Category — Fashion

Two months ago it suddenly became super-easy to get your hands on Noto Fusai’s creative t-shirts. Their new online shop carries all their classics, as well as 2 newbies which were designed to commemorate the launch of their new store, as well as the 5th anniversary of the husband and wife designer-duo team.

“Whisk” is being called the first ever t-shirt to merge art with the kitchen.

“Pen and Art” comes with a pen and a pen-insert. You can even get creative and scribble a little something on it.

Fashion designer Issey Miyake has a spanking new website designed by Shun Kawakami of Artless.

Above: Verbal | click images to enlarge

Photographer Todd Selby has recently uploaded shots he did in Tokyo for the Fall 2010 Louis Vuitton Men’s Collection. Subjects include rapper Vocal (of M-flo), robot designer Tatsuya Matsui and Interior Designer Yasumichi Morita. More images here.

Above: Tatsuya Matsui

Above: Yasumichi Morita

Related:

• Roku Nana (六七) by Yasumichi Morita

Conceptual Japanese fashion designer Kunihiko Morinaga, who is better known as ANREALAGE – a combination of the words “real, unreal and age” – debuted his 2010-11 Autunm/Winter collection in Tokyo last month. And before you tell me that I totally messed up resizing my pictures, read on.

Titled Wideshortslimlong, the collection consists of several distorted outfits that look like they stepped in front of a carnival mirror.

For this particular collection, which comprises everything from t-shirts and jeans to dresses and pants, the designer worked with 2 spokes; a wide-short spoke and a slim-long spoke. The wide-short distorts the average height of a Japanese person by 250% (width) and 70% (length), while the slim-long distorts by 80% (width) and 150% (length).

You can interpret the collection as you please – humorous attempt to redefine clothing or angry assault on the fashion industry for trying to categorize every person into a S M or L – but either way, ANREALAGE never fails to challenge our notions of fashion.

Attention to detail is incredible. Even the labels and hangars are distorted accurately.

Mitsubai Tokyo has already begun selling some of the pieces. Plus, check out pictures from the installation at Aoyama Studios last month.

click images to enlarge

Chigo, the proprietors of chic wooden toys for kids, recently announced the launch of  Gochi – a new collection of stylish clothing for boys. Their Spring/Summer 2010 collection includes these fun t-shirts (3,990 yen) and other minimal basics. Although not part of the collection, I really like these bicycle print onesies and t-shirts as well (also 3,990 yen).

And how funny are these ‘shrooms made from leftover fabric from all their recent creations? I’ve always thought mushrooms would make awesome baby toys but that little voice from the outside world that keeps my self-assessments in check prevented me from tossing one down from the counter….until now.

Related:

• Chigo Natural Wooden Toys

click to enlarge

This is kind of genius! Design unit FIFT, comprised of husband and wife design-duo Katsunari and Ami Igarashi, have designed Wipe Shirt (13,650 yen), a button-down with built-in microfiber cloth for wiping down glasses or cell phones.  It syncs perfectly with the designer’s mission statement to promote interaction between their products and the user.

What’s great about this shirt is that it’s actually a good looking shirt; meaning, I would wear that even though I don’t wear glasses. And it’s no wonder. They consulted with a clothing designer who flaunts a degree from the Antwerp Royal Academy of Fine Arts. No edges were cut when procuring material either, using only the finest microfiber furnished by the technologically advanced fabric maker Unitika.  And fear not, all you tuckers for there is a cuff version of the shirt as well.

Kobe Design University recently held their senior exhibition. Designer Masahiro Minami took a trip over and came back with pictures of some fantastic, high-quality work. So many young, talented designers! Here are some of my favorites.
(all images by Masahiro Minami. Click to enlarge)

This is actually the underlay for a bento box; a solution to decade-old problems like leakage and movement. Love the aesthetic!

A wooden bicycle complete with wooden gears. Only a student could come up with something so outrageous.

Rad oversized rings

I’m not quite sure what this is but I love the display.

This 3D cutout must have taken several endless nights.

Of particular interest to me was this futuristic digital camera. It’s a working model that was co-developed by the University. The way it works is you drape it over your neck and take photographs by creating a frame using your hands. Neat!

Enigmatic designer Naoto Fukasawa’s ±0 brand has just released their latest design, a minimalistic wristwatch that allows you to easily replace the band by sliding it in and out. Love the simplicity! It comes in 4 variations, each costing about 30,000 yen. It goes on sale March 5th.

Related:

• Naoto Fukasawa’s MUJI CD Player
• 5th Collection by ±0

This clever design done for the holiday season somehow slipped under my radar and into one of my wife’s magazines. The Bottle Baguette (3,700 yen), by Japanese haute couture heavyweight Issey Miyake, is a essentially pretty packaging for a wine bottle to be used when attending dinner parties. The packaging then remains on the bottle, which can be transformed into a flower vase.

Related:

• Issey Miyake packaging boxes by Shun Kawakami

I hope everyone in the US had a Happy Thanksgiving and everyone everywhere else had a Happy Thursday! I was saving this post because it seemed festive and I kept thinking how awesome it would be to welcome guests into a home adorned with flower vases like these.

So, last month art director Shun Kawakami embarked on a bold collaborative project, balloon as vase, to create these fascinating vases that you might see if Jeff Koons hosted a Zen tea ceremony.

I actually considered cropping the vases to optimize them for viewing but decided to preserve the originals because they are really so beautiful in their long and narrow orientation, reminiscent of Chinese scrolls. So please click to enlarge!

Photos by Yuu Kawakami

The vases were originally created for “composition of knowledge and feeling,” an exhibition by Shun Kawakami and Takashi Kawada that was shown at JAGDA TOKYO last month. Other collaborators include balloon artist Rie Hosokai aka Daisy Balloon and calligraphy artist Gen Miyamura, both artists in their own right, and whose standalone work I have shown below.

Flame (2008) by calligraphy artist Gen Miyamura, who creates works in highly deconstructed forms of calligraphy. One may even go as far as calling it abstract. In the past Miyamura has done CD jacket designs, movie posters, and even commercial work for Bridgestone and Docomo.

A dress by balloon artist Rie Hosokai, who started balloon art in 2002 and went on to reign supreme in almost every balloon folding exhibition she entered. The icing on the cake was her 2 consecutive wins in Millenium Jam with her haute couture dresses made from balloons.

Related:

• Prints by Shun Kawakami
• Issey Miyake packaging boxes by Shun Kawakami