Tuesday 8 February 2011

Future Beauty: 30 years of Japanese Fashion

Entrance ticket and exhibition leaflet

I visited the Barbican museum on the 31st of January, as I need to write an exhibition review for one of my course modules. Whilst the rest of my course were travelling together on a coach, I had to go solo to the museum a few days before as I had friend's visiting on that day. 
I will admit I was dreading the trip a little, as I have never really explored Japanese fashion (shameful, I know) and have found most museums boring on school trips over the years, however I was pleasantly surprised.
The museum itself was a huge and rather ugly building, however the exhibition, which was set over two floors, was very calm and serene, a direct contrast to the Moorgate area of London outside.

There was a clear trail which led you around the pieces on the lower floor was all clean lines, with white gauze material serving as a backdrop to each of the displayed pieces. The mannequins wore designs by esteemed designers such as Issey Miyake and Rei Kanakuboo, and it was really interesting to see how they manipulated fabrics to create such unusual clothes. 

whilst I enjoyed the lower floor, I found the upstairs more interesting, as they decorated many of the room's according to the designer; my favourite was Jun Takahashi's display featured four mannequins in four different beautiful outfits, and each outfit was matched to the wallpaper behind it.


 I also particularly enjoyed the room named 'Cool Japan' which focused on the Harujaku area of Japan that was infested by cool young designers who set up small kitsch shops when the economic bubble burst in the 1980's. Behind each of the displayed clothes was a collection of cute and fun Japanese sweets and magazines, and the mirrored walls were painted with owls, trees and bumblebees.
 I left just over an hour to visit the museum, and unfortunately it wasn't long enough, as they had rooms showing films, documentary's, and runway shows that I could only watch for a few minutes each. The exhibition finished this week, but I'm definitely now more open to aspects of the fashion world I previously had little or no interest in!

I did manage to take some contraband snaps, but they are EXTREMELY poor quality, so I apologise!









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