Dear Shaded Viewers,
After writing to you for hours about yesterday, I went to the Mori museum to see the Laughter and the Animal exhibitions. While there I checked out the Tokyo City View. Spectacular. The Laughter expo is not very funny but the animals are great and if you go please watch the poetic love story between a woman and an ape.
Mori Museum
After the museum I went to the Suzuki Takayuki show, I had heard that he might be good but the clothes looked like whoever had put the pieces together should have been wearing glasses. Here are a few of the better ones. Granted this is only my opinion, yours might be quite different.
Compare this piece in the finale of Suzuki Takayuki with one of the winged gowns from Nina Ricci by Olivier Theyskens.
The grey is Olivier Theyskens for Nina Ricci the white is Suzuki Takayuki, which do you prefer? While we are on the subject of catwalk rating, please visit Iqons.com, click on the title bar where it says CatwalkRating and place your comments and votes. We want to know what you think.
I ran into a few friends outside of the show
Martin Webb and Martin Webb with Daisuke Gemma, Celux
Among the many things that I like about Tokyo is the way people love to dress up. It’s a 24/7 visual pleasure. These were taken in Harajuku.
Next stop was a visit to Undercover. Don’t you love his suspended house? I’ve been told that it shakes a bit when there are earthquakes but Jun is not one to ever be afraid of taking risks. We had a nice talk about how he decided to do a major house cleaning and literally cut his hair, changed the direction of his fashion and got rid of almost everything on the walls and on the floor. Take a look at the A magazine he did for Antwerp and you can get an idea of the before and after. He has a wicked blog, even if you cannot read Japanese you can still enjoy the images -check it out: http://www.honeyee.com click on blog and then click on his image. The last time that I was in Tokyo was l7 years ago which interestingly enough was the moment that Jun began his fashion business.Jun’s first child was born at the same time that he started to show his collection in Paris, a second baby is expected this August.
I really enjoyed my visit and later will post a short video interview. You have to be a bit patient though. Afterwards we went to visit his shop, I have to check my notes but I think that he said that he has ten shops in Japan.
Jun also designs a line of childrens clothes.
We ran into a friend of his on the street, the designer behind the label Bounty Hunter.
Then there were three shows in a row.
Han Ahn Soon
Theatre Products (men’s and women’s)
I liked the way the men walked around lost in space.
Theatre Products
G.V.G.V.
Kaoru Sasaki with designer Isaku Akutsu
Kaoru Sasaki took Akiko and I out to dinner at the best noodle place in Tokyo, the card is in Japanese so …here is the phone number: 03 5475 6021.
Kaoru Sasaki, Cube INC and Editor in Chief and Creative Director of commons&sense magazine. The man is always working. As long as it takes him to eat is about as long as he takes a rest.
I had thought that I’d call it an early night but as you can see it is 3h14 and I’m still writing to you. Have to get up at 7h so time to say goodnight.
Later,
Diane
