Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion

I went to see the exhibition 'Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion' at Barbican exhibition center.

'Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion is the first exhibition in Europe to comprehensively survey avant-garde Japanese fashion, from the early 1980s to the present. Curated by the eminent Japanese fashion historian Akiko Fukai, Director of the Kyoto Costume Institute, the exhibition explores the unique sensibility of Japanese design, and its sense of beauty embodied in clothing.
Japanese fashion made an enormous impact on the world fashion scene in the late 20^th century and designers such as Issey Miyake, Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto redefined the very basis of fashion. Their works will be shown alongside Kawakubo’s protégé, the techno-couturier Junya Watanabe, together with the acclaimed Jun Takahashi, and the new generation of radical designers including Tao Kurihara, Fumito Ganryu, Matohu, Akira Naka, Mina Perhonen and Mintdesigns.'Quoted from Barbican website.

I was impressed by the use of space at the exhibition. Of course each of their works were amazing as well, the way of display gave a lot of help for the works. Tall ceiling, commodious floor, and wide space between each work. In addition, music also helped it.

I especially liked the 1st floor which displayed early japanese fashion pioneers' works such as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo. Their works were very simple but well considered patterns and tailored. Those were not decorative, but well expressed Japanese beauty. On the 2nd floor, there were more new generations' works such as Mintdesigns. Their works were more decorative and, in my opinion, therefore lack of the nice side of japanese fashion. But I think, I have to say it is the new generation of Japanese fashion.