Kimonos

Our first week here, I was hunting for the Takanawadai subway stop on the other side of the Shinagawa station. I got hopelessly lost in a residential area of winding streets with no people, and then I saw someone and was able to ask for directions. That person was Yoko Kawakami, who I discovered was a graphic designer. After a couple weeks of correspondence, we arranged for her to come to the Bureau and talk about her design work, and she came with two friends, Natsuki (half-American, half-Japanese, living in Tokyo, who helped as our translator), and Isana (who does freelance graphic design for magazines). They came and talked with our students for almost two hours, a great conversation about different impressions of Tokyo, Japanese design and fashion (and our perceptions thereof), and, above all, Yoko's interest in kimonos.

Here's our full group: (front row, l to r) Doug, Bethany, and Jane, (second row:) David, Lindsey, Emily, Rachel, Devon, Anthony, Mike, and Natsuki, and (back row) Megan, Czar, Chris, Isana, and Yoko.

Yoko is self-trained, self-educated in graphic design, and works for a large company that makes clothing accessories (for example, she just designed buttons for Burberry, and has worked making these accessories for other big name labels). But she's very interested in rethinking kimono design, taking the traditional kimono and adding new accessories. As a great exercise, she brought a bunch of kimono materials, and asked students to make combinations. The basic elements: the robe (as foundation), the obi (the large belt-like sash), a smaller fabric tucked behind the obi (as an accent), and then a thin belt or sash around the obi itself.

A.
Here the base kimono is the black and white fabric, with the flowered fabric as the obi, the purple as the accent, and the green cord as the final belt.

B.
As an example of Yoko's play with the traditional grammar of the kimono, here's a different kind of belt to finish the ensemble.

C.
And another set: black foundation, gold-weave obi, blue accent, and a belt using pop-cultural elements.

D.
And one more. This and the others were constructed by our students. When they left, our guests presented us with beautiful handmade cards which included Yoko dressed in a kimono ensemble prepared from the above materials. Her choice almost entirely matched one of the students' arrangements. Take a guess of which it was...A, B, C, D, or E?

E.