The Crows: How a Trio of Japanese Designers Changed Fashion History

Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo: these are some of the biggest names in fashion today. Even for the novice fashionista, the very mention of their names conjures a vision of pushing fashion to its absolute limits. Their highly conceptual, avant-garde approach to design, combining the histories of Eastern and Western dress, emerged within Japan’s postwar counterculture. Almost half a century on from their first collections, their work has infiltrated all aspects of the fashion industry – from shop design, to publishing, exhibition-making and, of course, fashion design itself. This week Osman Ahmed speaks to esteemed fashion historian (and Director and Curator of The Fashion Institute of Technology) Valerie Steele , about the moment that Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohjo Yamamoto merged Japanese dress with Western fashion, and the ideas that would influence their early work; Fashion consultant and CEO of PR Consulting Paris Nathalie Ours , who started working for Yohji Yamamoto in the late 1980s, remembers what it was like seeing his work for the first time; and Tiffany Godoy , Head of Editorial Content at Vogue Japan takes us through these designers’ countercultural origins and their contributions to the industry at large. Host: Osman Ahmed Scripting: Osman Ahmed, Amelia Phillips Research: Alexia Marmara Art Direction: Calum Glenday and Aleksandra Talacha Producer: Amelia Phillips Audio Producer: Robin Leeburn Production: Podmasters Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You can listen to The Crows: How a Trio of Japanese Designers Changed Fashion History online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Crows: How a Trio of Japanese Designers Changed Fashion History is an episode from Fash-ON Fash-OFF.

This episode is 28:25 long.

This episode was published on Dec 1, 2023.

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