Flatness

Counter to the prevailing Western emphasis on the tailored form and traditional dressmaking conventions, contemporary Japanese fashion delves into the tension between flatness and form. Voluminous garments embody the Japanese concept of ma, a uniquely Japanese aesthetic concept that refers to the energetic potential of space. Wearing a garment activates the space it defines and transforms it from a two-dimensional garment to a three-dimensional experience. Hiroaki Ohya's The Wizard of Jeanz collection explores this concept in a particularly clever manner. Presented as a series of books, Ohya's works unfold like giant paper lanterns into a range of voluminous garments such as skirts and capes. Riffing on the geometric principles of origami, modern Japanese designers continue to explore new ways of expressing form and dimension.

Cool Japan

Japan's street culture enjoys an explicit relationship with high fashion. Since the mid-1990s, Tokyo's Shibuya and Harajuku districts have gained a global reputation as hot spots of youth fashion: from the Lolita look typified by young girls' predilections for everything kawaii (cute), cosplay (costume play) and manga characters such as Hello Kitty and Astro Boy, to the reinterpretation of gothic, punk and hip-hop. In 2002, the international press coined the phrase "Cool Japan" to describe the country's ascendancy as a cultural superpower. In reinterpreting these looks, Japan's pioneering designers play with the cute and strange, the beautiful and the ugly. The result is highly eclectic, fun and nonconforming.

In addition to immersive, large-scale fashion runway show videos, Future Beauty features contemporary Japanese fashion pieces that visitors can try on to experience these unique design attributes firsthand. Select ensembles from Future Beauty also appear in PEM's Japanese and Japanese Export Art galleries to inspire aesthetic connections that span time. 

Future Beauty is an important building block in PEM's new fashion initiative, undertaken as the next chapter for one of the country's leading collections of historic costumes and textiles from around the world. PEM's fashion initiative began in 2009 with Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel, followed last year by Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones and continuing in 2015 with a fresh focus on Native American fashion.

Co-organized by the Kyoto Costume Institute and Barbican Art Gallery, London. Support provided by the Japan Foundation, Wacoal Corporation  and the East India Marine Associates of the Peabody Essex Museum.

Images: Hiroaki Ohya for Ohya, Spring/Summer 2000. Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute. Photo by Masayuki Hayashi.
Naoki Takizawa for Issey Miyake, Spring/Summer 2004. Artworks: ©Aya Takano/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, gift of ISSEY MIYAKE INC. Photo by Takashi Hatakeyama.

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