Sometimes you see a collection and can immediately define it – from its lines, shapes and silhouettes – as architectural. Ryunosuke Okazaki’s collections do have an architectural touch, but there is something about them that does not allow you to pigeonhole the young Japanese designer immediately into just one category.
Born in Hiroshima in 1995 and based in Tokyo, Okazaki graduated from the School of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts, in 2021 with a collection inspired by Jōmon-era pottery (traditionally dated between c. 14,000 – 300 BCE).
The name "Jōmon" means "rope-patterned" or "cord pattern" and refers to the fact that rope was pressed into the clay before the vessel was heated to 600 – 900 degrees Celsius. The cord impressed onto the wet clay formed lines and waves that in some vessels (those for example from the Middle Jōmon period) were more elaborate.
By getting his models to pose wearing his designs standing on plinths for his lookbook, Okazaki also addressed through his graduate collection the existence of god, devotion and worship.
In another collection the young designer explored instead the surrealist art method of automatism and the work of André Breton, the founder of the surrealist movement, in which the artist suppresses conscious control over the process.
In this case Okazaki came up with eight garments not defined by a logical structure or reason, but based on imagination and let his sewing machine take control and guide him.
The inspirations for these previous collections were re-explored and reinvented in Okazaki's more recent collection, showcased at the beginning of September at Tokyo's Rakuten Fashion Week.
Okazaki’s latest collection features designs with ruffles in a variety of bright colours – azure, aqua, magenta, red and blue – all trimmed in black and reminiscent of Jean Dubuffet’s costumes for "Coucou Bazar". These designs with their ruffles called to mind Okazaki's collection inspired by automatism, while his more extravagant gowns with three-dimensional sculptural swirls jutting out from the body, or covering the face and the head of the wearers turning them into monstrous beings à la Medusa, looked like more elaborate takes on his graduate collection inspired by Jōmon ceramics.
Protruding from the body and extending in all directions, the sculptural swirls characterising these designs do not distort, but radically morph the human body with those curves wrapping around it, magnifying the dimensions of the body and hinting at creatures such as insects and snakes, but also vaguely referencing the armours of robots in mecha manga stories.
Covid-19 prompted many designers to produce functional and practical designs, but Okazaki seems interested in exploring other realms, from nature to supernatural beings, and in creating new bold and graphic perceptions, unconventional extreme forms and shapes that hint at protection and defence as well.
Okazaki's abstract swirls are made with polyester, cotton, ribbed knits and knitted swatches, so it will be interesting to follow his work in the next few years and see if he will be able to reduce some of these extravagant designs and make them more wearable, reinventing knitwear in an intriguingly original way.
For the time being, though, Okazaki's made-to-order creations deserve a place in a museum exhibition or in a futuristic movie, ballet or play.
Rispondi