Japan in Paris: A Chronology from Hanae Mori to Junya Watanabe

Japanese designers did not arrive in Paris all at once. They arrived in waves: a New York debut in 1965, a boutique in the Galerie Vivienne in 1970, a first Paris collection in 1973, a spring of black in 1981, a new generation in the 1990s and a Comme des Garçons shop in London in 2004. This chronology, a companion to the Louis Vuitton documentary, follows the arrivals from Hanae Mori to Junya Watanabe and marks where accounts differ.

The pioneers, 1960s and 1970s

• Hanae Mori. Born on 8 January 1926 in Shimane, she opened her Hiyoshiya atelier in Shinjuku in 1951 and made a New York debut in January 1965 with a collection titled East Meets West. She opened her Avenue Montaigne maison in 1977, when she was widely reported to have become the first Asian member of the Chambre Syndicale, a wording that varies between accounts. Her last haute couture show was on 7 July 2004. See Hanae Mori: The Butterfly of Paris.
• Kenzo Takada. Born in Himeji on 27 February 1939, he reached Paris in 1965 after a boat trip begun in 1964 (accounts give either year), and opened his boutique at 43 Galerie Vivienne in 1970. He sold the house to LVMH in 1993 and left it in 1999. He died on 4 October 2020. See Kenzo Takada: Paris Colour and the Tokyo Cut.
• Kansai Yamamoto. Born in Yokohama on 8 February 1944, he showed his first collection in London in 1971, the first Japanese designer to do so, and became known for the stage costumes he made for David Bowie. He died on 21 July 2020. See the Kansai Yamamoto guide.
• Issey Miyake. Born in Hiroshima on 22 April 1938, he founded Miyake Design Studio in 1970, showed his first overseas collection in New York in 1971 and showed in Paris for the first time in autumn/winter 1973. He died on 5 August 2022. See Clothing as Architecture.

The black shock, 1981

In April 1981 Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto both showed in Paris, at the InterContinental. Kawakubo, born in Tokyo on 11 October 1942, had founded her label in 1969 and her company in 1973, shown for the first time in Tokyo in 1975 and begun menswear in 1978; her Paris subsidiary dates from 1981, and the Paris debut is recorded as a storm of controversy. Yamamoto, born in Tokyo on 3 October 1943, had established Y's in 1972 and first shown it in Tokyo in 1977; his menswear line, Pour Homme, was first shown in Paris in 1984. See Against Clothing and The Discipline of Silence. The sportswear chapter of Yamamoto's career is in the Y-3 guide.

Pleats, cloth and research

Issey Miyake's work turned from the runway to cloth itself. A Pleats Please prototype was shown in Paris in March 1991 and the line launched in 1993; L'Eau d'Issey followed in 1992; the A-POC project began in 1998 with the textile engineer Dai Fujiwara, although The Art Newspaper dates it to 1997. A Bao Bao prototype appeared inside Pleats Please in 2000 and became an independent label from autumn/winter 2010, and the 132 5. line was introduced in the summer of 2010 from research begun in 2007. The Miyake Issey Foundation was established in 2004 and 21_21 Design Sight opened in 2007. Miyake first spoke publicly of surviving the Hiroshima bombing as a child in a July 2009 essay in The New York Times.

The next generation, 1990s and 2000s

• Junya Watanabe. Born in Fukushima in 1961, he joined Comme des Garçons in 1984, began his own label in Tokyo in 1992 and showed in Paris in 1993. The MAN line is dated to 2000, spring/summer 2001 or spring/summer 2002, depending on the account. See Technical Radicalism.
• sacai. Chitose Abe, born in Gifu in 1965, spent eight years at Comme des Garçons, ending on Watanabe's team, and launched sacai in 1999 with five knitwear pieces. Her first Nike collaboration followed in 2015. See Hybrid Garments and Japanese Duality.
• Undercover. Jun Takahashi, born in Kiryu on 21 September 1969, showed in Paris for the first time with the Scab collection for spring/summer 2003, in October 2002, after Kawakubo urged him to. Accounts disagree on the founding year, which is given as 1990, 1993 or 1994. See Beautiful Disorder.
• mastermind JAPAN. Masaaki Homma's brand, launched in 1997, took off after a Paris trade show in 2001 when Maxfield's Tommy Perse ordered a Cowichan sweater. See Dark Symbols, Quiet Power.

The shop and the museum

Dover Street Market opened on 10 September 2004 at 17-18 Dover Street in Mayfair, with Ginza following in 2012 and New York in December 2013. In 2017 the Metropolitan Museum of Art presented Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between from 4 May to 4 September, curated by Andrew Bolton.

The Louis Vuitton thread

The same story crosses Louis Vuitton at several points. Kenzo has belonged to LVMH since 1993, and NIGO has been its artistic director since September 2021. Rei Kawakubo took part in Celebrating Monogram in 2014, Kansai Yamamoto designed icons for the Cruise 2018 show in 2017, and Takashi Murakami and Yayoi Kusama made the monogram a Japanese pop canvas. The chapters are in Louis Vuitton and Japan and Art on the Monogram.

Reading the generations

• Kenzo and Mori. Colour, print and the Paris atelier; check labels and the sewn-in codes against the dating notes in the essays.
• Miyake. Pleats, plastics and bags; the line name on the tag, from Pleats Please to Bao Bao, identifies the line.
• Yamamoto and Kawakubo. Black, volume and deconstruction; the diffusion line and season code locate a garment.
• Watanabe, Abe and Takahashi. Hybrid and collaborative garments; check the collaboration tag and season.

Why Japan

These are Japanese houses, and a culture of careful keeping means that garments from earlier decades can still arrive from Tokyo in good order. The case is made in Why Japan Is the World's Finest Market for Pre-owned Luxury, and the wider design thinking is in Japanese Fashion as Design Philosophy.

In the archive now

• Hanae Mori · Kenzo · Kansai Yamamoto · Issey Miyake · Yohji Yamamoto · Rei Kawakubo · Comme des Garçons · Junya Watanabe · sacai · Undercover
• Kenzo Paris tiger varsity jacket · Junya Watanabe × Dr. Martens rider jacket JP-J102 · Comme des Garçons × Lewis Leathers Lightning jacket

Continue reading

• Louis Vuitton: A Documentary in Chapters
• Contemporary Japanese Designers and Brands to Watch
• Return to Sacred Making: visvim
• All collector guides

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Index terms: japanese designers in paris · hanae mori new york 1965 · kenzo galerie vivienne 1970 · issey miyake paris 1973 · yohji yamamoto rei kawakubo paris 1981 · junya watanabe paris 1993 · sacai 1999 · undercover paris scab 2003 · dover street market 2004 · japanese avant-garde chronology