Monday 18 March 2024

The Art of Alchemy: Yuima Nakazato's Couture Evolution Exploring the Past, Creating the Future

The intensity and lyricism of Yuima Nakazato's Utakata haute couture show in Paris. Cover picture and photograph (above) by Elli Ioannou for DAM

It has already been an industrious year for Yuima Nakazato: he presented a celebrated show in Paris during haute couture week in January, he designed the costumes for Mozart's Idomeneo which premiered at the Geneva Opera House in February and an exciting exhibition about his work will open in summer in France. The Japanese couturier talks about his creative ideas as we take a look back at the highlights of the Spring/Summer 2024 collection. Story by Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Reporting by Antonio Visconti. Photography by Elli Ioannou and Andrea Heinsohn

Sculptural designs mix the diaphanous with
the dramatic. evoking a new urban armour.
Photograph: Elli Ioannou


LIKE an alchemist, Yuima transforms textiles into lyrical poetry and creates designs that elicit potent emotion. His latest collectionUtakata, transcends the boundaries of traditional couture. The designer infusing his creations with a spirit that resonates beyond the confines of the runway. 

Set against the backdrop of Mozart's Idomeneo and the haunting landscapes of Crete, Nakazato's new work merges the realms of fashion, art, and performance to explore history, and the evolution of couture itself. 

“In the process of creating this collection, I came across the Japanese word utakata, which means 'ephemeral,' " he explains. “This word seemed to express the exact opposite of the trend seen in the evolution of men's clothing, where functionality and durability are increasingly valued and prioritized. What I wanted to convey was a sort of ephemeral armour, much like a delicate bubble formed on the surface of the water, capable of vanishing in the blink of an eye. This approach also represents a release from or renunciation of battle.”

Like an alchemist, the designer transforms textiles into poetry and creates designs that elicit strong emotion

Voluminous fabrics and striking abstract patterns 
heightened the potent impact of the collection.
Photograph: Elli Ioannou
At the heart of Nakazato's collection lies a reverence for the past, entwined with an exploration of the future. 

Inspired by the ancient allure of Crete and the enduring legacy of Mozart's 1781 opera, the designer embarked on a quest to reinterpret history through the prism of contemporary consciousness and explore the composer's tale of human suffering from the disasters of the ancient Greek wars. 

For the opera and ballet at Switzerland’s Grand Théâtre de Genève, he designed scintillating costumes, working with the Belgian choreographer and director Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. "This show was created together with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui as a sort of a non-verbal communication with modern society," the designer says. "There are no set answers, and the collection allows for various interpretations."

The odyssey of his creative trajectory took Nakazato from the shores of the Mediterranean to the hallowed halls of the Musée de l'Armée in Paris, where he unearthed the relics of antiquity with a discerning eye. What emerges from this journey is a tapestry of contradictions, where strength and vulnerability converge in a delicate dance of contrasts.

The odyssey of his creative trajectory took Nakazato from the shores of the Mediterranean to the hallowed halls of the Musée de l'Armée in Paris

Long, origami-like tunics adorned with 
silvery, sculpted details elucidated the idea
of Nakazato's 'ephemeral armour.'
Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn

“While designing the costumes for this opera, I visited Crete, the Greek island in the Mediterranean where the story of Idomeneo takes place,” remarks the designer. 

“With a vista of transparent, turquoise blue seas and groves of olive trees spread before me, I imagined the Trojan War as it took place in this beautiful scenery during the Minoan civilization. 

"These reflections led me to reconsider the state of our modern society thousands of years later, which then became the starting point for this collection."

The 'ephemeral armour' speaks to a new paradigm of masculinity, one that embraces sensitivity and grace amid the chaos of modernity. Each garment, painstakingly crafted from reclaimed textiles and adorned with dramatic ceramics, glass, and platinum, becomes a testament to the enduring power of real artistry in an age of transience.

“During my research, I was struck by the appearance of armour from this period excavated from ancient ruins," Nakazato says. "It was so beautiful that I could scarcely believe it had been designed for combat. I found myself wondering why beauty was necessary for a garment intended for use in war.

The collection's 'ephemeral armour' speaks to a new paradigm of masculinity that embraces sensitivity and grace amid the chaos of modernity

Pan Aran Gimeno on the runway with his "blood"
soaked feet leaving a poignant trail.
Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn


“Seeking answers, I visited the Musée de l'Armée in Paris to investigate the evolution of men's clothing over the past 5,000 years. I noticed that the decorative elements of battle wear are gradually eliminated as societies grow more civilized and technology continues to develop. 

"As a result, repeated advances in functionality and rationality have culminated in the current style of military wear. Interestingly, these garments have served as prototypes for much of the clothing we wear today.”

As the models traversed the runway at Paris' Palais de Tokyo, accompanied by the haunting strains of Tsubasa Hori's piano and the writhing movements of dancer Pau Aran Gimeno, the audience was enthralled. 

Nakazato's designs with their sculptural silhouettes and intricate detailing, which invite contemplation and introspection, evoke a visceral response in the viewer. Gimeno, dressed all in diaphanous white, stepped into centre of the red pool, and as he moved along the catwalk, he created seemingly bloodied footsteps.

Like all of his collections since he launched in 2016 on the official Paris haute couture schedule,  Nakazato has made Utakata a manifesto for change, a call to arms for a new era of sartorial expression. His commitment to sustainability and innovation shines through all of his work, as he challenges the industry to embrace a more conscious approach to producing and creating fashion. From his pioneering use of fermented bacteria as compostable textiles to his revolutionary Type-1 system that does away with the needle and thread, Nakazato proves that fashion can be both visionary and virtuous.

Utakata is a manifesto for change, a call to arms for a new era of sartorial expression that shows how fashion can be both visionary and virtuous

Designer Yuima Nakazato dips his brush into the 
red pool at the finale of his show in Paris.
Photograph: Andrea Heinsohn
In Paris, during the finale of the haute couture show at the Palais de Tokyo, the designer ran out and dipped his pen into the blood-red pool at the heart of the carwalk. 

The audience erupted into applause as the show made a strong impact on the collective consciousness of those present to experience the electric atmosphere created by the arresting collection, the music and dance.

In our transient world, Yuima Nakazato's creations show how art in fashion can not only inspire, provoke and elevate the human spirit but also be a practical inspiration for real change at the level of production and recycling.

“Through the contradictory existence of delicate, fragile armour created by textiles shredded and reclaimed from worn-out uniforms and workwear and decorated with ceramics, glass, and platinum, this collection shows the evolution of clothing, " explains the couturier. "It is also an attempt to fuse the delicate and fragile handwork elements of couture with the evolutionary path followed by men's clothing that has continued since ancient times."

In the months to come, as Nakazato prepares for the premiere of his first exhibition Yuima Nakazato, Beyond Couture, at the Cité de la Dentelle et de la Mode in Calais, and pushes the boundaries of couture, his work continues to be a beacon of innovation, creativity, and above all, beauty. For in the fleeting moments of Ukataka and in the enduring collection of his designs, we glimpse the essence of fashion at its artistic best.

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Monday 11 March 2024

Oppenheimer’s Triumph, A stunning First Nations performance, and Lots of Sparkles: Five Experts on the 2024 Oscars

At the Academy Awards in Los Angeles, Roberty Downey Jr. (from left) won best supporting actor for Oppenheimer, Da'Vine Joy Randolph won best supporting actress for The Holdovers, Emma Stone won best actress for Poor Things and Cillian Murphy won best actor for Oppenheimer. Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
By Ari Mattes, University of Notre Dame Australia; Alison Cole, University of Sydney; Bronwyn Carlson, Macquarie University; Harriette Richards, RMIT University, and Tom Clark, Victoria University

Like most biopics, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer – which won seven awards, including the big one, Best Picture – seems kind of silly, an exercise in dress up. We watch “serious” actors like Robert Downey Jr. (who won Best Supporting Actor) and Cillian Murphy (Best Actor) go to extraordinary lengths to essentially imitate real life people, inevitably failing to be 100% true to life.

Similarly, the narrative – tracing the involvement of J. Robert Oppenheimer in the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb that would eventually devastate Hiroshima and Nagasaki – plods along in a way true story narratives often do.

There’s none of the precision and wit that often characterise genre films, their entanglement with questions of narrative and aesthetic form necessitated by their highly formulaic nature.

Yet Oppenheimer winning Best Picture is no travesty; in fact, it makes a lot of sense.

It works well as an engaging exercise in image and sound, a viscerally charged and hypnotic spectacle shimmering on the big screen shot in glorious 70mm film.

Typically for a Nolan film, it is pretentious and heavy-handed, and seems to think it is more important than it actually is. But as a fun romp through the 1950s – that perennially fetishished period in American cinema and culture – it works splendidly.

It was certainly not the best film nominated, nor the best film of 2023, but it does work as a piece of cinema.

There’s something refreshing about this fact alone: the Academy has eschewed the tedium of the usual didactic, message-driven cinema that has dominated recent years and have rewarded a technically and formally accomplished work, something that actually considers its medium and effectively works within it.

Ari Mattes

On the red carpet: red pins and black gowns

Awards ceremonies are often taken as opportunities to make political statements through dress. At the Oscars, these statements usually take the form of subtle pins or ribbons. In 2021, multiple attendees wore blue #withrefugees ribbons in support of Ukraine following the Russian invasion.

This year, in response to the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, numerous attendees, including Billie Eilish (in Chanel) and Finneas O'Connell, Ava DuVernay (in custom Louis Vuitton), Ramy Youssef (in a chic black thobe by Zegna), Mahershala Ali, Riz Ahmed and Mark Ruffalo donned red Artists4Ceasefire pins.

Other statements are made through design itself.

For Lily Gladstone, the first Native American to be nominated in the Best Actress category, this meant wearing a chic black Gucci column dress featuring a stunning midnight blue train with beading by Indigenous Mohawk, Cree & Comanche artist Joe Big Mountain of Ironhorse Quillwork.

Despite the political nature of these examples, the Academy Awards is conventionally a rather conservative affair. This year was no different. The dominant colour choice for all genders was black, sparkles abounded, and silhouettes were chic, albeit predictable.

Some of the standouts in this sea of monochrome predictability were ensembles by Jonathan Anderson at Loewe. Greta Lee oozed easy elegance in a black and white draped gown straight from the Fall 2024 runway, Celine Song continued her commitment to tailoring in a sharp skirt and blazer, and Andrea Riseborough broke through the shine and shimmer with a long-sleeved plaid dress unlike anything else on the red carpet.

Other highlights included Sandra Hüller in custom Schiaparelli, with sharply winged sleeve detail reminiscent of a gown by Gilbert Adrian worn by American socialite Millicent Rogers in 1947, Emma Stone in mint green Louis Vuitton with a peplum that recalled the exuberant sleeve detailing of her Best Costume Design award-winning costumes in Poor Things, and Wim Wenders in the same Yohji Yamamoto outfit he modelled on the catwalk back in January.

Harriette Richards

The power of First Nations voices

In a truly historic moment, the Oscars included a powerful performance by Osage musician and composer Scott George with the Osage Tribal Singers performing Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People) from Killers of the Flower Moon.

Wahzhazhe is a song for public consumption, not for ceremonial purposes, and with it George is the first Native American man to receive an Oscar nomination for best original song, losing out to Billie Elish.

The Oscars requires music be submitted for consideration in written form. However, the Osage do not generally keep written music — rather, it is kept in memory. George told Billboard it took “three or four days” to write the work down in musical notation.

Killers of the Flower Moon was nominated for 10 Oscars, including Best Actress for Piegan Blackfeet and Nez Perce actor Lily Gladstone who plays Mollie Burkhart. Unbelievably, Gladstone is the first Native American woman to be nominated for best actress in a leading role, but unfortunately missed out on the Oscar, to Emma Stone of Poor Things.

Indigenous communities globally were waiting with bated breath – but regardless of no Oscar, everyone was excited to see her nominated.

Stories like Killer of the Flower Moon, about the “Reign of Terror” where dozens of Osage were brutally murdered, need to be told so that they don’t get to be forgotten. It is both overdue and exciting to see more Indigenous peoples taking leading roles in films, and the success of Killers of the Flower Moon should make Hollywood pay attention that people want these stories to be told.

Even without winning big at these Oscars, Killers of the Flower Moon includes a wonderful cast of Native American actors including Tantoo Cardinal who plays Lizzie Q, mother to Gladstone’s character Mollie Burkhart, and her sisters who are played by Cara Jade Myers (Anna), JaNae Collins (Reta) and Jillian Dion (Minnie).

– Bronwyn Carlson

Four nominees for Most Impassioned Speech

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Da’Vine Joy Randolph gave the first acceptance speech at this year’s Oscars ceremony, awarded Best Supporting Actress for her role in The Holdovers, and she led it with thanks to God.

The ceremony’s 45 second limit on acceptance speeches gives more opportunities for meaningful comment to the presenters than the winners.

Host Jimmy Kimmel’s opening roast was generous towards the Barbie movie, a nod to its gender-inclusive feminism that drew loud applause. He unloaded on Donald Trump near the show’s end, to politically aligned chuckles. More striking, the In Memoriam section led with a cameo from Alexei Navalny that epitomised what polemic can put at stake to move us.

I counted four nominees for the Most Impassioned Acceptance Speech.

Cord Jefferson (Best Adapted Screenplay for American Fiction) advocated that movie financiers be more ready to take risks by backing less experienced movie-makers.

Jonathan Glazer (Best International Feature Film) positioned his film about Auschwitz, The Zone of Interest, as a call for an end to the mutual dehumanisation that sustains the long war in Israel and in Palestine.

Mstyslav Chernov (Best Documentary) wished he had never had the cause to make a film so successful as 20 Days in Mariupol, his response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

These were passionate and heartfelt speeches, while Randolph’s was passionate, heartfelt and mesmerising.

For the rest, it was largely acceptances by the numbers. There were variously entertaining, grandiose, self-deprecating and anecdote-rich versions of “thank you” from people who make it their life’s work to imbue set-piece moments with meaning.

Tom Clark

Powerful songs and mesmerising performances

Ryan Gosling’s performance of I’m Just Ken, written and produced by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, was the definite standout Best Original Song performance of the 2024 Oscars.

I’m Just Ken was one of two songs nominated from Barbie, alongside Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell’s What Was I Made For. They were joined by Becky G’s The Fire Inside from Flamin’ Hot, Jon Batiste’s It Never Went Away from American Symphony, and Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People) from Killers of the Flower Moon.

Becky G celebrated her Mexican American heritage with a passionate performance of The Fire Inside, accompanied beautifully by a choir of Latino children and a blazing visual backdrop.

Jon Batiste’s mesmerising performance of It Never Went Away from American Symphony brought home the deep love and devotion he has for his wife, Suleika Jaouad.

Billie Eilish’s ballad What Was I Made For ultimately won the award for best original song. Her performance was emotional, with her co-writer and producer brother, Finneas O’Connell, accompanying her on the piano. A beautiful orchestral arrangement brought flair and gravitas to the stage.

Scott George and the Osage Tribal Singers performance of Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People) from Killers Of The Flower Moon was a powerful statement of the strength of what energy collective singers and percussion bring to a performance.

But as the Oscars performances reminded us, sometimes the intimacy of quiet drama sends the loudest message.

– Alison ColeThe Conversation

Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia; Alison Cole, Composer and Lecturer in Screen Composition, Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney; Bronwyn Carlson, Professor, Indigenous Studies and Director of The Centre for Global Indigenous Futures, Macquarie University; Harriette Richards, Lecturer, Fashion Enterprise, RMIT University, and Tom Clark, Chair of Academic Board, Victoria University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. 

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Tuesday 27 February 2024

A World Through the Eyes of Botanical Artist Marianne North at Kew Gardens

Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens. Flickr/Helen.2006, CC BY-NC. Cover picture: Stephane Rolland Haute Couture in Paris by Andrea Heinsohn
By Mary Voice, The University of Melbourne

Have you ever entered a gallery, cathedral or grand old ballroom and drawn breath with surprise? Usually, it is opulence, vastness or one stunning painting or sculpture that evokes this response — think Michelangelo’s David, or Chartres Cathedral or the hall of mirrors at Versailles.

In London, an extraordinary gallery draws gasps because there is none like it anywhere else. It is like entering a giant “globe” covered in paintings of faraway places and plants. You can walk from South America to North America to Asia in a few paces.

All the paintings are by the Victorian-era female botanical artist and explorer Marianne North. The small gallery nestles in a stunning natural setting — Kew Gardens beside the Thames River.

A very intrepid painter

The design of the gallery and the layout of the 800-plus paintings were largely North’s idea, assisted by Kew Gardens staff. Though she was a largely self-taught botanical illustrator, she also discovered four specimens that were named in her honour.

woman with palm trees
Victorian-era adventurer and artist Marianne North, photographed at her home in Ceylon by Julia Margaret Cameron around the 1870s. Wikimedia Commons

I remember my first impression of the peacefulness and softness on entering the gallery, elicited by a timber-panelled gallery covered top-to-bottom with paintings. It is a tightly packed mosaic of artworks.

Then I notice the gold lettering of countries and continents above the panels —America, Australia, Japan, Jamaica — and begin to explore the natural world as it was in Victorian times.

The vibrancy, colour and beauty in each individual painting emerges on closer viewing.

I walk from one continent to another noticing the unique vegetation of each, but also the similarity and diversity of natural forms — when these paintings were being created and collated, Charles Darwin had already written:

[…] endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

The gallery displays this exquisitely, from a grand avenue of Indian rubber trees in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), medicinal plants from the tropics, vivid tangerine flowers on coral trees in Brazil, early coffee plantations in Jamaica, to a tall and majestic monkey puzzle tree in Chile. Australian banksia, bottle tree and bottle-brush are accurately and beautifully depicted.

Within the walls of the gallery, I can even travel back in time to see what Mudgee in NSW looked like in the late 1800s.

Over 14 years, Marianne North visited 15 countries and created more than 800 detailed paintings.

Then there are the four specimens named in North’s honour. Kniphofia northiae, discovered in South Africa, now grows in many gardens with the common name red hot poker (Painting no. 367). Northia seychellana is also called the capucin tree Painting no. 501). Nepenthes northiana, a large and unusual pitcher plant, was discovered by Marianne in Borneo (Painting no. 561). And crinum northianum , in the lily family (Painting no. 602), comes from Sarawak, Borneo.

pitcher plant drawing
A New Pitcher Plant from the Limestone Mountains of Sarawak Borneo, painted by Marianne North, circa 1876. Wikimedia Commons/Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

When Charles met Marianne

North was one of several Victorian-era British female explorers. She was born (1830) into a wealthy family and had early connections to Kew gardens since her father knew its first director, Sir William Hooker.

Her interest in botanical art grew as an educational activity and as a means of passing on knowledge in pre-photography times. She made nearly 900 works from across the continents and larger islands.

North set out on her first main botanical tours in the 1870s, 40 years after Darwin sailed on HMS Beagle, determined to “paint from nature”. Her paintings of vegetation, birds, mammals and terrain, depicted with close accuracy, helped to foster awareness of the evolutionary connections between plants, animals and environment.

North and Darwin were in fact acquainted. In 1880 they met and discussed her paintings and he advised her to see and paint the Australian vegetation “which was unlike that of any other country”. North took Darwin’s advice, and returned to Down house in 1881 with a new collection spanning Townsville to Perth.

painting of flowers and landscape
View near Brighton, Victoria by Marianne North, circa 1879. Wikimedia Commons/Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

The world through her eyes

North gifted her botanical collection to Kew Gardens along with a gallery to house it. She arranged the paintings and also the decorations surrounding the doors to the gallery. Hence the unique design and global feel of the gallery interior. It opened in 1882.

Some 140 years later, we can explore her adventurous life and travels and view a global nature study in one gallery. With today’s technology we can see much of it online, which is handy during lockdown. I wonder what human expansion and global warming have done to those special places? If I could retrace North’s steps, what would I see?

After “browsing the continents”, you can exit the gallery into Kew Gardens. Among the 50,000 plants at the World Heritage site, you can search for the rare Australian Wollemi Pine, growing quite vigorously in the grounds.

The words of Darwin in 1859’s Origin of Species come to mind: “There is grandeur in this view of life”.The Conversation

tree painting
African Baobab Tree in the Princess’s Garden at Tanjore, India. Painted by Marianne North, circa 1878. Wikimedia Commons/Royal Botanic Gardens Kew

Mary Voice, Lecturer - Climate (Honorary), The University of Melbourne


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