American youth. Because of the Japanese economic miracle, the economy became stronger in the 1970s. Japanese tourists went a lot to the fashion cities of Europe, at that time, the world. Japanese consumers bought there the most prestigious French and Italian brands. This idea of a high fashion brand got brought into domestic markets. Often with foreign European names.
Within the 1970s Japanese designers moved to the Fashion capitalist of the world, Paris. Hanae Mori who was already designing couture in Tokyo since the 1950s, opened her couture house in 1977. Kenzo Takada was the first designer who had a large impact on the fashion landscape. He moved to Paris in 1965 after studying fashion in Tokyo. He started with his collections in 1970 and opened his own boutique.
Fashion is a collective activity and not an individual task. It requires multiple designers to embrace and create a trend (Kawamura 2004 p.3; 2005 p.60). Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo first being successful in the domestic fashion market before going abroad, and Issey showed his first collection in Paris in the 1970s. This group of individuals presents their collections in the early 1980s that have revolutionized the way Paris saw ‘foreign’ fashion, labeling the group as ‘’Japanese’’. This created a recognition of a style on a higher level in Paris fashion week and not the appearance of just something new (Kondo, About Faces. 1997 p.60). With around 7 years between Yohji and Rei to Issey Miyake, there is a lot changed. There was also already a big difference in the design language between Kenzo Takada, Hanae Mori, and Kansai Yamamoto between Issey Miyake in the 1970s. Kenzo, Hanae, and Kansai were Oriental designers, who showed Asian and mostly Japanese traditional wear in their clothing. With motifs such as cherry blossoms and samurai figures and colorful prints and exoticism and ethnic elements. Issey Miyake showed his collections around the same time as Kenzo’s. He would show not collection after collection with the same color palettes or prints, but he introduced the use of not necessarily used or fashionable materials. His interest in fabrics was one of the parts that made Issey Miyake unique in his Fashion collections. Issey was seen as the one who founded the idea of the balance between Europe and Asian fashion. Kenzo was also based in Paris, while Issey was based in Japan. He was the one who precipitated brands that wanted to break out to Paris. Issey embraced contemporary art designs with his Japanese side. In search of new ideas, as such later one would be the idea of Deconstructionism. He compensated the idea of ‘clothes made by people from the East’ after his collection in 1976 he proposes a new idea that he never did before. Before that point, he only embraced the Japanese culture with its traditional wear and beliefs. Most notably with his tattoo jumpsuit for autumn/winter 1971, which he, himself, modeled for.
2.4 the 1980s
The relationship between Japan and the West was complex and multifaceted during the 1980s. Japan became a big economic power and was exporting a large range of goods to Western countries, such as vehicles and electronics. Japanese companies were noticed for their innovation and efficiency. Many Western companies learned a lot from Japanese businesses. Although, at the same time there was a cultural tension between Japan and the West. Japan's culture was seen as foreign and exotic, there was a lot of misunderstanding between the two. Which was noticeable between Japanese and European designers. There was a lot of competition and while the European designers were already the biggest and most respected in Paris, Japanese designers were gaining recognition and influence in Western countries. This is noticeable seeing the outcome of the next generation of designers, who are European, but you saw the influence of the Japanese everywhere in their collections.
On the runway in the 1980s had a lot of experimentation designs. With popular fashion designers such as Jean-Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, and Yves Saint Laurent, who were creating designs that pushed the boundaries of traditional fashion in many ways? Some fashion styles emerged in the 1980s such as: Power dressing. Fashion designers created their own designs of exaggerated shoulders and oversized blazers. Also, another fashion style, different prints or materials. Such as metallic, shiny materials like lamé and lurex. Neon colors and animal prints were also popular on the runway in the 1980s.
Both collections were first shown in 1981 by Yamamoto and Kawakubo in Paris. They both introduced a new concept of fashion on the runway. Together with aspects of traditional Japanese clothing and innovative textile technologies, the designers were creating a new relationship between the body and clothes. They created a new look to beauty in imperfection and they embraced the idea of avant-garde fashion as ‘’art’’ (Kawamura 2004 p.1).
Yohji Yamamoto's and Rei Kawakubo's designs were seen by their use of asymmetry, unusual silhouettes, and monochrome colors. Often, Yohji used kimono and obi in his design language. He played with the contrast between shadow and light, which creates a sense of movement and depth in the clothing.
In the early 1980s, CDG and Yohji Yamamoto were seen by their loos, unstructured silhouettes often using unconventional fabrics and raw edges. Designed to look unfinished and imperfect. However, further in the decade, their designs became more refined and showed structure and tailoring. They still were experimenting with asymmetry and deconstruction, but they also developed into more fitted and tailored clothing for the body. It still was challenging feminity and beauty ideas, but it was cleaner and more professional.
Yohji and Rei gained popularity and wider acceptance during the progression of the 1980s in Paris. Their work was initially responded to with mixed reactions from the fashion press. Critics dismissed their work as ugly and shapeless, because of its unconventional designs challenging traditional notions of structure and beauty during this time. Though, others loved and praised their approach to fashion. At the beginning of the 1990s, they both were awarded 'Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.
After the rise of deconstructionism in Fashion, a couple of new designers came up with their own ideas for the concept. This 'new' generation showed in how many ways we can interpret 'deconstructionism' or ' Avant-Garde', which literary definition'' new and experimental ideas and methods in art, music, or literature. '' is. This second generation mostly did not come out of the country you would think of instantly: Belgium. A little pursuit in Martin Margiela's early years and Japanese influence.
Martin after his graduation freelanced for a couple of years before he started with being the assistant of Jean Paul Gaultier. JPG did not think Martin needed this job based on design reasons, which Martin pointed out that he purely did to understand the business of fashion better. after he resigned in 1987, one year later he started his house, together with his co-creator Jenny Meirens.
In many of Martin's works, you could see the influence that Japan had on him. With his Graduation collection and his tabi boots. In his graduation collection, he showed, For example, a coat with a sliced open back with rough edges. It was knowable that students of his years and under him were fascinated by the Japanese approach to fashion. Martin himself said he needed a design for a shoe that is going to get attention, the only way to do that is with an outstanding design. There are a lot of speculations about where he first got the idea of them. He went on a business trip to Japan with the team of JPG. In his latest documentary, he said that is when he saw the design first on construction workers and that he then got the idea. He later brought the idea to JPG for the fall 1981 collection. This was probably the collection inspired by the Japan trip that Martin and the rest of Gaultier’s team took the prior year. Then used as sandals or socks by Japanese construction workers, they brought to the runway. Although it was first shown at a JPG show, Martin had other ideas for this design. Which he later showed in his own runway shows. Flat Tabis are Japanese construction footwear. The stroke of genius was when Martin gave it the chunky heel. He had also fast praise for the boots, from none other than Rei Kawakubo. Jenny went to a business talk in Tokyo. And showed the boots to Rei. Later Jenny heard from Rei's assistant that she wanted a pair for herself.
Here is a list of a couple of designers who were influenced by the beginning of deconstructionist:
Ann Demeulemeester, Tao Kurihara, Junya Watanabe, Kei Ninomiya, Ann & Filip Vandevorst, Jan-Jan van Essche, Jurgi Persoons, Jenny Meirens & Martin Margiela, Jun Takahashi, Takahiro Miyashita, Lieve van Gorp, Limi Feu, Satoshi Kondo, Rick Owens, Vivienne Westwood, Chitose Abe, Helmut Lang and many more designers who are coming up or paved the way to this today for avant-garde fashion.
2.5 using the Concept in Design
Deconstruction as a concept in fashion is often referenced in the clothing of Yamamoto and Kawakubo. Starting first with the term that began this new wave: deconstructionism. Where did this new expression come from, and what does it mean?
Deconstructionism is a philosophical and literary movement that came up in the 1960s and -70s. The term was first used by Philosopher Jacques Derrida, who firstly wrote about it in the book ‘La voix et le phénomène (1967) and ‘La dissémination’ (1972). In textual analysis, it is a method that searches to uncover the underlying assumptions and contradictions in language and in the terms, concepts, and structures, that are used to organize thought. The main definition of its core, Deconstructionism challenges the idea of the representation of reality in language. Instead, it argues that language is open to interpretations. Language is a system of signs, depending on one another for meaning. The meaning of the signs in the system is always shifting and changing in their context. In a philosophical context, the term is there to critique and challenges the ways and things in which language and thought are there to be used to create and reinforce oppositions and hierarchies in society. Language is rather embedded in historical and cultural contexts to shape the way we as a society think about the world. The deconstructionists are there to expose these structures of meaning in text and language to reveal the underlying truth.
Deconstructionism has a big influence on different fields, for example; literary theory, philosophy, architecture, fashion, etc. In the context of fashion, we refer to a design approach that dares traditional norms, values, and structures of garments. This involves the deconstruction of a clothing piece, in ways of cutting them up and reassembling them in new and different ways to create ordinary shapes and oversized or asymmetrical garments. Creating depth into your garment with layering to create depth. This is often involved with details such as raw or damaged edges and exposed seams to create texture. The fashion ideology is often characterized by its urge to challenge traditional conventions and norms, and in this way embrace the experimentation in the design of the individual.
This term coming from Literature explains why you can connect bridges between design and Literary in many ways. Designers and architects who shape the world of the present day still have to explain themselves, and how they came up with the idea or the question to start up the project they are working/worked on. If you educate yourself in the subject, you, after seeing the design, can also make an explanation of the designer's choice in their design. This is not going through literature (only if there is any kind of text present in the design). But if you want to read other's opinions or views on the design and subject you have to read or watch someone. And they also saw this design by themselves, just like you did. It is in a way the closest way to explain our creativity.
The deconstruction philosophy is aiming to un-building the constructs of a culture inherited from previous generations. It is challenging the non-visible form of the meaning, such as fashion o did with ‘construction’ in ‘deconstruction’ as it applies to fashion. In fashion, it refers to the set of traditional rules for tailoring and fashion. To ‘deconstruct’ in fashion you must dismantle the form/shape. It can be argued that the birth of deconstructionism in fashion appeared in 1981 with the first runway shows of Yamamoto and Kawakubo in Paris. Some will say it happened earlier in London, with its punk emerging in the 1970s as an aggressive counterculture. The associated ‘punk look’ with clothing was worn unfinished, inside out, and ravaged.
2.6 aspects of Deconstructionism
Shape and silhouette refer to perfectly aligning the fit and form of whatever it is on. It is an element of how design can portray the profile of any body type. Western standards of tailoring are based on the contours of the body, while Japanese designers instead focused on the space between the body and the garment, this space created between the body and cloth is a Japanese aesthetic referred to as ma, which roughly translates to space. This Japanese idea of fit and form goes back to kimono crafting. Kimonos were made of 7 flat textile pieces, with only straight seams. It fits loosely on a person, which refers a lot to what the Japanese designers are doing.
The construction of a garment is the foundation of a garment and design. Making a 3d shape from a 2d pattern, to fit on a moving body. This involves applying technical and design to construction. Some ways which designers use to create a garment are dart positions, seams, finishing, lines, volume, and structure. The use of 2d construction methods, which do not use darts or seams combined with an asymmetrical and unfinished look, was based on the aesthetic of wabi-sabi. Japanese designers used flat construction methods to deconstruct and reconstruct their design ideas. Hereby they create new shapes that defied the traditional construction methods.
Textiles can be types of cloth or woven fabric that can be produced by weaving, knitting, or felting. Texture has a surface detail that adds a major part to achieving a garment's total effect. The Japanese designers’ design process always began with the collaboration with textile designers and/or with the experimentation of kinds of textiles. Issey’s pleated polyester experimentation concluded in an innovation of 3d pleated creations, which ended in his own Pleats Please Line. Rei is adapting the way of knitting by correctly adding holes and trimming in a garment. This also could tie back to what Miss Deanna, a knitting manufacturer in Italy, did for Martin Margiela in the 1990s.
Fabrication is the manufacturing process of a textile to a garment. From cutting, and bending to assembling with the use of different kinds of technology. Issey continuously is inspired by global environmental change, utilizing environmentally friendly fabrics and fabrication techniques that have a foundation for future innovators in design to adapt and improve. Issey’s idea of recycling fabric coupled with computer-aided design, supports the road to a more sustainable future. Mostly Issey is one of the vital factors in the drive to a better future for the environment in fashion and textiles.
To define color we use our senses, objects or forms, language, and personality. With Colour psychology, we attempt to the identification of the effects that color has on human emotions and activity. Color can attach to human feelings and moods. The individuality of color has an association in most cultures (nation, celebration days, etc.) With designers often choose a color theme each season, spontaneously and/or occasionally. With color use, Yamamoto and Kawakubo often used black in their early collections as a big statement against the fashion trendy colors and color pallets used by other designers. This was during the 1980s. They loosened up a bit more in the 1990s. But they use color only if it is adding something or if it's needed. Issey Miyake used a lot of different color schemes, mostly in the color of the used textiles in the collection. But it was still radical, it did not follow color trends that other designers used at all. Issey used color to embrace the textile to brighten its texture.
The factors to the success of Issey Miyake. Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo all of these brought up aspects that concluded in innovative designs from the 1980s to the present day. Stating it in factors helps with understanding the foundation for their success in design innovation.
2.7 conclusion
The purpose of this exhibition was to not only show what the concept of deconstructionism means in fashion but more about the rich history of Japan with its relationships with the West. The main point of this study was the buildup of the first shows of Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo and what applied. Putting a lot of focus on the early lives of the designers and how the ending of World War II, the economic growth of Japan, and the cultural shift, always had an impact on their lives. How this awareness in their childhood applied to their broad future in fashion. With this exhibition I tried to make a larger image in your mind about the subject of deconstructionism and the history around and before it made sense to later scenarios. It is still holding up today with current designers under Issey Miyake, with Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto still holding up against the norm and values in fashion after more than 40 years. With the lack of images of clothing and design, I wanted to encourage the reader to go search for it, read it, or watch it. Putting this with all sources and not going deeper and further into dissecting collections of the named designers in fashion, I want the reader to go further in the ‘rabbit hole’ and find their interest and inspiring aspects of their own.
