Unfinished textiles — the exposed lines of 12,000 unwoven warp yarns in a panel of jacquard, or sheets of speckled paper from an experimental study in washi — are not what you would expect to find displayed inside a clothing store.
Yet these showpieces of exhibitions “Tadanori Yokoo Issey Miyake” at Issey Miyake Kyoto: Kura Gallery and "Yoshihisa Tanaka × Tokyo Design Studio cooperative research vol.01" at T-House New Balance, Tokyo, reveal a lot about the evolution of fashion and its relationship with art.
Today, art investment and in-store galleries are de rigueur for heavyweight fashion houses, as is commissioning artists for limited edition collections. Visually, the results can be extraordinary — paintings faithfully replicated on fabrics, colors and textures inspired by artists’ palettes, even garment shapes informed by art movements. Dig a little deeper, though, and there are other innovations beneath the glamour.