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Japanese Fashion is trendy right now in 2020. Japanese Fashion is a massive part of the history and evolution of Fashion. It has been featured in many movies, songs, catwalks, museums, and music videos. In this article, I will examine the uniqueness and beauty of Japanese Fashion. I will explore its past influences and history.
Japanese Fashion is in style right now in 2020. Japanese Fashion is a significant influence on the fashion world. It has been featured in films, songs, catwalks, and museums around the globe.
In this article, I will examine the uniqueness and beauty of Japanese Fashion. In this article, I will explore the history, influences, and trends of Japanese Fashion, as well as its present and future.
I will also discuss the latest Japanese fashion styles and trends. Finally, I will conclude by presenting the top Japanese fashion designers for 2020. Finally, I will discuss how Japanese designers use sustainable development to create a cleaner, more sustainable future.
Here is all you need to know about Japanese Fashion.
Japanese Fashion History
Japan is a fashion epicenter for many reasons. Japanese Fashion has become popular due to its amazing culture and unique heritage. Japan’s rich cultural heritage has given rise to unique fashion styles and interpretations, which can be observed in contemporary street couture.
For centuries, the West has been inspired by Japan. Many artists have been drawn to Japan by the often inexplicable (to those outside Japan) forms of art, culture, tradition, and respect.
Fashion was the source of the greatest inspiration. It was immediate, noticeable, and profound.
Japan has always been a significant source of inspiration for exotic Fashion. Japan has introduced a new world of styles, designs, and materials.
Paintings, prints, and textiles are some of the most sought-after and inspiring goods. As time has passed, Japanese Fashion is also influenced by other cultures.
Western Influences on Japanese Fashion
Japanese Fashion is a long-standing tradition of influence and influence. After the period of isolation (sakoku) and at the start of the Meiji Era (1868-1912), traditional Japanese clothing entered a phase of cultural absorption. Japan was intrigued by Western culture, and the influence of this culture began to be evident.
In particular, the United States has significantly influenced Japanese Fashion. The constant exposure of American fashion designers initially influenced Japanese buyers. However, seeing demand shifting, local designers started.
To follow and incorporate the latest Western fashion trends into their designs. Men’s Fashion had been ‘Westernized” by the time the Showa period (1926-1989) began.
The influence of Western clothing has also started to affect women’s Fashion. Western culture has had a significant impact on Japanese culture, as expected. At first, Western Fashion was worn only at work. Nevertheless, people began wearing Western styles at home only briefly later.
Tradition & Modernity
After World War II, Japan started its path towards the ‘Renaissance of Japan’. This movement included art, architecture, Fashion, and technology, intending to preserve the country’s historical roots and adapt to modern trends.
This philosophy was the reason why Japan was able to establish itself again as a creative powerhouse of modern times. This movement was so successful that Japanese fashion designers began systematically’ taking over’ the fashion world.
From “Japonism” to Japanese Fashion
Japan’s uniqueness is the most significant influencer on French culture. It was so powerful that French artists invented a term to describe it, ‘Japonism.’ The term’ Japonism’ is used to describe a variety of Japanese aesthetics and themes, as well as innovative techniques.
As we move into the modern fashion era, we can see just how influential and influential Japan was. Japanese Fashion has influenced the way we perceive Fashion and clothing. Japanese fashion designers have influenced Western Fashion since the 1950s through their vision, craftsmanship, and creativity. Rei Kawakubo founded Comme des Garcons in the 1960s and revolutionized women’s clothing with her avant-garde masculine style.
Japan’s contribution to Fashion is becoming more evident as we move towards modern times. Tadashi Shoji, for example, is a new generation of celebrity designers.
Issey Miyake is another modern Japanese fashion designer who has contributed to Japan’s global influence in Fashion. Miyake, one of Japan’s most famous fashion designers, is known and loved for its mesmerizing pleats. Last but not least is the master tailor, Yohji Yamamoto, known for his avant-garde tailoring and partnership with Adidas.
Iconic Japanese fashion trends
It is still important to know what inspires these Japanese fashion designers. Most designers, when asked about the iconic couture that has influenced their style and fashion perceptions, referred to these:
- Kimono
- Wabi-sabi
- Japanese Street Fashion
- Kimono (kimono/Zhao Wu )
The kimono is the most famous, worldwide-recognized, traditional piece of clothing coming from Japan. “kimono” can be translated as “an object worn.” It also sums up all the functions of any clothing. The kimono incorporates the idea of simplicity in dress.
The idea behind a kimono was to create a simple, functional piece of couture from merely one part of the material. The chosen material will always determine the final shape. The garment is then embellished with decorative patterns.
The simplicity and sophistication of the kimono has led to it being one of the most used and explored pieces of Fashion. The kimono is an iconic piece of Japanese Fashion that reflects the beauty and depth of Japanese culture. In addition, due to its constant exposure in the media since the 1980s, kimono influences and patterns have begun to appear in Western designer collections.
The classic Japanese kimono inspired fashion designers like Armani, Eileen Fisher, and Zuhair Murad.
Wabi-sabi (Cha Ji )
Wabi-sabi is a Japanese aesthetic concept focusing on the idea that imperfection and transience are essential beauty components. Some famous Japanese fashion designers have adopted this concept and its design techniques. Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo, and Issei Myake are well-known figures who use Wabi-sabi.
Wabi-sabi significantly influenced the fashion scene in London, New York, and Paris in the 1970s.
These avant-garde designers have helped Japanese Fashion achieve international recognition with their designs that are genderless, uneven, and androgynous.
Japanese Street Fashion
Street fashion is a third source of inspiration for Japanese designers.
Tokyo’s streets are filled with “slightly less extreme” fashion trends. Shoichi Aoki, a photographer specializing in street fashion, chronicled many of these trends for FRUiTS. He said that Tokyo has a unique fashion flow, and Harajuku is the origin of this energy.
Even big fashion retailers in Japan are affected by Japanese street style trends.
Contrary to Western Fashion, dominated by celebrities and fast fashion companies, Japanese retailers heavily rely on street culture.
The most famous fashion models in Japan are ordinary shoppers. “They are ordinary people who wear their unique style on the streets in Tokyo,” said Parco President Kozo Makiyama. Parco was one of Japan’s first department store chains to recognize the power of Japanese streetwear.
It is no surprise that the influence of the Japanese fashion industry can be felt. When opening its Shibuya store, Parco chose a very appropriate slogan: “The people passing you are all so beautiful.”
The Rise And Fall Of Harajuku Style
Harajuku is a Tokyo district that has significantly influenced the Japanese street style. Many generations of young people have walked Harajuku’s narrow streets. The community has seen thousands of original streetwear styles come and go. Harajuku, also known as ‘kawaii culture,’ is an epicenter and place of inspiration for many Japanese designers who are now popular both in Japan and overseas.
The 90s was the golden age for Harajuku-style street fashion and cosplay. The 90s were a time of Japanese street fashion with uncontrolled creativity, exaggerated jewelry, and accessories.
Harajuku’s fashion scene has been weakened over the past five years due to increased pressure from fast-fashion giants. Imagine the streetwear creativeness as a tiny river that is free to flow. Unfortunately, there are no large factories and buildings on its banks. This has brought into sharp focus the limitations of this small fountainhead. Shoichi Aoki is a Japanese photographer who created Street magazine.
Post-Harajuku Japanese Fashion
Harajuku left behind something beautiful. After Harajuku, Japanese Fashion is still a mix of eclectic streetwear and well-tailored designer items. You can find various unusual and unexpected combinations from the runways to the fashionable streets of Japan’s capital.
Streetwear is a great way to discover a world of glamour. Bold prints and patterns characterize Japanese modern styles. Japanese Fashion also introduces Westerners to a world of oversized, asymmetrical shapes. Beautiful accessories, layered garments, and kimonos with pleated hems.
Japanese Fashion has always been a haven for designers who can deconstruct our fashion understanding and rebuild it impeccably. It is the home of innovative styles beautifully complimented by oriental hairstyles and make-up.
Contemporary Japanese Fashion
Vogue Japan’s July cover features Kendall Jenner as a way to show how Western culture influences Japanese Fashion. Once again, it confirms the West’s merging with the East. An American model is wearing Japanese Summer trends.
The magazine’s central theme is “Positive Energies,” which focuses on tips and beauty for a healthy mind, body, and soul. The editorial features a minimalist and monochromatic collection of photos and styles… mixing vintage-looking stripes and summer-appropriate outfits with functional characters chosen for outdoor activities. The waistline, inspired by the samurai style, is a highlight.
The editorial ends with Japanese styles, including belted high-waisted jeans, skirts, and jumpsuits. These are made of rescued materials, deadstock, and eco-friendly fabrics.
Sustainable Japanese Style
This brings us to the importance of sustainability in Japanese Fashion. Fashion is a 2.4 billion dollar industry with 60 million people worldwide. Fashion is an industry that creates mountains and mountains of waste. Up to 10% of the carbon emissions in the world come from this industry. There are over 21 billion tonnes of textile waste in landfills yearly.
Twenty percent of the water in the world is used for clothing. These statistics motivate the Japanese as a whole to seek better alternatives.
Emerging Japanese designers are leading with their next-generation couture made from recycled fabrics and upcycled clothing.
SHOHEI is a brand that provides high-end sustainable couture. It’s a great example of sustainable Fashion.
Shohei’s unique philosophy reflects Japan’s freedom, simplicity, and creativeness values.
The Future Of Japanese Fashion
As a densely-populated capital city, Tokyo is a melting pan for “all new things” happening. Japan is at the forefront of technology innovations. Japanese startups create unique technologies, rethink their business models, and look for eco-friendly options at every stage, from design, production, delivery, and reuse.
Synflux is one of the many startups blending technology into Japanese culture. Synflux is one of thousands of startups combining technology with Japanese culture and seeking to rethink Fashion.
Ecosystem. “A new form of consumption is emerging.” Kye Shimizu is one of the co-founders and says it’s all about customization, on-demand, and sustainability.
Using AI To Reinvent Japanese Couture
The team’s first project in 2018 was a Spandex dress with raw edges. It was a simple zero-waste puzzle of rectangles, trapezoids, and squares. The team fused the 3D-printed fabric with a skeleton to create pleats that hug the body from the collar to the cuffs.
“With centuries of tradition and history behind it, the kimono has been designed to fit all types of bodies and represent one’s cultural identity. Our generation is responsible for a lot. Shimizu says, “We must first remember our culture, then update and refresh them.”
The team created the next creation using laser-cut bio-engineered leather. The first step was to scan a person in 3D so that the company’s proprietary algorithm could determine the best pattern for the body. Fabric panels, which were made up of only rectangles and triangular shapes, were cut so that they would fit together. The AI-based cutting system is a link to Tetris, a video game. Shimizu explains that the software is what combines the designer with the machine.
These explorations are called Algorithmic Fashion by the team. The H&M Foundation awarded them the Global Change Award for their creations. Synflux garments are at the “Making Fashion Sense,” an exhibit at Switzerland’s House of Electronic Arts in Basel. They are displayed alongside pieces by fashion tech talents such as Iris van Herpen, Hussein Chalayan, and others.
Innovation and Sustainability
The Japanese are innovators who understand the importance of innovation in achieving sustainability.
According to a 2019 McKinsey report, 57 percent of Gen Z and millennial consumers are willing to pay more for products made specifically for them that have minimal environmental impact.
Japanese designers who focus on sustainability and customization are in vogue right now.
Japanese designers who are just starting pay attention to two critical factors: custom-made couture to reduce return costs and textile waste from standard-sized samples. Sustainable materials are innovative, eco-friendly, and cruelty free materials that protect the environment. Japan’s design and technology experts have again proven to be the best in the world by combining culture, beauty, and innovation with utility.
The future of Japanese Fashion is in good hands!
Japanese designers to watch in 2020
The global “out of the boxes” stylistic movement is mainly due to modern Japanese fashion designers. These creative minds are redefining the rules of Fashion and inviting us to explore a new level of style and Fashion.
The top 10 Japanese designers you should watch in 2020
1. Chisato Tsumori
The prints of this Japanese designer have wowed the world. Chisato, a French Fashion and culture fan, opened her first shop in Paris in 1999.
Christian Biecher designed the boutique, which is located in Marais’s rue Barbette. Chisato showcases his love of the arts in this flagship boutique through collaborations with photographers and visual artists.
Chisato draws inspiration for his hand-painted works from Japanese culture and Manga. The artist also covers Japanese-specific motifs, contemporary art, and felines.
2. Sk8thing
Sk8thing, originally from Tokyo in Japan, is the designer behind the streetwear brand A Bathing Ape. The designer created streetwear for Pharrell’s Billionaire Boys Club, Ice Cream, and other brands.
Also, he has designed for Neighborhood W-Taps Bounty, T-19, Bounty, Bounty, Bounty, and undercover. He also founded Cav Empt. Sk8thing, along with Toby Feltwell in 2011, remains a famous and mysterious public figure.
He uses his mystery to promote Japanese street fashion couture through exclusive streetwear.
3. Nicola Formichetti
Nicola Formichetti was born in Japan in 1977. His parents were an Italian father and a Japanese mother. Nicola Formichetti, who looks like he is 18 years old, is actually in his 40s. The fashion maverick, who grew up and attended school in Japan and Rome, is fluent in Italian and Japanese. Formichetti, a former architecture major who dropped out in the 1990s, is an entrepreneur and fashion maverick.
Formichetti worked in clothing shops and clubbed every night. His high-profile, upbeat collections are a result of these influences. Formichetti is a creative director.
He has also launched several global projects, including collaborations with glossy publications and pop-up shops. Celebrities and brands like Lady Gaga and Uniqlo love him.
Since 2011, Nicola has overseen NICOPANDA, his own ‘kooky-yet-accessible’ Fashion and lifestyle label.
4. Shinsuke Taizawa
Shinsuke Takizawa, a Japanese designer who founded the renowned streetwear label Neighbourhood, is incredibly talented and creative. Takizawa was born in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture and showed an early interest in Fashion.
The punk subculture influences Takizawa’s designs. The designer claims he acquired this taste during a student exchange in London in the 1980s. Takizawa, who studied in London, returned to Tokyo to pursue a career as a DJ and stylist. Takizawa was introduced to Hiroshi Fujiwara by friends and joined his Major Force Hip-Hop record label. Eight years later, Takizawa would become the studio’s director. Takizawa, fortunately, resigned in 1994 from Major Force and launched his streetwear label Neighbourhood.
Tetsu Nishiyama, designer at WTAPS, joined the newly-formed brand shortly after as creative director. Takizawa, a pioneer of Ura-Hara Japanese streetwear aesthetics, is one of the most influential figures of modern contemporary streetwear.
5. Hiroko Takahashi
Hiroko Takahashi, a Japanese textile artist, is known for her modern interpretation of the classic Japanese kimono. Hiroko Takahashi is based in Sumida (Tokyo), home to the Ryogoku Kokugikan, or National Sumo Stadium, and sumo-beya, the stables and training grounds where sumo wrestlers live and train. Hiroko was commissioned in 2018 by the prestigious Kokonoe Beya to create the sumo wrestlers’ yukata, an informal summer kimono.
Simple but essential graphic elements characterize Hiroko’s designs. According to Hiroko, circles and straight lines make up the universe.
The ‘circle’ is a design element used for centuries across cultures and borders. The ‘circle is a design motif throughout history across borders and cultures.
6. Junko Shimada
After graduating from the Sugino Dressmaker Institute in Tokyo, Junko took a three-month vacation to explore the fashion capital in Paris. Junko was captivated by the Parisian woman she hoped to dress someday. She settled there permanently in 1968.
She said, “As an adolescent, this city was the epitome of the Nouvelle Vague aesthetics. It represented freedom from the traditional Japanese “shackles.” Junko was soon dubbed “the most Parisian Japanese designer” thanks to her style, which shook up’ Japanese minimalism. Junko’s persona has become more audacious with each collection. Prints, dots, and panthers all cohabit harmoniously.
Lady Gaga, for example, has been smitten by her collection of high-heeled ballet shoes with plexiglass heels. (Junko SS 2009.) Fashion is a passion to me. It is a matter of the heart. Fashion can only be created with passion and love,” says the designer.
7. Tadashi Shoji
Tadashi Shoji, a Japanese fashion designer in the United States, is known for his bridal and evening wear collections. Shoji, born in Sendai in Japan, showed a keen interest in drawing and painting from a young age. Tadashi Takamatsu became Jiro Takamatsu’s apprentice after he moved from Sendai to Tokyo to study fine art.
Takamatsu was a Japanese contemporary artist who became popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Tadashi eventually launched his evening wear label in 1982. The designer uses traditional dressmaking methods to transform stretched fabrics into easy-to-wear silhouettes.
Tadashi is known for his signature pieces, including draped jersey gowns and pleated chiffon dresses. Celebrities and socialites from all over the globe are drawn to his unique creations. Tadashi Shoji is available in over 700 department stores and specialty shops worldwide.
8. Yoshio Kubo
Yoshio Kubo, a Japanese designer, is a graduate of the Philadelphia University School of Textile & Science. Yoshio Kubo was an assistant to New York designer Robert Danes for four years.
Yoshio Kubo launched his label ‘Yoshio Kubo” in Japan on April 4, 2004. Yoshio Kubo said: “There are so many clothes in the world. The sheer number of outfits available paralyzes people. People must think about what they wear or how to dress, but buy. “My designs are intended to make people rethink and ask about the meanings of symbols, lines, and cuts in their clothing.”
Yoshio Kubo’s collections are steadfast in the face of global turmoil. His collections are unique and have many exclusive codes. There’s still a sense that he is attempting to be amazing.
Yoshio’s work is driven by optimism. His latest works hint at a brighter future and starkly contrast society’s tendency towards doomsday predictions.
9. Satoshi Kondo
Satoshi Kondo, born in Kyoto, Japan, 1984, is the artistic designer and head designer for the Japanese fashion label Issey. Satoshi Kondo’s mother taught sewing, and the house was filled with fashion patterns and designs. He graduated from Ueda College of Fashion with a master’s in “Fashion Industry Creater”.
The new Issey designer says, “The joy I find in dressing up or finding outfits to make me happy throughout the day is what inspires my work.” Kondo’s clothing is designed to encourage movement, dancing, and happiness.
Dancers performed choreography by Daniel Ezralow for the Miyake latest collection, for example. The runway of Centquatre in Paris’ 19th district was a real show under the glass ceiling.
Each part consisted of a series of mini-scenes dedicated to different types of clothing. The show was mesmerizing, with dancers and acrobats enhancing the performance.
10. Junya Watanabe
Junya Watanabe, a Japanese fashion designer and former protegee of Comme des Garcons designer Reikawakubo, is a Japanese designer. Watanabe was born in Fukushima, Japan, in 1961. She graduated from Bunka Fashion College, Tokyo, in 1984.
Like his mentor, Reikawakubo, Watanabe is known for creating innovative and distinctive clothing. His spring/summer line in 2001 shows a particular interest in synthetic and technologically advanced fabrics. Watanabe has also been described as a designer of “techno couture,” thanks to the unusually structured garments he creates using modern, technical materials.
Conclusion
Japanese culture is a significant influence on modern Fashion.
The impact of Japan on global Fashion is only just beginning.
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