Are you planning a trip to the U.S. soon, or perhaps you are already in the vicinity of Salem, Massachusetts? If so, then don’t miss the opportunity to visit the Peabody Essex Museum exhibition going on until January 26, entitled:

Future Beauty: Avant-Garde Japanese Fashion

Organised together with the Kyoto Costume Institute and the Barbican Art Gallery of London, the show focuses on how the different conception of beauty expressed by the so-called Japanese school has turned traditional Western fashion styles on their heads and forced people to re-examine the relationship between design, art, fashion and culture.

Whereas most designers’ work centres around the cult of the female body, Japanese avant-garde on the other hand is engaged with transforming it radically, according to Katherine Bowers of WWD (Women’s Wear Daily). And this transfiguration is on display at the Peabody Essex Museum in a selection of pieces exemplifying the different conceptual approach set in motion largely by four major heralds of what could be considered an aesthetic revolution: Rei Kawakubo-Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Junya Watanabe.

This is a wonderful opportunity to explore the complex work of these designers, whose expert knowledge and unquestionable creative genius has the ability to accentuate and respect the female intellect in a way that slick fashion has rarely, if ever, been capable of doing.

If for some reason you absolutely cannot make it to the exhibition, you can still get a feel fo it in our online catalogue which is simply put, the largest selection in the world of Japanese Avant-Garde Fashion…

Many thanks to Peabody Essex Museum for the photos