Wedding photo of the wedding queen Katsura Yumi
Chinese On April 30, Yumikatsura International Inc. announced on its official website that fashion designer Katsura Yumi, who was active around the world as a leading figure in wedding dress design, passed away on April 26. At her request, there will be no funeral, and a memorial service (shinobu kai) will be held at a later date. As a pioneer in the introduction of wedding dresses as wedding attire in Japan, she dramatically changed the concept of wedding in Japan and remained active at the forefront of Japanese wedding ceremonies until her later years.
The company's obituary reads: "Katsura Yumi has dedicated 60 years with extraordinary passion from 1965 to the present, and we inherit her last wishes, and we aim to create a company that will last for 100 years." ”
According to the head office in Minato-ku, Tokyo, Katsura was still working at the store in April. It is said that she has been standing on crutches to serve customers. On April 22, 4 days before her death, she participated in the recording of TV Asahi's "Tetsuko's Room". She wanted to celebrate the company's 60th anniversary next year, but couldn't.
In 1964, Katsura Yumi became Japan's first bridal fashion designer, and the following year (1965) opened a bridal specialty store, Yumi Katsura Bridal Salon, in Akasaka, Tokyo. She organized Japan's first wedding fashion show. At that time, kimono was the mainstream wedding attire. With only 3% of the country wearing wedding dresses, she pioneered wedding dresses. This sparked the rapid spread of "wedding dresses", which are now worn by 90% of Japanese women at weddings.
At a fashion show in China
In the 70s of the 20th century, when rental clothing was prevalent, Katsura Yumi Company launched ready-to-wear wedding dresses that "can be bought with a month's salary", which caused a huge sensation. In 1981, she unveiled the "Yumi Line" dress that would become synonymous with the brand at a fashion show in New York, USA.
This original style, which draws inspiration from the kimono and drags the hem, has attracted the attention of women all over the world. Katsura is said to have designed dresses that combine four aesthetics: silhouettes created by three-dimensional tailoring, dramatic graceful designs, the finest materials and materials resourced from around the world, and exquisite craftsmanship with attention to detail.
Katsura Yumi said that she wants to make Japan the most beautiful country for weddings, and a country where weddings make people happy. It is said that about 700,000 brides wore Katsura Yumi's wedding dress at their weddings. Ms. Katsura is passionate about creating miracles that make women shine brighter on the first day of their lives, and her three junior designers will continue this passion with hers.
What kind of passion and energy made Katsura Yumi experience such an energetic life?
She once said to the Japanese media: My father was born in Fukuoka, and my mother was born in Sendai. They were born and raised in very different places, but they met when my father joined the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (now the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) after graduating from Waseda University and was in charge of the railway postal service in the Tohoku region, and they met in Sendai. My mom's maiden family runs a construction company. She wanted to go to college, but was planning to build a new family home. I heard my grandfather (my mother's father) say, "If you build a new house, you won't have the money to go to college." You have to choose one or the other."
Her mother, the eldest daughter, said: "I would be happy if I went to college, but my family would continue to live in the old house." But if a new house is built, everyone will be happy.
Her mother, who was family-oriented, found someone to arrange an arranged marriage between her and her father, who was a government official in Tokyo.
Katsura Yumi remembers that her father often said to her, "Your mother didn't come to marry me, she married me because she came to Tokyo."
In fact, the first thing Katsura Yumi's mother wanted to do after moving to Tokyo was to study at Bunka Fashion College. Instead of giving up her university studies, she wanted to earn an income with her own hands. At the time, Japan's economy was not doing well, and a couple was barely making ends meet on government salaries alone. However, the children were still young and it was difficult to work outside the home, in part because childcare facilities were not as complete as they are now. She intends to earn some money through "household chores" such as sewing or knitting.
At that time, they lived in an area in the eastern suburbs of Tokyo, across the Edogawa River in Chiba Prefecture, about 1 km from the nearest Koiwa Station. There are also many rice paddies and fields, and every day boys from the neighborhood come and invite Katsura Yumi to play with them. There were ditches in the rice fields that the boys would jump over. Katsura tried to imitate them, but she still fell, soaking wet. When she came home soaking wet, her grandmother told her to stop playing outside with the boys. But as soon as she said this, Katsura Yumi wanted to go even more, but she fell into the ditch again.
After learning various skills at the Bunka Fashion Institute, my mother worked more and more. On Sundays, when government offices are not at work, Katsura Yumi takes her father to the station to buy all sorts of things. I especially want him to buy himself storybooks such as "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella".
Once she was immersed in the book, she would read it for hours on end, but her father never stopped him. And he never said anything superfluous about his wife going to school, or later she decided to open a tailoring school. The same is true for his daughter, as long as his youngest daughter focuses on what she likes, he will let her do what she loves.
The family is a maverick, and Katsura Yumi once recalled with a smile that they didn't listen to others. When my mother's school business was booming and the school and family moved to the vicinity of the station, my father, who didn't hear much about moving because he didn't listen to anyone else, returned to his original home on the day of the move. He was surprised to find that his home was pitch black and empty, so he asked his neighbors where our family had moved.
Although both parents are individualistic and "do your own thing" type, what they all have in common is that they both take "for everyone's good" and "for Japan's good" for granted.
My father was a civil servant, so it was a matter of course. The same goes for her mother. When she learned to work as a tailor for a living, more and more job opportunities came. The school wasn't started because she wanted to make money out of it or become an entrepreneur, but simply because she wanted to lend a helping hand when people needed it. This is also the reason why Katsura Yumi has been working to increase the number of happy people through various wedding-related activities. Katsura Yumi said that she never thought of doing things for her own benefit.
Katsura Yumi, who has designed and produced countless wedding dresses for the world, also considered that she should get married in her early 40s. She started a blind date. For her husband, Katsura Yumi believes that, first of all, he must be a person I can respect. I want someone who has their own business, not someone who is trying to help me with my business.
Through the introduction, she meets Yoshito Yuuki, who later becomes her husband. Since he worked in the Ministry of Finance (at that time), his position was stable, his income was good, and his conditions were superior, so people who went on blind dates came to him. Before Katsura Yumi, he had 36 blind dates. Katsura Yumi's career as a fashion designer seems to have piqued his interest.
They first met at the Okura Hotel. It was early summer, and the weather was hot and sweaty. The introducer told Katsura that she had no choice but to wear a kimono because her partner was from the Ministry of Finance, a serious government department.
Her husband had expected to see a fashion designer, but was disappointed when a lady in a kimono appeared in front of him.
After the two got married, they joked with each other about the scene. Katsura Yumi said that if that were the case, there would be no need to run all the way in such a thick kimono in such a hot weather.
After working as a staff member at the Ministry of Finance Mint, Katsura's husband moved to a private financial institution. One day, he went to the library between work and met an acquaintance who was taking the bar exam. Acquaintances told him that from now on, he had to study seven subjects and said that he was envious of Mr. Yuuki because he had already passed the senior civil service exam. He told me that he did pass the exam because it was a requirement for him when he entered the Ministry of Finance from the University of Tokyo, but with it, he was exempt from three bar exams.
That is, I only need to take four more exams?
In that case, I'll give it a try. Yuuki decided to accept the difficult task of the bar exam.
At that time, Mr. Yuuki gave Katsura Yumi 100,000 yen a month, which was considered his own living expenses. He suddenly asked Katsura Yumi if she could accept that she couldn't give money for three years, and she said, "I'm also working, so I'm okay with that." But why? He replied, "I want to take the bar exam, but I don't know if I can get it." ”
In those days, the bar exam was very difficult, even harder than it is now. I also failed the first exam. Mr. Yuuki was keenly aware of his lack of knowledge and information about the new law and decided to re-enter the University of Tokyo. He was mistaken for a teacher by the younger students and happily surprised them by showing their student IDs.
The second time, he passed. At that time (1979), he was the oldest person to pass the exam (60 years old). "It would be nice to know each other twenty years ago", this sentence is their marriage proposal. After marriage, the couple often shared each other's childhood stories at the wine table. Since Mr. Yuuki is a lawyer and Katsura Yumi is a designer with busy jobs, they rarely have time to travel together or enjoy vacations, but there have been a few times when Mr. Yuuki has traveled abroad with her to fit Katsura Yumi's schedule. Once, they met at the airport in Istanbul, just like in a movie, and one night in Paris, they both finished their day's work and enjoyed a ballet at the opera house. No matter where they go, the duo always has a lot to say.
Yuuki died of illness at the age of 71. He had said before his death that there was no need for any wakes or funeral rites, and that his obituary was only published in newspapers. Many people who knew Mr. Yuuki were surprised and saddened by his untimely death because he was also an active lawyer.
Recalling that when he first became a lawyer, Yuuki was looking for an office, and he asked his wife, who had just built Katsura Yumi's bridal house in Nogizaka, if she could lend him half of the third floor if she had extra space. Katsura Yumi agreed. Yuuki also humorously said, "How about we draw an arrow on the building guide, showing the half of the wedding dress, and write "Please come here for marriage", and draw an arrow on the law office that says "Please come here for divorce".
In an interview with Katsura Yumi, Yuuki said: I can't imagine betting my whole life on a wedding dress. Isn't that a good example of success?
Looking back on her life, Katsura has devoted her life to her career, saying, "I always put my energy into things that not many people do, but that I think are important. That's how my mother lived. I think I've inherited that in some ways as well."
As more and more students attended, my mother started a garment school in Koiwa, which started as an in-house job for the neighbors and grew into a large school organization with more than 2,000 students. Katsura Yumi, who taught there, decided to make a wedding dress as a student's graduation project, which laid the foundation for the rest of Katsura's life.
"When you're dealing with people all year round and they're having some kind of difficulty, you want to help them," she says. I just took it for granted, I'm not a great person as you think."
"I want to live an interesting life and encounter all kinds of things. I want to make sure I don't have any regrets." This is what Katsura Yumi often says.