Designers and boutiques in Tokyo are taking used clothes, cutting them up, splicing them together, and constructing new pieces with cutting-edge shapes and designs that have a unique aesthetic.
to remake clothing on a sewing machine in the back of the shop. “I see all the clothes and make them exactly as they appear,” she says. “There is a unique combination of different materials, sizes, and designs that can only be expressed in remake.
”The aforementioned brand Children of Discordance has used remake since its 2011 debut. The brand creates fair trade products in collaboration with factories staffed by Palestinian refugees. Designer Hideaki Shikama has, “Vintage is always the starting point, but doing it the same way isn’t good enough. We remake, but in a way that is modern and adapted to today’s trends.” As such, one of the brand’s signature items is, which has been seen patched into Children of Discordance’s shirts, blazers, and pants. Likewise, the menswear brand Landlord has also featured remake culture in its spring 2020 runway collection in Toyko, but in a very different way. Designerselected pieces from his archives and had New York-based artist Meguru Yamaguchi paint the clothes. Kawanishi effectively recycled his own past collections to remake entirely new pieces. “The Landlord collaboration with Meguru Yamaguchi is something Meguru and I had been talking about for a few years,” says Kawanishi. “Meguru grew up in Tokyo and understands the same cultural references and feels a similar nostalgia. We often talk about our creative processes as Japanese designers in New York, and now felt like the right time to work together.” Though remake seems to be more popular than ever on the Tokyo fashion scene, the style of remake — the patching together of fabrics and odd silhouettes — is one that can be seen in the work of even some of the most well-known Japanese designers who present on Paris runways. Take, for example,which is under the Comme des Garçons umbrella: One of the signatures of the label is patchwork jeans, rendered in black and blue with patches of plaid; Watanabe’s spring 2020 collection was rife with T-shirts and dresses literally fused to jackets. Those pieces were not actually remade, but they emulated the thrifty, patched-together style that has become so popular with the use of vintage fabrics. Watanabe himself has created spliced T-shirts andKawanishi has his own theory of how the vintage remake style has become popular in Japan. “There is a Japanese virtue calledwhich means, in Japanese, the value of avoiding waste,” he says. “Traditionally it has been reflected through a technique and fabric calledbecame popular in the north of Japan because they could not grow cotton, and they needed warm clothes for the harsh climate. They used hemp or linen and layered pieces of fabric on top of each other. They patched and layered for warmth and to increase the life span of the fabric. The resulting fabric is unique and has texture, wear, and history. The wear and unevenness gives it beauty. This cultural tradition and principle still persists in Japanese fashion today.” For now, it looks like the dedicated practice of making something new out of the old isn’t going anywhere in Japan. Fortunately, it’s a sustainable practice, and other designers in major cities seem to be following suit. Upcycling — the process of transforming by-products, waste materials, useless or unwanted products into new materials — has been used by labels such as Marine Serre, Bode, and this year, Givenchy. But what makes remake fashion different is all in the aesthetic that the devoted designers of Tokyo show off so well. Many have said that the Harajuku street style scene is. If you walk down the streets of Harajuku now, it’s true that you’ll likely see a lot more vintage clothing styled with modern pieces than outlandish, colorful costumes. If the remake trend proves anything, it’s that Japanese designers are constantly reinventing the way in which they approach vintage fashion.
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