.jpg)
Kansai Yamamoto (山本 寛斎, Yamamoto Kansai) (8 February 1944 – 21 July 2020) was a Japanese fashion designer, most influential during the 1970s and 1980s.
看過的報導/訃聞，以紐約時報的文、圖最好：
Kansai Yamamoto, Designer With Ziggy Stardust as a Client, Dies at 76
Unapologetically flamboyant, he shaped the look of David Bowie’s alter ego and also worked with Elton John and Stevie Wonder.
By Vanessa Friedman and
Kansai Yamamoto, the unapologetically flamboyant fashion designer whose love of color, unfettered imagination and exploration of genderless dressing caught the eye of David Bowie and helped define the look of his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust, died on July 21 in Japan. He was 76.
The cause was leukemia, a statement on his office website confirmed. It did not say where in Japan he died.
Kansai, as Mr. Yamamoto was generally known, was not as well-known as some of his more high-profile Japanese fashion contemporaries, including Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons. But it was Kansaiwho led the way for a generation of Japanese design talents to make their mark on the Western industry.
In 1971, he was among the first Japanese designers to show in London — a full decade before Ms. Kawakubo and the other Mr. Yamamoto. His signature aesthetic of sculptural shapes, clashing textures and prints, and eye-popping color combinations attracted industry attention.
Kansai’s debut collection was splashed across the cover of Harpers & Queen magazine with the tagline “Explosion from Tokyo,” and his growing profile led to collaborations with the decade’s most important musician showmen, including Elton John and Stevie Wonder in addition to Mr. Bowie, with whom he formed a longstanding creative relationship.
“Color is like the oxygen we are both breathing in the same space,” Kansai once said of his work with Mr. Bowie, who died in 2016.
ImageThe striped bodysuit and red kabuki boots by Kansai Yamamoto were featured in the “David Bowie Is” exhibition, which came to the Brooklyn Museum in 2018.Credit...Vincent Tullo for The New York Times
Image
A detail of the outfit.Credit...Vincent Tullo for The New York Times
In a talk at the Brooklyn Museum during its 2018 “David Bowie Is” exhibition, to which he wore an elaborate black-and-gold brocade suit that he characterized as “minimal,” Kansai recalled meeting Mr. Bowie in 1973. Mr. Bowie’s producer had called Kansai and asked him to come to Radio City Music Hall in New York, where, in a concert, Mr. Bowie descended the stage on a giant disco ball.
The two men soon discovered that they shared a love of “radical appearance” and pushing boundaries. In fact, Mr. Bowie had been wearing Kansai’s women’s wear since 1971. From 1973 onward, they worked together to create one-off showpieces for Mr. Bowie’s stage personas and music tours, including the 1973 “Aladdin Sane” tour.
There were exuberant skintight jumpsuits with giant flared hems and silken brocade bomber jackets, androgynous cloaks with cutaways and vivid platform shoes. Often, the costumes incorporated elements from Japanese culture, particularly the silhouette of the kimono and the bold aesthetics of medieval samurai warlords.
“I approached Bowie’s clothes as if I was designing for a female,” Kansai said at the Brooklyn Museum talk, pointing out that there was “no zipper in front.” He also said that the number of costume changes required had inspired him to use snaps on Mr. Bowie’s costumes, so they could be removed faster.
Editors’ Picks
He Might Have Been Able to Fake His Death, if Only He’d Spell-Checked
As a Teenager, I Hated Johnny Carson. Then Came the Pandemic.
A Two-Bedroom Rental in Long Island City for $3,000? One New York Couple Test Their Budget.
Image
David Bowie, performing as Ziggy Stardust, wore a “woodland creatures” costume, designed by Kansai, at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in 1973.Credit...Debi Doss/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images
His favorite piece for the singer was the black-and-white jumpsuit with bowed legs featured in the “David Bowie Is” exhibition, which was first mounted in 2013 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London before traveling around the world.
“I found David’s aesthetic and interest in transcending gender boundaries shockingly beautiful,” Kansai told the website The Cut in 2018.
Born on Feb. 8, 1944 in Yokohama, on Japan’s east coast, Kansai Yamamoto did not have a happy childhood. His parents divorced when he was 7, and he was sent to a children’s home. He traveled with his two younger brothers — ages 3 and 5 — from Yokohama to Tokyo and then to the far-flung southwestern province of Kochi.
“How much I envied the lights of happy families that I saw from the window of the slow train at dusk,” he once said. “It was lonely, and I still can’t forget that.”
He studied civil engineering before leaving school in 1962 to study English at Nippon University. A self-taught fashion designer (despite saying later that “fashion is not a profession I would recommend”) he founded his own business, Yamamoto Kansai Company, at 28, the year of his first London show.
After his heyday in the 1970s and ’80s, and as Japanese fashion gained global prominence for its cultivation of a pared-back minimalism, Kansai continued to explore his interest in traditional Japanese clothing and craftsmanship, but with a distinctive and fantastical flourish.
He often pointed to his longstanding affinity with the Japanese concept of basara, a love of color and flamboyance; one that stood directly in contrast with the idea of wabi-sabi, the Buddhist ideal of the beauty in imperfection, modesty and humble materials.
Starting in 1993 in Red Square in Moscow, he began producing evermore extravagant “super shows,” including one that involved a gigantic inflatable whale.
Image
Kansai Yamamoto in Beijing in 2012, for a fashion show marking the 40th anniversary of the normalization of Japan-China relations.Credit...Minoru Iwasaki/Kyodo News, via Associated Press
In 2017, he experienced something of a renaissance when he was asked by Louis Vuitton to create a number of looks for its 2018 resort collection show held in Kyoto, Japan. Kansai created several new graphics, including Kabuki-themed handbags and shimmery dresses emblazoned with the faces of grimacing yakko warriors.
He and Mr. Bowie remained friends until the singer’s death. In 2013, the two had discussed doing a “super show” together, for which Kansai would create the clothes and also produce the spectacle. Kansai said he owned two 35-foot air balloons (though no car).
“To have Bowie sit atop those air balloons, and have him sing his songs, was my dream,” he said in 2018.
In an Instagram post on Monday, Mr. Yamamoto’s daughter, Mirai Yamamoto, said her father “had left this world peacefully, surrounded by loved ones.” Information on other survivors was not immediately available.
Despite his illness, Kansai continued to work for as long as he was able: He had recently been planning a trip to the North Pole to research an ice-themed show.
“People always want originality,” he said. “That’s the future.”
Vanessa Friedman is The Times's fashion director and chief fashion critic. She was previously the fashion editor of the Financial Times. @VVFriedman
Elizabeth Paton is a reporter for the Styles section, covering the fashion and luxury sectors in Europe. Before joining The Times in 2015, she was a reporter at the Financial Times both in London and New York. @LizziePaton
A version of this article appears in print on
July 28, 2020, Section A, Page 22 of the New York edition with the headline: Kansai Yamamoto, Designer to the Stars (and a Starman), Is Dead at 76. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
沒有留言:
張貼留言