As Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Tokyo came to a close three weeks ago, we fashion enthusiasts were predictably left with two thought-provoking tasks: interpreting what in the world it was that we had just witnessed, and equipping ourselves with enough understanding so that we could then properly appreciate the thrillingly unconventional Japanese approach to fashion.
These mind-boggling tasks (always paired with giddy enjoyment, of course) of making sense of and appreciating Japanese fashion have been especially perplexing, as the dawn of the 2000s has ushered in a wave of experimental designs on the Tokyo catwalks, which seem to amalgamate aesthetic elements stemming from seemingly antithetical origins—elements only capable of having any sensible relation after being adopted by a designer brilliant enough to properly combine beautiful, but eclectic, trivialities into a visually pleasing summation.
Like Western high-fashion designers, Japanese designers have been adept at consolidating diverging elements of inspirational value into aesthetically pleasing designs. But this task was made especially perplexing at the most recent Japan Fashion Week, when we witnessed Japanese designers achieve this creative feat in a fascinatingly arbitrary, thrillingly blatant, theatrical and almost absurd manner that effectively separated them from Western high-fashion designers. It is this brazen quirk and sheer absurdity, of course, characterizing Japanese high-fashion that has made JFW 2013 so completely mind-blowing.
Budding designers Yujiro Komasatu, Takamoto Ariga, Masatomo Ariga and Tomoko Moriya took control of the distinct Japanese flair for eccentricity with their label Blackmeans by creating a collection that brilliantly consolidated tribal textiles and 1970s-esque “punk” culture into an aesthetic, emanating a hardcore, vintage “cool” vibe. Fringed leather separates, studded aged-leather motorcycle jackets, and stitched graphic tops paired with hardcore studded leather belts dominated the collection, which ironically created a perfect harmony by emphasizing the blatant combination of “traditional” tribal elements and defiant punk aggressiveness.
Sheh Jen-Fang, who has quickly earned a reputation for the theatricality and eccentric designs of her label, Jenny Fax, was another favorite at Tokyo. The Spring 2014 Jenny Fax collection perfectly embodied the distinctly Japanese flair for combining antithetical elements and creating absurd, yet absolutely breathtaking designs: dreamy frilled pants silk pants were paired with anime graphic tees, spirals of wired fabrics protruded from behind mini dresses featuring childlike cartoon graphics, and detachable lace baby doll collars were worn with t-shirts and satin ruffled pants. One model wore understated loose-fitting black pants with a top constructed of a mere flat large cutout of a doll’s head, with an attached microphone (yes, an actual microphone was attached to the top), and a long black tulle veil protruding from the right side of the top. This composite, effectively uniting childlike whimsy, anime quirk, and femininity, created an eccentric theatricality that illustrates the Japanese quirk and absurdity dominating the runways at Tokyo.
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