Akiko Fukai (Director and Chief Curator, The Kyoto Costume Institute) will give a lecture on Japanese fashion. Japanese design has had a growing influence on world styles since the last decades of the 20th century as avant-garde creations by such Japanese designers as Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto changed existing concepts of clothing. At the root of their designs, there is a desire to create clothing that coexists with our bodies; a powerful reflection of Japanese culture which places emphasis on the coexistence with nature. Fukai will look into the essence of Japanese fashion with a focus on its relation to traditional aesthetic values of Japan. This program is offered in conjunction with Contemporary Japanese Fashion: The Mary Basket Collection, an exhibition currently being held at The Textile Museum in Washington D.C.

Akiko FUKAI

Member of the KCI since 1979, Chief Curator (1990-) and Director (1996-) Akiko Fukai has supervised its collection and exhibitions, research, conservation and publications.  She has organized major costume exhibitions in Kyoto, Tokyo, Paris and New York, including “Japonisme in Fashion,” “Visions of the Body,” “Fashion in Colors” and “Luxury in Fashion Reconsidered.”  Her recent research focuses on the relationship between fashion and Japonisme which won her several awards including the Special Prize by the Society for the Study of Japonisme in 2000. 

Schedule

Yohji Yamamoto Autumn/Winter 1996
Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

COMME DES GARÇONS/Rei Kawakubo 1997 Spring/Summer
Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Yohji Yamamoto Spring/Summer 1998
Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Takashi Hatakeyama

Dress 1870s English
Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Richard Hawghton

Dress 1870s English
Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Richard Hawghton

Issey Miyake, Autumn/Winter 1989
Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute, photo by Takashi Hatakeyama