Araisara: Fashion – Piece by piece, a universe of unimaginable possibilities

This homage to the Japanese couture label araisara was originally published online on Ethical Fashion Japan in July 2012, and is the second of a series of three articles (see also: first instalment) about the label. It is edited and republished with permission.

Author: Ethical Fashion Japan, Twitter: @EthicalJP
Editing: Shirahime

Next Stop, Paris
March 22, 2012 : Araisara has completed her last runway show at Japan Fashion Week. For this collection, the desginer presented all the styles that were possible with one type of garment. The collection was named called “tsukumo-shiki,” a manteau-type jacket, with the aim of showing the many possibilities that one garment could hold. For the next season, araisara will present its newest collection in Paris. The desginer decided to move the presentation to Paris to present the beauty of Asian traditional techniques to more people around the world.

Tsukumo-Shiki
is a representative work by araisara. It is created based on a single garment that can be worn in numerous styles, such as a jacket, shirt, pants, or skirt, depending on how the wearer understand the style. In Chinese characters (漢字=’Kanji’ in Japanese), tsukumo means the number “99.” It is used as a symbol of the diversity and unimaginable possibilities. It presents to make the person wearing the last “one and ultimate” piece to style perfection.

There were many reasons why the desginer decided to present her show with based on one garment type only. For one, she strongly believes that audience in Paris will also comprehend the beauty of Asian traditional techniques, because clothes hold unimaginable power. Afterall, it was her clients who made her believe in the power of clothes. Let us introduce two episodes that demonstrate this according to the designer herself:

Islamic Fashion Week
In November 2011, araisara was invited to do a runway show at the Islamic Fashion Week in Malaysia. Invited Japanese designers were only Kenzo and herself; all the others were from other Asian countries, such as Taiwan and Malaysia. There are so many differences between Japan and Malaysia, starting with language, culture, and especially religion.
Due to the country’s Islamic rules, the women face restrictions with regards to fashion. Therefore, the araisara was at first not sure whether they would be receptive to her clothes and whether the clothes would match their taste. Although she was unsure of many things, she nevertheless believed in opportunities and decided to try.

The runway show was held in a dinner and floor-show style. The setting was beautiful, and many Malaysian super-VIPs were among the attendees.

As soon as the show started and the models came out on the runway, all the guests gathered around the runway, although they were still having their dinner. After the show, they came up to araisara, all with a smile. There was a noticable the difference in their smiles before and after the show.

As they tried on her clothes, they complimented “I can feel the time flows with this” and “I love them even more when I put them on.” One person even asked, “Is this a design done with water? I feel like I’m protected by water.”
As Araisara watched the guests enjoying her clothes, she realized that she had succeeded in conveying the beauty and the charms of Japanese traditional techniques, and conveying the message of Japanese traditional artisans.
In addition, her clothes matched the traditional clothes they wore in Malaysia very well.

She became more confident, believing that the charms of fashion/clothes could overcome language, religious, and cultural barriers. Even more, fashion/clothes could be a communicator, not just an economic tool for buying and selling, but a means to exchange ideas and feelings with people with completely different cultural backgrounds, and to tie people together across oceans and continents.

Potpourri de Tobacco
The second story is from her couture salon.
At her atelier salon, Araisara redesigns unused old kimonos and fabrics into new designs so that they can be used once again on a daily basis. Many people bring stories along with their kimonos.
For example, the kimono may have been worn by the person’s deceased mother or have been purchased with the person’s first salary (the first salary has a major meaning in Japan, where it signals becoming independent and economically mature). People come in with things that they have been unable to throw away for a long time because they had a very personal story attached to it.

It has been eight years since Araisara opened her couture salon.
She doesn’t have a reservation system, so she doesn’t know who will arrive on any one day. Maybe no one comes. Although there may be no one coming, every day she opens the salon, cleans the window, prepares tea, and changes the displays. Every day is a routine. Doing the routine carefully every day: this is what she feels she is good at. She has continued doing this for eight years.
Why? Because of the customers who bring many different stories. Depending on the customers, she works on different stories, and this makes every day completely different.

For example, there is this lady customer who has already moved away from Tokyo, but she always comes t town twice a year to purchase clothes from Araisara.
They first met when this customer came to the couture salon for the first time. The lady told her that she wanted to reform an old kimono into a coat so that she could wear it daily. I said of course, and the next day, she brought in a purplish man’s oshima-tsumugi kimono (a traditional plain weaving kimono made in the Amami-Islands using silk).
Maybe it had been used for a long time, and the red color had mixed with the dark blue and changed to deep purple. It was very large, but also very soft and supple. When she put it on, because she was tall and stylish, it fit her very well. We decided to make it into a long shirt-style jacket.

As Araisara was styling and carefully cutting it apart, all of a sudden there was a lovely fragrant smell of tobacco leaves. When she took a closer look, she found piles of tobacco leaves in the pocket of the sleeves. When she smelt the leaves, she instantly imagined how the former owner looked wearing this. He must have been right-handed, and he must have put his tobacco pipe here. As the leaves still had a nice strong smell, she collected them and wrapped them into a transparent fabric and made a potpourri.

On the day of the final delivery, she gave the finished coat with the potpourri to the customer. As soon as she saw the potpourri and smelt the leaves, tears flooded her eyes and she said, “Look how he’s smoking again!”
Then she told me more stories about this particular kimono. It was her late father’s kimono. He had passed away ten years ago, and had only he woren the kimono on days that were important. Her father was forbidden to smoke, but he could not resist. He always hid from the family and smoked. My customer took custody of the kimono as a remembrance item after his death.
After telling the stories, she told me that she was able to feel the warmth of her father by reforming the kimono and wearing it again.

Clothes for Stories
At her couture salon, Araisara hears stories like the one just described every day.
Every story is different. The story is passed on from person to person, just as the kimono is passed on to the next individual to wear it. The clothes tell the story and tie the people together. When you create clothes with a strong feeling, people will wear them with passion also. They will then carry the owners’ memories and generate new stories. Depending on the memories, the clothes change into something very original, unique and new.

A garment is not just for buying and selling.
It can tie people together and overcome cultural differences and time gaps.
At the time of writing Araisara was preparing to launch her collection in Paris for October 2012, and was looking forward to how people there will take the message from her clothes. It will surely generate another unique story, depending on how each person takes the message.