Camellia Flower Publication

I now have the Barbican's 'Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion' exhibition (still another month before it closes!) ticked off my list as I've been trying to make up for exhibition attending tardiness.  The title of the exhibition wholly accounts for why people need to get down and see it – it's thirty years of rich and invigorating game-changing fashion presented in a suitably expansive space with prime examples of all the people you'd expect.  Oh, and photos weren't allowed and frankly words just can't go to the depths of some of the pieces' visual impact.  I have some end notes though on the exhibition if you want to skip this tangent topic. 

Hopefully I can impeach you to stay with me on the tangent, which revolves around a book I picked up at the exhibition.  Instead of the accompanying exhibition catalogue, I opted to get 'Hanatsubaki and Nakajo: 1968-2008'.  This might be another one of my beauty ignoramus gaffes that everyone knows except me, but Hanatsubaki is Shiseido's in-house culture magazine that is distributed to Shiseido customers which has an unusually long history having started life in 1924 as Shiseido Monthly.  Hanatsubaki's relation to Shiseido may end at its name being derived from the company's camellia flower logo as its editorial team has always had free rein to produce a publication that reflects fashion and culture of the times.  At the helm of its art direction is Masayoshi Nakajo who has influenced the look and feel of Hanatsubaki for over forty years and through his orchestration of key style collaborators, what essentially is an in-house magazine becomes a credible publication in its own right that this book gives a vast and inspiring overview of with the help of Nakajo picking out his favourite spreads.

A glance at the cover art from the past forty years makes for juicy visuals.  This website also looks at some of the earlier Hanatsubaki issues that precede Nakajo's tenure…

The first thing that struck me was the ongoing presence of photographers like Jason Evans who has shot the latest issue of Hanatsubaki as well as the styling work of Simon Foxton who from the 80s all the way to the 00s has contributed to the publication… giving me a refreshing insight into his womenswear styling…

Other familiar names pop up in this visual retrospective… photographer Mark Borthwick…

…stylist Camille Bidault Waddington…

…and most surprisingly Carine Roitfeld in this spread from 1991, a time when I believe Roitfeld was working as a freelance stylist… her distinctly sex-fuelled styling is most definitely evident here even in the early days…

Stephen Jones is another name that crops up in Hanatsubaki…I especially love this spread which is a collaboration with acclaimed make-up artist Masa Ohtake…

Besides the name-spotting, the style direction and the fashion covered in the spreads are fascinating as indicators of its style period be it the 70s, 80s or 90s and digging a bit deeper at the fashion credits means unearthing names that have declined over the years.  For instance London designer Georgina Godley as well as her involvement in menswear label Crolla is now something that I want to look into a bit more – just from on paltry fashion credit on one of these Hanatsubaki pages…

70s Junko Koshino, formerly one of Japan's most celebrated designers…

Remember Spanish designer Sybilla?  Nope me neither… another name to research…

I love the styling of this Sachico Ito kimono on this boy, clashing modern and traditional values…

A childrenswear spread inspired by the illustrations of Nara Yoshitomo

Chie Yamamoto's styling work is big visual contributor to a lot of the issues of Hanatsubaki…love this 2001 spread photographed by Salvatore Vinci reminding me that my knee length skirts need to be resurrected…

It's also evident that Hanatsubaki sought to cover the forefront of what was going on in fashion… here's an piece on Jonathan Saunders' early work…

I also love that some of the spreads just go off into its own world, without wanting to reflect the times, creating complete moments of whimsy… like a spread influenced by Edward Scissorhands…

…or a visual look at leisure activites in the early 20th century…

My favourite spread has to be this 1984 interpretation of prim ladies… well, that's what I gather from the bits of Kanji characters I can read as well as the styling courtesy again of Chie Yamamoto…

When Shiseido products do pop up, the art direction of Nakajo as well as artistic collaborators make tubes of lipstick far more interesting than beauty dunce me would normally find them… like this spread art directed by British artist Duggie Fields…

I've only scratched the surface of what this Hanatsubaki retrospective book has to offer but if first glances sifts out this much goodness, I'm thinking the glue binding of the book will be getting a battering soon…

Back to the end notes of the Future Beauty exhibition though… it reminded me to look into a couple of things…

-Watch the whole of Wim Wenders' film about Yohji Yamamoto entitled Notebook on Cities and Clothes – thankfully it's all on YouTube.

-Find out more about Akira Naka whose graduation collection Antwerp I remember but haven't seen any recent collections from.  Naka is part of the exhibition's section on the 'New Generation of Japanese Design'. 

-Attempt to own ALL of Tao Kurihara's early work from 2005 involving knitted corsets and cable knit shorts…

-Reconstruct Undercover's tapestry flower ensemble and matching wall from the camoflage A/W 00-1 collection in my house…

-Look into Issey Miyake's new 132 5 designs which transform flat geometric planes to clothing