30 Years of Japanese Fashion on display in London
There are only a few days left to organize an unmissable visit to the Barbican Art Gallery in London. Europe's largest multi-arts gallery has been hosting the first European retrospective dedicated to Japanese fashion for some months now. Three decades of experimentation, traces, and signs that have revolutionized the history of global costume, curated by the most eminent historian of Japanese fashion design, Akiko Fukai, Director of the Kyoto Costume Institute.
An in-depth overview within the various poetics of the pioneers of "made in Japan": Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, and Rei Kawakubo, known as Comme des Garçons, and their most direct cultural heirs: Junya Watanabe, Jun Takahashi, Tao Kurihara, just to name a few. Accompanied by catalogs, magazines, and films that bear witness to the fertile collaborations over time with well-known exponents of other visual arts, the exhibition also offers numerous side events: from music to cinema, theater to dance, and workshops.
A rare opportunity to admire and immerse oneself in the futuristic world of the so-called Japanese school, a radical expression of the fashion world which, starting from the 1980s, revealed the boundless potential unleashed by placing a complex intellectual project at the basis of fashion design. In total rupture with the Western tradition which, conversely, has always placed the human silhouette as the starting and ending point of its work, the different expressions on display at the Barbican reveal collections built around aesthetic-philosophical themes. Unprecedented syncretisms of traditional worlds and ultra-modern solicitations, translated thanks to textile skills completely unknown in Europe, reposition the garment from a necessary daily accessory to a permanent artistic manifestation of an era.
Future Beauty. 30 Years of Japanese Fashion
October 15, 2010 – February 6, 2011
Barbican Art Gallery, London
Catalog
For those who cannot go to London, we point out the possibility of purchasing the event catalog online: Future beauty. 30 Years of japanese fashion (Merrell) by Fukai A., Vinken B., Frankel S., Kurino H.
On the other hand, for all those who wish to see firsthand or purchase garments from the designers on display, in addition to the vast availability on the website www.ivomilan.it, we highlight the special room section, which brings together a selection, curated over time, of garments particularly representative of the poetics of each collection. A true "private collection" of works of art.
