Fashion in Motion

The other night I had so much fun attending another Fashion in Motion event at the V&A.  The runway show was put on by fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto.  I had never heard of him before, and I'm not particularly familiar with Japanese fashion.  But I thought it would be neat to check out something new.

The show began with techo-like music in the background with a live flute playing and the fashion designer himself doing a mixture of living singing and chanting.  All the while models walked down the runway, expressionless.  The effect was haunting.

Midway through the show, the above model walked out, slowly dancing.  She stopped at the end of the catwalk and danced languidly for two or three minutes, while models continued coming up and down the runway.  The music became quieter and all the attention was on the dancing model.

 

When the model stopped dancing, there was an outburst of cheerful music and models began coming down the runway skipping, doing cartwheels and dancing happily.  The colorful clothes mixing with references to traditional Japanese clothes heightened the effect.

I particularly liked the above dress from Yamamoto's collection.  One of the first types of art I fell in love with was Japanese woodblock printing at the Sackler Gallery in Washington, D.C., and I loved seeing Yamamoto's references to artists such as Hasui and Hiroshige as seen in the above dress.