In the Tension Between the Theatrical and the Mundane. His Debut
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69134-ECF-X_451-452.qxd 8/24/2004 6:24 AM Page 452 XULY BËT in the tension between the theatrical and the mundane. publications, including French Glamour, the New York His debut fashion show’s innovative staging emphasized Times, Le Figaro, and Essence. His clothing played a promi- the brand’s raw, edgy aesthetic. Kouyaté presented the nent role in Robert Altman’s film Ready To Wear (1994), show outside the conventional precincts of the fashion in which a fashion show in an underground subway sta- industry, at a public park. He did not use a runway or a tion presents XULY.Bët clothing as the work of one of sound system. Instead, models emerged from a bus that the film’s main characters. The designer’s personal back- pulled up at the site, each carrying a boombox that pro- ground as well as his work drew substantial attention from vided her own soundtrack to the event. No stage, no both the fashion and the popular press, particularly in the lights, no delineation of theatrical space separated the au- early 1990s. In the early 2000s Kouyaté continued to de- dience from the performers, just as the garments them- sign actively, marketing his clothing through several selves were but subtly separated from their previous, shops in Paris and for international clients. mundane lives. See also Fashion Designer; Fashion Shows; Recycled Tex- tiles; Textiles, African. African Elements Kouyaté’s work incorporates aspects of his own biogra- BIBLIOGRAPHY phy, which encompasses contemporary, urban Africa as Jacobs, P. “Xuly Bet: A Brother from the ‘Mother’ Turns Fash- well as the fashion worlds of Paris and New York. His ion Inside Out.” Essence 15 (May 1994): 26–27, 144. In- company’s name draws immediate attention to his troduction to Kouyaté’s background and his work, with African origins. In Oulouf (or Wolof), the predominant several illustrations. language of Senegal, xuly bët is a colloquial term that can Renaux, P. “Pari Dakar de Xuly Bët.” Glamour (April 1994). Fo- be roughly translated as “voyeur,” or, in a more nuanced cuses on the designer’s African background, documenting definition, as someone who breaks through appearances a trip home to Dakar to visit his family. to see the reality beneath the surface. This notion, peel- Revue Noire 27 (March 1998). Special issue on African fashion ing back the exterior to reveal the often uneven surfaces includes a large spread devoted to XULY.Bët, with gener- layered beneath, is embodied by Kouyaté’s exposed seams ous illustrations of his recycled line of clothing. An im- and loose threads. He has cited his roots in Africa as an portant publication for readers seeking insight into African important source of inspiration for his recycled fashion, fashion design as an international phenomenon. reflecting a widespread African ethic of reusing resources Spindler, A. M. “Prince of Pieces.” New York Times (2 May that is born out of necessity. Kouyaté draws on Africa in 1993): section 9, pp. 1, 13. Most substantive coverage of a more literal sense, using African fabrics in several of his the designer available, including an overview of his career designs and, in the early twenty-first century, working and extensive quotations from interview with Kouyaté. with dyers in Mali to create fabrics that he uses in his Van der Plas, E., and M. Willemsen, eds. The Art of African other clothing lines. Fashion. Lawrenceville, N.J.: Africa World Press, 1998. Kouyaté is one of a handful of African designers featured International Presence in this important publication. Several essays by academics and fashion practitioners situate African fashion design Kouyaté is among the few African designers to have within global markets. achieved an international profile; XULY.Bët clothing and the designer himself have been featured in prominent Victoria L. Rovine 452 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CLOTHING AND FASHION 69134-ECF-Y_453-464.qxd 8/24/2004 6:27 AM Page 453 Y YAMAMOTO, YOHJI Yohji Yamamoto is widely re- Early Career garded as ranking among the greatest fashion designers Yamamoto was born in Tokyo on 3 October 1943. He of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. He never knew his father, who died in Manchuria during is one of the few in his profession who have successfully World War II; he was reared by his widowed mother broken the boundaries between commodity and art, by Yumi. A dressmaker by trade, Yumi suffered what Ya- creating clothing that ranges from basics like athletic mamoto recalls as the indignities of a highly skilled worker shoes and denim jeans to couture-inspired gowns that are whose gender and station in life afforded her little op- nothing short of malleable mobile sculptures. Lauded as portunity to make a rewarding living or to obtain recog- a blend of master craftsman and philosophical dreamer, nition for her talents. Yumi encouraged her son to become Yamamoto has balanced the seemingly incompatible ex- an attorney—he graduated with a law degree from Keio tremes of fashion’s competing scales. University but never practiced. The lure of becoming a designer, however, pulled Yamamoto into fashion. Despite the magnitude of his talent and the impor- tance of his work, however, Yamamoto has yet to be the After completing his university studies in 1966, Ya- subject of serious critical discourse among fashion jour- mamoto studied fashion design at the famous Bunka- nalists and historians. It is perhaps ironic that the only fukuso Gakuin, a fashion institute in Tokyo. Despite his probing analysis of Yamamoto—both the man and the skills as a master craftsman, he started his career as an designer—came from someone who possessed little anonymous creator around 1970. Two years later he mar- knowledge of or interest in fashion. Wim Wenders, the keted his own designs under the label Y’s. Clothing un- renowned German filmmaker, produced a documentary der this label is now considered to be Yamamoto’s in 1989 entitled Notebook on Cities and Clothes. Through- lower-priced, or “bridge,” line. In 1977 he presented his out the film, Wenders dramatized Yamamoto’s creative Y’s collection for the first time in Tokyo. Along with his genius by setting the words of the late German philoso- compatriot Rei Kawakubo, he designed his first high-end pher Walter Benjamin against the urban backdrops of women’s ready-to-wear collection in 1981 and presented both Tokyo and Paris. Yet the director’s probing failed it in Paris. Over the next two years, Kawakubo and Ya- to illuminate the crucial elements that constituted Ya- mamoto pioneered the idea of deconstructed fashions. mamoto’s fashions. Neither the elements particular to the Their revolutionary aesthetic shocked the world with art of dressmaking nor Yamamoto’s particular aesthetic clothing that appeared to be unfinished, tattered, and contributions were discussed. haphazardly put together. Yamamoto’s loose, flowing sil- houettes and ubiquitous use of black further enhanced Inspiration from the intangible, mainly images of his groundbreaking work, which became the favored look historical dress from sources such as photographs, has of the 1980s urban aesthetic. In 1984 Yamamoto pre- been a mainstay in Yamamoto’s work. The crumpled col- sented a deluxe menswear line that incorporated many of lar in a August Sander portrait, the gauzy dresses cap- these same elements. tured by Jacques-Henri Lartigue while vacationing on the Riviera, and the gritty realism of Françoise Huguier’s Yamamoto’s Aesthetic travels among the Inuit of the Arctic Circle are but a few From the moment Kawakubo and Yamamoto presented examples. It is not surprising that the riveting catalogs their first fashion collections to an international audience created for each of Yamamoto’s high-end ready-to-wear in the 1980s, they were defined as Japanese designers. women’s collections have included the work of such no- Virtually every article about them as well as the critical table photographers as Nick Knight, Paolo Roversi, Inez reviews of their collections began by describing them as van Lamsweerde, and Vinoodh Matadin. Whether Ya- inseparable from and encapsulated in their Asian heritage. mamoto is evoking historicism via the ancien régime or Many journalists inaccurately assumed that they pro- the belle epoque, or ethnic garments made of richly wo- duced clothing worn by all Japanese people. The reality ven silks and woolens, he has come to epitomize the vast was that the loose, dark-colored, and seemingly tattered range of creative possibilities in the art of dress. garments were as startling to the average Japanese as they 453 69134-ECF-Y_453-464.qxd 8/24/2004 6:27 AM Page 454 YAMAMOTO, YOHJI were to the Western audiences that first viewed them. Cristóbal Balenciaga, often created day suits, dresses, ball Although Yamamoto’s work changed and evolved over gowns, and coats devoid of any ornament. Charcoal gray, the next two decades, it retained several key elements— navy blue, and of course black woolens were often molded the ambiguities of gender, the importance of black, and and manipulated into pure sculptural forms that displayed the aesthetics of deconstruction. both marvelous engineering and tailoring techniques as well as a love of dramatic form. Gender ambiguity. Yamamoto’s professed love of and respect for women has not been evident to many because Deconstructed styles. The connection between decon- his clothes were often devoid of Western-style gender struction, originally a French philosophical movement, markers. He expressed an aversion to overtly sexualized and contemporary fashion design has yet to be fully ex- females, and often dressed women in designs inspired by plored by fashion historians. There is no direct evidence men’s wear. Such cross-gender role-playing has long that such ideas were the motivating force in the early de- been a part of Japanese culture, and a persistent theme signs of Yohji Yamamoto.