Ryunosuke Okazaki is doing it all of the unsuitable manner round. Beginning on September 13, the 30-year-old designer can have a month-long exhibition devoted to his work on the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Often designers have to attend till they’re useless for that type of honor. And right here’s the actual kicker: Okazaki has by no means offered a single merchandise of ready-to-wear clothes.
Like Rorschach prints made trend, his works are created by a course of the designer likens to prayer, and are impressed by the animistic spirituality of Japan’s peaceable Jomon interval, notably its pottery. The V&A showcase, referred to as JOMONJOMON, marks the designer’s European debut, however not his world one: one among Okazaki’s attire was chosen for the Met Museum’s “Sleeping Beauties” exhibition final yr, and he has held reveals of his work in Hong Kong and Beijing.
This newest assortment, which is his largest but at 29 seems, and his first in over a yr, marks a turning level. To elucidate the evolution, Okazaki held a particular walkthrough at his residence in Tokyo, the place he had ready a small military of mannequins that seemed like cosmic gods. Nice curves swept over the human kinds in gold, mint, and black. Different items have been cherry blossom pink, ending in two curved factors that crossed over on the ft, or increasing from the physique like a flower or an alien exoskeleton.
The place Okazaki’s attire to this point have been largely made from linear constructions, this time there have been extra materials and draping, nudging his work gently into the route of real wearability. “I’ve been interested by doing ready-to-wear for some time, and I’m lastly making progress on that,” he mentioned. The gathering additionally consists of his first ever equipment: Vibram-soled Chelsea boots embellished with undulations of fake leather-based on the sides, and black and burgundy purses that curve into smiling sculptures. He’s presently engaged on an e-comm web site to make them that can be purchased. And although he has beforehand resisted trend’s conventional present schedule (this assortment is formally titled 004, not SS26), Okazaki additionally mentioned he intends to start making seasonal collections.
This yr marks the eightieth anniversary of the atomic bomb assault on Hiroshima, the designer’s hometown. “I feel it is a good time for folks all around the world to consider what occurred there. I hope [my work] will give folks an opportunity to suppose, even when just a bit, and I feel it’s essential that we proceed to say that struggle is pointless.”
Gathered in Okazaki’s sunlit front room, his creations took on a celestial presence, as if a council of smart and historical beings from a extra enlightened time had descended to earth to carry courtroom. “I intend them to evoke a way of the ability of life,” he mentioned. They’re highly effective works that can rightly be dedicated to trend’s historical past books; within the meantime they carry a message that deserves to be proven far and broad. Can a bunch of strange-looking attire actually encourage hope for humanity? After all they’ll. Go and see for your self on the V&A subsequent month.
