TRAVEL WITH THE FASHION MAP: Fashion Designers of Asian Heritage

Travel with The Fashion Map: Fashion Designers of Asian Heritage

9/15/2021

THE FASHION MAP takes you on a journey across Asia to celebrate the excellence of several fashion designers of Asian heritage. We curated a selection of garments and shoes on display at the Columbia Fashion Windows located at 618 S Michigan Avenue in Chicago. The exhibition runs from September 15 through October 4, 2021.

Columbia Fashion Windows is an outdoor art gallery for the South Loop community in Chicago. It is managed by Columbia College Chicago's Fashion Studies department, and is designed to showcase the interface of fashion with the arts and fashion as a wearable art.

The garments shown in the Columbia College Chicago fashion window exhibition were selected from the Columbia College Chicago Fashion Study Collection or were provided via private collection. Images shown in the exhibit were provided by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago Fashion Resource Center.

When Kazuyoshi Hino from Japan and Malee Chompoo born in Thailand met in Chicago, they realized they brought out the best in each other. They formed a life-long partnership that began as a friendship, developed into a design team, and solidified into a marriage. A true collaboration of opposites, Hino & Malee blended their visions of architectural simplicity and dynamic artistry into garments that projected sophisticated self-confidence. The clean lines and geometries of their design highlighted the complexity and originality of their construction.

They presented their first collection in 1980 and found great success with designs self-described as “simplicity with excitement”. At the height of their popularity, Hino & Malee supported over 70 employees in their 3 story Chicago factory and beloved Oak Street store and retained their loyal following to the moment they retired the business in 2001. With a design philosophy stating, “The main concern of our design is to bring out the best in a woman intellectually, as well as to show her individuality, and for her to look beautiful and find freshness in herself,” it is easy to see why.

Hino & Malee. 1987. Hot Pink & Plastic Bubble Wrap Jacket. Image: School of the Art Institute Chicago

Hino & Malee. 1986. Women's magenta colored wool knit one-piece dress. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

First and foremost, Jimmy Choo is a craftsman. Learning the art of shoe-making from his father at the age of 11, Choo had made his first pair of shoes during his formative boyhood in Penang, Malaysia. Later traveling to England, he enrolled at Cordwainers Technical College in Hackney (now part of the London College of Fashion) to further immerse himself in the study of footwear, completing his studies in 1983. Choo would stay in London, to set up shop in the East End and build a loyal (and royal) following, with clients such as Princess Diana of Wales.

Choo also received orders from Vogue, earning him his first eight-page spread in the magazine in 1988. His feature in Vogue would lead him to his business partnership with Tamara Mellon, who co-founded the Brand Jimmy Choo Ltd., and they quickly took the red carpet and fashion world by storm. The company currently has a global network of more than 200 stores worldwide, and it is part of a fashion luxury group publicly listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Though the partnership would later dissolve with Choo’s departure from the company in 2001, selling his shares and no longer taking part in the construction of the ready-to-wear shoes, the company is currently run by Choo’s niece, Sandra Choi who has been part of the brand since its inception in 1996. In 2003, Choo received the title OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire), for his efforts in helping make London the design center of the fashion industry world. He established Jimmy Choo Couture Limited in 2006, still crafting under a separate London label. Believing that bigger is not always better, the designer offers this luxurious couture line available by appointment only. Today, Jimmy Choo is turning his attention to educating the next generation of creatives and craftspeople as he assists in the development of The JCA x London Fashion Academy, teaching traditional craft techniques and entrepreneurship.

Jimmy Choo. Women's purple reptile print leather pump. Shoes + image: Columbia College Chicago

Jimmy Choo. Women's flat of light green-blue synthetic with a gold synthetic interior. Shoes + image: Columbia College Chicago

Sue Wong is known for her lavish fashion shows and her rich and heavily embellished evening gowns worn by the likes of Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian, Anne Hathaway, and Cloris Leachman, to name a few. She has also awarded haute couture to the masses. With notoriety for being the Couturier to the Everywoman, Wong has brought a level of availability to luxury and beauty in her four decades of work. Her work can be found in distinguished, luxury mainstays like Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Bloomingdales, and Saks Fifth Avenue in the United States, as well as in over 20 countries worldwide.

Immigrating to the United States as a girl, Wong knew humbler beginnings than the global glamour for which she’s famous today. Relocating from the countryside of South China to the city of Los Angeles, Sue Wong began crafting her own paper dolls as the family’s budget would not allow toys.

From these lavished DIY-designed paper dolls, she would begin making her own garments at age 9. Wong would make a steady rise through the industry from high school, winning opportunities, scholarships, internships, and finally earning an apprenticeship studying under the head designer of the California brand, Arpeja. In 1985, Wong established her own brand with day dresses and separates, later solidifying her glamour from everyday to eveningwear in 1999.

Sue Wong. Black and blue iridescent crinkled taffeta evening gown. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

Born in the suburbs of Detroit, Anna Sui began dreaming of her life as a designer at the early age of 4 after performing as a flower girl in a family member’s New York wedding. Little did she know, she would soon return to New York City to attend Parsons School of Design, cutting her teeth among the sportswear companies on the infamous Seventh Avenue. There, she presented her first runway show with iconic names such as Naomi Campbell and Linda Evangelista. She would later be presented with the Geoffrey Beene Lifetime Achievement Award from the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 2009 and returned to Parsons School of Design in 2017 to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.

Today, Anna Sui’s fashion kingdom has reached into the realm of beauty and fragrance, with her notoriously intricate packaging now sought after as collector items, and an impressive 50 boutiques in eight countries and items sold in 300 stores in over 30 countries. Anna Sui, dubbed by Time Magazine as one of the top five icons of fashion of the decade, represents a never-ending source of both youthfulness and nostalgia throughout her 30-plus years in the fashion industry.

Anna Sui. Women's white silk/cotton blend skirt. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

Before Yamamoto and Miyake introduced new ways of experiencing clothing, and before Kawakubo changed the direction of fashion forever, Hanae Mori charted the path from Japan to Paris on the wings of butterflies. Honing her creative skills through her role as costume designer for hundreds of post-WWII films produced by the Japanese film industry, she built a fashion house sought after by luminous and powerful women from Masako, Crown Princess of Japan to the notorious and fashionable Imelda Marcos, the mother of modern dance, Martha Graham to Princess Grace of Monaco. Known for her rich colors and bold prints dancing over each other in layers of chiffon, her designs won her not only celebrity clients but also prestige as the first Asian woman to be welcomed as an official haute couture member of the world’s most exclusive fashion association, the Chambre Syndicale.

With seemingly limitless energy, Mori also developed a wide variety of licensed accessories and successful fragrances and designed uniforms for Olympic delegates from Japan and for the flight attendants of Japan Air Lines, including one iteration from the mid-70s with an attention-grabbing mini skirt. Hanae Mori shared in 2015, “The miniskirt boom that started in the mid-1960s was an expression of the energy women had to break through old value systems…I felt that the miniskirt fad was a symbol of how women were moving from a passive role to one in which they actively expressed their views.” Characterizing her designs was an understanding and embrace of her heritage, the textile traditions of Japan. Mori’s blending of Parisian dressmaking techniques with a sensibility of color and fabric developed through active attention to the Japan of her present and of her past established a signature style loved around the world.

Hanae Mori. Women's evening gown of purple silk; bugle beaded surface design; panther head embroidery. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

It is not an overstatement to claim that Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons introduced a new dialect to global fashion that today accents the speech of every contemporary designer. When she introduced her black, oversized, deconstructed garments to the glamorous, glittering, materialistic early 80s Paris of Saint Laurent, Mugler, and Versace, her work was derided as anti-fashion, but her impact is now recognized as inseparable from the progress of modern fashion.

Judith Thurman’s oft-quoted New Yorker profile of Kawakubo makes a passing comparison to Chanel, but the parallels are deep. The fierce demand for freedom and independence, the shock to the fashion establishment, the humble deflection claiming to be only a dress/clothing-maker, the savvy and practical business acumen, the uncompromising adoption of the power of men’s wardrobe to navigate a world built by men, and the solitude.

In 2017, 40 years of clothing from Comme des Garçons were mounted by the Costume Institute at the Met for their grand spring exhibition, this iteration titled, The Art of the In-Between. It was the first solo exhibition at the Met featuring a living fashion designer since their Yves Saint Laurent exhibition in 1983 and its obvious connection to commerce left a bad taste in the sensibilities of the fine art elite. The exhibition explored how Kawakubo’s work is never only one thing, never easily defined, nor even easily described. Her concepts are difficult to look at directly and her unwillingness to discuss them gives journalists and the public very little to work with or against. Perhaps this stems from her lack of formal fashion education, or her desire to start every collection from a place of nothingness, one without assumptions or expectations, or even a body. She seems to design to meet the needs of the garment rather than the shape and movement of the human who will wear it.

Kawakubo’s rejection of the quest for conventional beauty was never more shocking than in her Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body collection of 1996. Gingham fabric was stretched across bodies padded with non-normative bulges and protrusions, an alien’s interpretation of the description of a bustle or a farthingale crafted from a brief written description that has been translated several times. Seen again in choreographer Merce Cummingham’s 1997 production Scenario, they forced the dancers to rebalance and reacclimate their bodies, every movement both new and familiar. The full statement of her idea behind the garments “body meets dress, dress meets body and becomes one” brings to mind Plato’s soulmates: the yearning, the searching, and the ineffable joy when two become one.

Rei Kawakubo. 2004. Comme des Garçons Black jacquard dress with mid-sleeve gathered puff. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

Rei Kawakubo. 2005. Comme des Garçons Black Leather Jacket and Black Fabric Full Skirt. Image: School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sensuous. Mysterious. Alluring. The sensibility of black fabric that Yohji Yamamoto brought to Paris in the early 80s was in contrast to the anarchic refusal that his then partner Rei Kawakubo infused into her inky garment designs. Yamamoto’s garments were wandering memories pulled from a long history of Japanese clothing traditions that intertwined balance and subtlety with seams and surfaces curving like lines of an Art Nouveau illustration and celebrated the Edwardian progress of womenswear blurring into menswear. Every design was a romance and a question.

Although he had intended to study law, Yamamoto left school to assist in his mother’s dressmaking business, and later attended the fabled Bukna fashion school. With his career of avant-garde fashion collections and philosophical forays into other art forms including the 1989 film Notebook on Cities and Clothes, working with director Wim Wenders, and My Dear Bomb, his 2015 autobiography, he might not have appeared an obvious choice for a partnership with an activewear brand. But Y-3, this fortuitous pairing initiated by Yamamoto, is still wildly successful nearly 20 years after its creation. The careful balance and tension between the two brands and their ideals defined the possibilities of high fashion + sportswear collaborations and introduced what we might now refer to as the epitome of athleisure - all of the comfort with all of the style.

Yohji Yamamoto. 1986. Women's black wool jumpsuit. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

Yohji Yamamoto. 1981. Women's black wool 5 thread double cloth straight skirt. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

Yohji Yamamoto for Y-3. 2021. Camo Jacquard Pants. Garment: Private Collection. Image: Adidas.com

Junya Watanabe has steadily made a name for himself since beginning his career under Rei Kawakubo in the ’80s. Studying at the illustrious Bunka Fashion Institute in Tokyo in 1984, the Fukushima native, immediately began his apprenticeship at the Comme des Garçons atelier as a pattern-maker, becoming a protégé of Kawakubo. Shortly after, the title of Design Director of the brand’s Tricot knitwear line was awarded to Watanabe in 1987, where he remained for five years. Later In 1992, Watanabe launched a collection under his own name, presenting his first collection in Paris the following year. Almost a decade later, his brand would grow to include a menswear line that would accompany his eponymous womenswear under the Commes des Garçon umbrella.

Applauded for his avant-garde design vision, use of synthetic materials, and experimental innovations, Watanabe has also amassed attention within the mainstream fashion realm due to notable partnerships. Collaborations include Converse’s epitomic All Star sneakers in 2007, New Balance, Puma, and sourcing fabrics for his Spring/Summer 2013 collection. His Fall/Winter 2021 collection, which has been commended as a love letter to workwear, has seen collaborations between Carhart, Stepneys Workers Club, Levi’s, and The North Face. In addition to receiving a shout-out in Kanye West’s much-anticipated new album, Watanabe’s duality between techno-experimentalism and couture pattern manipulations continues to attract fans from all corners of the fashion spectrum.

Junya Watanabe. 2015. Blue digitally printed pullover top. Image: School of the Art Institute Chicago

Junya Watanabe. Fall/Winter 2001/02. Women's skirt suit of red + navy wool in a novelty weave. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

Mitsuhiro Matsuda was born in Tokyo and began his career in fashion design and gleaned inspiration from his time in Paris, his love of the art-deco period, and the romantic curves of metalwork are not lost on the brand’s iconic M3023’s, described as akin to a pair of Aviator’s with a healthy portion of expressive articulation. This wearable art brand has seen collaborations with artists like Nan Goldin and Juergen Teller, further carrying on the brand’s tradition of mixing old-world techniques with contemporary sensibilities.

Holding tight to craftsmanship, Matsuda is considered one of the greatest Japanese eyewear brands and continues its 50 year legacy of artful, durable, and innovative design. Mitsuhiro Matsuda established the brand in 1967 and uses over 250 required steps in order to create the iconic frames, all handwrought by craftsmen located in Sabae, Japan. The iconic frames seen in films such as Beetlejuice and Terminator 2 are recognized for their distinctive architectural and expressive manners, seamlessly melding the senses of the old with the new.

Mitsuhiro Matsuda. Black wool double breasted jacket with two capelet collars. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

ANTHILL (Alternative Nest and Trading/Training Hub for Ingenious/Indigenous Little Livelihood seekers) Fabric Gallery is located in Cebu, Philippines. Anya Lim founded ANTHILL Fabric Gallery in 2010 with her mother to preserve Philippine weaving traditions and to provide sustainable livelihood for their partner communities.

ANTHILL works on a human and community-centered business model ensuring a sustainable and inclusive supply chain of weavers, artisans, design collaborators, and production partners play in elevating their weaving traditions.

Anthill Fabric Gallery. Magdalena Bolero with butterfly sleeves and made with Kinan-ew from Baguio; the patterns represent spears and + mountains in the northern region. Garment + image: private collection

Issey Miyake’s garments often project a joyful sense of play and experimentation, a curiosity about what is possible beyond the surface of the fabric. His early interest in dance and appreciation of artists like Noguchi, Christo, and Brancusi shine through his work as much as his fascination with Vionnet’s geometries and Fortuny’s pleats. Miyake’s passion has always been to research and synthesize unexplored ideas in clothing, born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1938, he brought a perspective on bodies and fabric, both old and new, to the fashion centers of New York and Paris.

Miyake’s famous pleated garments involved sewing and finishing before encountering the pleating machine, which required working backward through trial and error to reach optimal initial measurements that would pleat down to garments full of new volumes of bounce and energy. Later projects like A-POC “a piece of cloth” where entire garments were fully fashioned by machine in a single piece of fabric, and 132 5 whose garments rested in intricate, flat, origami inspired shapes and expanded into tubes of soft spikes when placed on a body, continued to reveal fresh ingenuity in garment construction. It’s no wonder all of the black turtlenecks favored by tech innovator Steve Jobs were labeled Issey Miyake.

Issey Miyake. 1979. Two-piece draped silk print evening ensemble. Garment + Image: Columbia College Chicago

Issey Miyake. 2012. Women's geometric folding shirt in coral to white ombre digital print of recycled polyester. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

Issey Miyake. Spring/Summer 1994. Multicolored and Multi-Layered Crinkle Dress. Image: School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Growing up the daughter of a military major and an entertainer brought balance to Tiffani Kim’s upbringing and her design practice, making her an ideal choice for women balancing their sense of femininity with business opportunities during the power-dressing of the 80s and 90s. It is no surprise highly visible women from Vanna White to Hillary Clinton were drawn to the bold colors and confidence of her designs.

Born in South Korea and educated at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and in the studio of Jean Charles de Castelbajac, Kim’s global understanding of women and beauty facilitated a smooth transition from fashion designer to the founder of the well-known Chicago medical wellness spa, the Tiffani Kim Institute.

Tiffani Kim. Women's green stain dress with 2 half-moon cut outs beneath; set-in sleeve with 2 half moon cut outs + pyramid shaped rhinestone decorative buttons at wrist. Garment + image: Columbia College Chicago

Resources

Columbia College Chicago
Fashion Study Collection Online Database

The Fashion Study Collection at Columbia College Chicago is an exceptional collection of designer garments, fashion history, and ethnic dress. A hands-on, academic, and inspirational resource for students and the public, the collection was founded in 1989 and has grown to house more than 6,000 items.

School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Fashion Resource Center

Part of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago's network of Special Collections, the Fashion Resource Center (FRC) maintains a unique hands-on study collection of late 20th- and 21st-century designer garments and accessories representing innovation in design, materials, construction and embellishment. Visitors can explore the FRC's garment and accessories collection remotely at its regularly updated online garment collection.

Acknowledgements

A very special thank you to those who assisted and collaborated with The Fashion Map on our fashion window installation!

Katherine Schaefer, Columbia College Chicago Fashion Windows
Lauren Downing Peters , Columbia College Chicago Fashion Study Collection
Alex Aubry, School of the Art Institute of Chicago Fashion Resource Center
Caroline M. Bellios, Chicago Fashion Lyceum

My warmest appreciation to the amazing Fashion Map team!

Isabella Guerrero, Visual Merchandising Coordinator
Nadia Adrende, Visual Merchandiser
Page Burow, Copywriter

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