Hello, this is Kubo. Today I'd like to talk about what went on behind the scenes at the recent yoshiokubo Spring/Summer 2022 runway show.
I wrote about this a few times before,
■ A masterpiece that women will love too
This show was an epoch-making one in that it was the first time in my history that I used a female model. Recently, the way models are chosen has been changing, and there are now collection brands that choose models with healthy figures.
In my case, because of the brand, I wanted to dress someone with a powerful presence, so I searched for a girl who was strong enough to stand up to the male models. Not only that, it was also important that she had Japanese elements, such as hair color and facial features. I think I was able to find someone who was a good fit.
This time, I asked Shinichi Mita to help with styling. When I do it myself, I tend to match similar colors, but Mita took a completely different approach, using vivid contrasting colors, and easily overcame the difficult task of getting a man's outfit to look natural on a woman. He's truly impressive.
The show is just under 10 minutes long, but have you noticed something while watching? If you notice this, you must have quite the eye, but the color of the showpieces changes with each model, from a gradation of red to black, vivid colors, browns, dark colors, and so on, as the show progresses.
The reason we do this is that even though there are 32 looks, people get bored of looking at them. The first look is of course the most important, so we carefully select it, but in my experience, people usually open their eyes the widest by the third look.
The fourth or fifth look can feel like "okay, okay," so after that, they create something memorable to make it stand out, and then the climax with the tenth look is like, "Bam!" The key is the color, the model, or the details. If there are a series of women, people might think, "Another woman," so they bring out a man. A runway show is also "10 minutes of entertainment," so it needs to be structured in a way that won't bore the audience.
What I like about this collection is the colors. I would never wear all red, especially in my previous collections. I think it fits in well.
We live in an age of diversity in models. It was interesting to be able to cast not only foreigners and LGBTQ models, but also models with unique personalities and sensibilities. Thanks to them, I thought, "We can put on a cool show in Tokyo too," so I even started thinking about continuing it in Tokyo.
The three most popular items at this show were:
Hand print on the front
Paisley shirt
Bamboo camo outerwear
The one with a hand printed on the front has the image of Mona Lisa's hand playing shogi. There is also a version with a print on the back. It was an accent piece for this season, so it stood out, but it was very popular.
What I like about the green paisley look is that it's presented in a different way to the outfits we put together at the exhibition. After all, a show has a strong creative element, so it's perfectly fine to combine outfits in a way that's different from what the planning team had in mind. In fact, I found it very fresh.
At the exhibition, the endless paisley scarf was worn across the front and back like a sash, but at the show it was worn around the neck. It was Mita's idea and I thought it was really interesting.
Bamboo Camo, as the name suggests, is an original camouflage pattern that uses bamboo as a motif. I think the reason for its popularity is that it's easy to wear. It comes in purple and khaki, but it's not really camo. However, if you look closely, it's bamboo, but it looks like camo. Since it's bamboo, I've hidden a panda somewhere. Please try to find it.
I wrote about this a few times before,
■ A masterpiece that women will love too
This show was an epoch-making one in that it was the first time in my history that I used a female model. Recently, the way models are chosen has been changing, and there are now collection brands that choose models with healthy figures.
In my case, because of the brand, I wanted to dress someone with a powerful presence, so I searched for a girl who was strong enough to stand up to the male models. Not only that, it was also important that she had Japanese elements, such as hair color and facial features. I think I was able to find someone who was a good fit.
This time, I asked Shinichi Mita to help with styling. When I do it myself, I tend to match similar colors, but Mita took a completely different approach, using vivid contrasting colors, and easily overcame the difficult task of getting a man's outfit to look natural on a woman. He's truly impressive.
The show is just under 10 minutes long, but have you noticed something while watching? If you notice this, you must have quite the eye, but the color of the showpieces changes with each model, from a gradation of red to black, vivid colors, browns, dark colors, and so on, as the show progresses.
The reason we do this is that even though there are 32 looks, people get bored of looking at them. The first look is of course the most important, so we carefully select it, but in my experience, people usually open their eyes the widest by the third look.
The fourth or fifth look can feel like "okay, okay," so after that, they create something memorable to make it stand out, and then the climax with the tenth look is like, "Bam!" The key is the color, the model, or the details. If there are a series of women, people might think, "Another woman," so they bring out a man. A runway show is also "10 minutes of entertainment," so it needs to be structured in a way that won't bore the audience.
What I like about this collection is the colors. I would never wear all red, especially in my previous collections. I think it fits in well.
We live in an age of diversity in models. It was interesting to be able to cast not only foreigners and LGBTQ models, but also models with unique personalities and sensibilities. Thanks to them, I thought, "We can put on a cool show in Tokyo too," so I even started thinking about continuing it in Tokyo.
The three most popular items at this show were:
Hand print on the front Paisley shirt Bamboo camo outerwearThe one with a hand printed on the front has the image of Mona Lisa's hand playing shogi. There is also a version with a print on the back. It was an accent piece for this season, so it stood out, but it was very popular.
What I like about the green paisley look is that it's presented in a different way to the outfits we put together at the exhibition. After all, a show has a strong creative element, so it's perfectly fine to combine outfits in a way that's different from what the planning team had in mind. In fact, I found it very fresh.
At the exhibition, the endless paisley scarf was worn across the front and back like a sash, but at the show it was worn around the neck. It was Mita's idea and I thought it was really interesting.
Bamboo Camo, as the name suggests, is an original camouflage pattern that uses bamboo as a motif. I think the reason for its popularity is that it's easy to wear. It comes in purple and khaki, but it's not really camo. However, if you look closely, it's bamboo, but it looks like camo. Since it's bamboo, I've hidden a panda somewhere. Please try to find it.