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[title]Autumn is the season for art in Japan, and while Tokyo’s museums and galleries always offer a packed slate of enticing shows to coincide with the clear skies, cooler air and brilliant foliage, sometimes the richest sources of inspiration at the end of the year can be found far beyond the big city.
One of the country’s most noteworthy exhibitions this autumn is taking place in rural Shimane, a sparsely populated prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, where centuries-old cultural and artisanal traditions still thrive.
‘Hanae Mori – Vital Type: The 100th Anniversary of Birth’ celebrates the remarkable life and career of Shimane native and world-renowned fashion designer Hanae Mori (1926–2022). Held at the Iwami Art Museum, part of the Shimane Arts Center in the city of Masuda, this extensive retrospective offers the first comprehensive look at its protagonist’s astonishing career in high fashion.
Tracing Mori’s journey from the pastoral landscapes of her birthplace to the hallowed halls of Parisian haute couture, the exhibition showcases Mori’s signature East-meets-West style and her dedication to traditional Japanese materials and techniques.
With the Shimane Art Center celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the institution has pulled out all the stops for ‘Vital Type’ – and it shows. Some 400 items, from a striking array of more than 50 evening dresses to photographs, posters and personal belongings, are used to illustrate how Mori employed the language of Western fashion to express Japanese ideas, sensibilities and landscapes, setting the stage for the next generation of designers from Kenzo to Rei Kawakubo – and questioning traditional gender roles along the way.
The phoenix of post-war Tokyo
‘Vital Type’ begins with a thoughtful and refreshingly frank introductory section about Mori’s personal and professional beginnings. Born into a wealthy family in the small town of Muikaichi, she moved to Tokyo with her mother and siblings while in fourth grade to continue her education in the capital.
Balancing university studies with work in a government factory during World War II, Mori married soon after graduating, but never felt she was destined to be a housewife. She enrolled in a dressmaking school in Kichijoji and in 1951 opened her own studio near the east exit of Shinjuku Station, adjacent to the Musashinokan cinema.
She organised fashion shows at her husband’s coffee shop nearby, and the vibrant clothes she showcased caught the attention of local film industry bosses. This was Mori’s big break: she was soon working nearly around the clock, styling and designing outfits for the movie stars who embodied a battered but buzzing city’s dreams of a brighter, more colourful future.
These cinematic dresses, shirts, skirts and jackets enabled Mori to refine her technique, while subsequent journeys to Paris and New York helped her find her own style and philosophy. In a 1961 magazine article she introduced the ‘vital type’: a woman of quick wit and lively charm, not afraid to say what she thinks and true to herself in both work and in private life – a figure that reflected Mori’s own ideals.
The butterfly of Iwami
Subsequent sections of the exhibition recap Mori’s well-documented rise to the summit of the fashion world, but with a subtle nod to her Shimane roots.
One display highlights the designer’s enduring fascination with traditional indigo dyeing, which she had been familiar with since childhood. In an adjacent section, an intricately coloured dress in shades of orange and beige and adorned with flower, mountain and butterfly motifs echoes the lush landscapes of Mori’s hometown.
The butterflies that fluttered over the rice paddies around Mori’s childhood home in Muikaichi were a particularly enduring source of inspiration for her. She depicted them as harbingers of spring and joy, as well as a symbol of the fickleness of the fashion world.
Elsewhere, black and white dresses decorated with hiragana character motifs evoke the appearance and texture of sekishu washi, a type of traditional Japanese paper thought to have been produced in the Iwami region for around 1,300 years. The history and present of this craft can be explored in detail at a concurrent exhibition in the same museum, while tours led by museum curators in October and November provide an even deeper dive into local artisanship and culture.
The conqueror of Paris
From a purely visual perspective, the most impressive part of the exhibition is the collection of more than four dozen of Mori’s haute couture pieces, presented in the form of a dramatic multi-level display that fills up an entire gallery.
The evening gowns, dresses and robes looming over the viewer here represent the pinnacle of achievement for Mori, the first Asian designer to establish a haute couture maison in Paris – a feat she accomplished in 1977.
From a pair of butterfly-themed inset dresses in red and black unveiled in 1990 to unabashedly Japan-forward garments enhanced with ukiyo-e-style imagery featuring kabuki actors, dragons and cranes, the pieces drive home their designer’s versatility and eye for creative colouring.
Mori’s Paris years are also covered in detail across a separate section themed on her collaborations with the likes of Tadanori Yokoo, actress Mariko Okada and pioneering supermodel Hiroko Matsumoto.
Ginger candy, then eye candy
Take it from us: this is an exhibition where it pays to exit through the gift shop. Besides magazines, books and other publications that explore the world of Hanae Mori, you can shop for textiles such as silk scarves in Mori’s style, as well as exclusive coffee blends from Masuda’s Kurikuri Coffee and limited-edition ginger candy boxes courtesy of Kurumaya, a local confectioner with more than 300 years of history.
Lastly, the Shimane Arts Center itself is also worth exploring beyond the exhibition galleries. Designed by architect Hiroshi Naito, the stunning structure pays homage to the history of the region, making use of traditional sekishu gawara tiles on its roof as well as its outer walls. The colour of the tiles changes throughout the day with the position of the sun, both matching and subtly influencing the centre’s surroundings.
‘Hanae Mori – Vital Type: The 100th Anniversary of Birth’ is on show at the Iwami Art Museum (part of the Shimane Arts Center) in Masuda, Shimane until December 1.