In 2022, Rei Kawakubo will be 80 years old.
As a world-renowned fashion guru, Rei Kawakubo has been the spiritual icon of several generations since she appeared at Paris Fashion Week in 1981, including my post-80s partner, UNLADYLIKE manager and designer Choi Cheuk-jun, as well as Melo, a post-00 employee of The Cover Street Market Singapore store who met through Little Red Book.
Throughout her life, Rei Kawakubo believed in this attitude to life:
MY ENERGY COMES FROM FREEDOM.
Freedom gives me energy.
She even unswervingly printed this slogan on the bag of her own brand CDG and on the tide shoes co-branded with VANS.
Cui Zhuojun watched the movie "See Nara Again" one day and had a long time to reminisce. He distilled the keywords of "identity" and "self-identity" from the film, and quickly designed the graffiti poster of the second capsule series of UNLADYLIKE:
WE ARE WHO WE ARE.
The director of the phenomenal film "Call Me by Your Name" later made an American drama called "We Are Who We Are", which Chinese fans translated as "True Colors". But we still interpret it warmly as:
Be yourself.
I hope that even if you wear armor, you can maintain the temperature. Because we believe that all deep love is soft at heart.
It was only when I got the lookbook of the new series that I was caught off guard and found that Cui had printed this English sentence on the sweatshirt in the form of graffiti...
During my time in middle school, I served as a member of the class advocacy committee. Every time I write a large blackboard newspaper on the back wall in chalk, it comes from the enlightenment of graffiti to me.
But as a young man, I was only exposed to the tip of the iceberg of the graffiti world, not to the end of the universe of this street culture.
I learned many years later that in New York City, across the ocean, there was a street artist named Brian Donnelly who ventured to smuggle advertising paintings or posters from bus stops and phone booths (e.g., DKNY, Calvin Klein) back to the studio, injected the skull logo elements of his own design into it for processing, and then returned to the original position without anyone noticing, thus getting the name "Graffiti Monster".
Later, this skull logo became more and more popular. By the time I really grew up, the world would already know its name, Kaws.
But the world's greatest street graffiti artist isn't Brian Donnelly, but Banksy, a mysterious man born in the same year as him.
Banksy's work covers a wide range of political and social issues, with graffiti setting record prices at auction several times, museums around the world rushing to host exhibitions of his paintings, and his film Exit Through the Gift Shop, which he directed, was even nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary.
Cui threw the B-station source of this documentary to me to watch, and I suddenly fell in love with Banksy. Even though the world may seem like a joke at times, Banksy still has a pure and loving love for life.
Cui is also such a mentor and friend in my heart.
Me: What do you think of sweatshirts?
Cui: Sweatshirts are a trendy item that is especially suitable for everyday wear, and it is suitable for men and women, young and old, fat and thin. In my opinion, you will feel comfortable wearing a sweatshirt, but there are actually two reasons. The first is an elastic cotton or knitted fabric that will make you feel good to wear; the second is a loose and crumbling fit.
But this also means that ordinary sweatshirts will be very simple in sewing process and cutting methods, and the texture of the fabric will be more basic. So I was thinking about how to improve, such as whether we could use better fabrics, whether we could sew more hand-to-hand methods, but in fact, these can be solved at the technical level. What's more, regular sweatshirts seem to lack interest, and then the richness of the collocation will be reduced.
Me: Sweatshirts on the market, it feels more like playing with color.
Cui: So I hope that UNLADYLIKE can make a breakthrough in the way sweatshirts are styled.
.
Round 1
Me: Let's start with the first sweatshirt you designed in the Season 2 capsule collection.
Cui: When you put it on the bed, you will feel that it is particularly like a small cloak, but in fact, it borrows the flared sleeve shape of a women's shirt and makes a natural curl, just like Kore-eda's movie, simple and delicate and romantic. Then it's also shorter than a regular sweatshirt, which raises the waistline and gives the figure proportions a visual boost of a level.
Me: So while UNLADYLIKE promotes the concept of no gender, this sweatshirt is relatively more suitable for girls.
Cui: Yes, this sweatshirt is more feminine. Then you pay attention to the psychedelic print on the sweatshirt, is there a kind of street graffiti wall effect, and then it will also give you a slightly drunk feeling? I don't want to make it pure street, such as painting a big skeleton, printing a big beauty or something, so that the peace is laid out and direct, losing the sense of high street.
Round 2
Me: What about the second sweatshirt?
Cui: I have a pair of knitted shorts in both black and white that can be put together to highlight street fashion. However, the white version I will use plant dyeing, black no. This design is made into a unisex size that I can wear. Then you notice that its two sides are made of split design, which looks like two pieces of cloth on the body, which is actually a reference to the design of Rei Kawakubo's early years. In addition to being loose and comfortable, the more important point of this side leak design is that it is easy to wear. You imagine that when you put a printed T-shirt or striped shirt underneath, and then wear this sweatshirt, it will form a richer layering of wear.
Me: emmmmmm, can I write about your borrowing from Rei Kawakubo?
Cui: Yes, no problem, why can't you learn from a master (not to mention my idol). (●'◡'●)
Finally, I said that the sample clothes were made, and the Lookbook also spent a lot of money to shoot, but why change the original print pattern - because I wanted the street graffiti element to reflect an attitude and spirit. Regarding the white pattern, it is a osmanthus logo print on the top and a large area of plant dyeing below, which is a bit similar to the traditional composition method of the "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" interpreted by the Spring Festival Gala dance "Only This Green", and there are work-oriented dot paintings in the vast blend, which complement each other. As for the rough English graffiti "ORDINARY PERSON" of the black model, I wonder if most people are ordinary people, but we can live our own attitude.
Round 3
Me: Let's talk about the third design.
Cui: I wanted to make this sweatshirt a trendy piece that is purely matched and more interesting, retaining the shape of the sweatshirt, but there are no sleeves and hem at all, only some rope. In fact, both the East and the West had such a way of wearing in ancient times, and two pieces of cloth were tied with a rope, which became a blouse.
Regarding the graffiti English "WE ARE WHO WE ARE", I would like to say more. When I first wanted to use this sentence, I didn't mean to give in and admit defeat. This is the same as the "ORDINARY PERSON" above, just like the song "Ordinary Road" sung by Park Shu, bravely facing his own vulnerability and smallness, even if the wind and rain are not regrettable.
Let's talk about the circular pattern of the substrate. It is a symbol that I like very much, and Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto often use it. The circle has a special meaning in both science and religion, for example, most of the universe is a round celestial body, for example, in Buddhism and Taoism, there is a term "perfection"... The sense of form of the circle is also particularly rich. I think it will also appear in our singles in the future, such as the polka dots of the first season of UNLADYLIKE capsule series.
Round 4
Me: So our 2nd capsule line of sweatshirts has 3 designs.
Cui: But I would also like to add about this T-shirt, because it also uses design elements of street graffiti. The English "DISMALAND" actually pays tribute to Banksy's ridicule of Disneyland.
Banksy's initiative happened 7 years ago, when he joined forces with a few artist friends to turn an abandoned waterfront paradise into a playground called "DISMALAND" – "blackening" the fantasy fairy tale world created by Disney in one fell swoop, such as Banksy dropping her mouth and smiling face, and cutting off the mermaid's tail with a knife... I was so amazed to see this paragraph when I flipped through the book, wow, it can still be like this!
I think what makes Banksy great is that he only needs to change one thing, and the original taste and taste of the whole picture will change. You say that deconstruction is OK, ridicule or allegory, a creator's thinking can be special... Having a sense of luxury in it is a cool thing in itself. (End)
About UNLADYLIKE
UNLADYLIKE, an independent designer brand that promotes the concept of no gender, was founded in 2021 by 3 young Chinese people. UNLADYLIKE blurs the boundaries of gender, breaks people's prejudices against gender, emphasizes the actual wear and wearing scenes of clothing, pays attention to the cultural symbols expressed in the design, and the identity of the wearer.
UNLADYLIKE debuted at AW2021 Shanghai Fashion Week and won the Signed Designer Award at the YINGER PRIZE Global Designer Competition, and will collaborate on the launch of the capsule co-brand collection. UNLADYLIKE has been located in Beijing/Shanghai/Chengdu/Wuhan/Changsha/Xiamen and other cities.