“Last season I got the inspiration from my hometown, so for this collection I wanted to go very far away,” Mame Kurogouchi explained with a slight giggle over Zoom on a recent morning. The designer and her boyfriend, a photographer, took a trip to his hometown of Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, and while out walking during the very cold winter, she noticed a red-crowned crane. “Her movement was so delicate, and looked like a graceful Japanese woman,” Kurogouchi said. It also reminded her of a folktale that her grandmother and parents told her when she was young. When she returned home she found an old book with illustrations of the folktale, and those colors informed her palette of black, white, navy, tan, and bright red.
The majestic birds could be found everywhere in this collection, including on the abstracted all-over print used for wearable cotton blouses and sun dresses. Flocks of them decorated tanks, cardigans, and gowns alike. Most winning was the finale dress, made of a white silk jacquard woven with monochromatic tiny birds illustrated by Kurogouchi, her signature voluminous sleeves dyed bright vermilion red and anchored in sinuous cuffs, a black ribbon unfussily tied around the neck. The sleeves were dyed using a traditional technique called Arimatsu-shibori, which is usually reserved for creating small repeating patterns, but in this case was used to create one singular print that mimicked the crane’s plumage. (It was also used to bold effect on a slip dress made of the same crane silk jacquard, this time in navy, with the Arimatsu-shibori detail done in shades of black and blue at the top of the bodice.)
A houndstooth pattern also figured prominently in the collection and its inclusion reveals the depths of Kurogouchi’s inexhaustible creativity when mining a source of inspiration; in Japanese, a houndstooth is called chidorigoshi. “The Japanese see [the pattern] as flying birds,” Kurogouchi explained via a translator, “it literally means ‘thousand birds lattice pattern.” The houndstooth pieces—tailored maxi skirts and boxy jackets in black and white; and a particularly alluring dress with a very 1920’s silhouette of a blouson bodice and empire waist—gave the offering a subtly cool edge. “When I make a garment, I am thinking about the pattern, and the most important thing for me is using the curved line,” she explained, showing how the collar on her own dress subtly wrapped around her shoulders. In her quest to explore Western styles to merge with traditional Japanese details, she looked to actresses from the era for inspiration.
Further grounding the collection were a few pieces made from white cotton tweed decorated with synthetic black leather details, their edges left raw to showcase their handmade quality. “I was inspired by a bamboo basket,” Kurogouchi explained. “I tried to mix the [idea] of the craft with the woven technique as well.” Her modus-operandi, of seeking and supporting traditional crafts from around Japan and incorporating them into her modern vision of womanhood, is something she surely inherited from the designer Issey Miyake, who was her mentor, and who passed away a few days before our appointment.
“I learned a lot of things from him, the most important is the attitude towards making a garment. He really respected the past and the future as well, and I have to do the same things for my younger generation.” She continued, “To pass my skills to the younger generation, and to protect Japanese craftsmanship. So I think — I believe — that it’s what I should do right now.” Of course, she already is.
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