Yayoi Kusama's Fashion Legacy
A look at Yayoi Kusama's influential but often overlooked fashion ventures, from her 1960s clothing company to her impact on designers like Rei Kawakubo.
Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who died at 97, pursued self-obliteration through art but left a distinct mark on fashion. Her influence extends from illegal 1960s happenings to a major Louis Vuitton collaboration decades later.
According to a source originally published in March 2021, Kusama's relationship with clothing was a constant, rarely acknowledged thread throughout her career. Her work aimed to negate herself into the environment using polka dots, infinity rooms, and globular sculptures.
Kusama's Personal Style
Kusama used clothing as an extension of her art and a publicity tool. In the early 1960s in New York, she often wore sumptuous kimonos to gallery openings, playing with an "exotic" appearance in the Western art market. Her 1966 film Walking Piece satirized the geisha image by showing her wandering Manhattan in a pink kimono.
Later, her clothing began to blend into her spatial installations, becoming a device to obliterate space. She ultimately cultivated a signature self-image, rarely seen without a bright red wig and a dotted dress, in a longtime exercise in self-branding similar to Andy Warhol's iconic look.
Kusama Fashion Company Ltd.
Yayoi Kusama established the Kusama Fashion Company Ltd. in 1968. She partnered with a company president who had been copying her designs, leading to widespread media coverage. The brand was soon sold in 400 stores and boutiques across the United States, with a Bloomingdales "Kusama Corner" and a short-lived boutique on Sixth Avenue opening in April 1969.
The brand's daring pieces reflected Kusama's obsessions with orgies and nudity. Key items included the hooded "Squid Dress" with breast cut-outs, the "Homo Dress" with a strategic rear hole, and evening gowns with peep-holes. Kusama admitted the most radical items sold poorly.
She later started the Nude Fashion Company, an offshoot intended to bring "fresh ideas for enjoying sex into the mainstream." This line featured items like the "Couples Dress" and a "Party Dress" that could accommodate up to 25 people. All items were decorated with polka dots.
Accumulation Series and Rei Kawakubo
Kusama's "Accumulation Series," featuring objects covered in repeating appendages, is considered a precursor to Rei Kawakubo's work at Comme des Garçons. Kawakubo has explored similar themes of convolution and protrusion, redrawing silhouettes with swollen fabric.
The mutual admiration was explicit. Kawakubo and Kusama hosted a joint LED-dotted exhibition called Room to Grow in 2009. Echoes of the Accumulation Series are seen in designers like Noir Kei Ninomiya, Iris Van Herpen, and Chet Lo.
Food Obsession and Margiela
Kusama's fear of food consumption led to her "Food Obsession" sculptures, where she made endless macaroni pieces to achieve obliteration. She applied this to fashion, creating shirts, dresses, bags, and shoes festooned with dried pasta, then dipped in gold or silver paint.
This approach finds a parallel in the work of Martin Margiela, where the application of paint unifies clothing as soft-sculpture, presenting fashion as an uncanny, stiffened artefact. John Galliano's debut for Margiela also featured lacquered shells bulging from a coat, reminiscent of Kusama's clustered affixions.
Louis Vuitton and Collaborations
In 2012, Kusama collaborated with Louis Vuitton, an alliance that seemed at odds with her anti-establishment roots. The partnership produced handbags and accessories covered in her signature dots. This major collaboration cemented her status within the fashion industry, demonstrating how her avant-garde vision could translate to commercial luxury. Her iconic polka dots became a high-fashion commodity.
