"When we say the beginning is often the end, and the proclamation of the end is the beginning of the beginning. The end point is where we set off." In his later work Quartet, the leader of modernist poetry, T. S. Eliot presents the above short poem as the finale of the whole work, and in this representative poem of Elio's career, he creates a series of poems discussing time, perspective, humanity and redemption through the two major carriers of musicology and modern poetry.
In March this year, Takahiromiyashita The Soloist, founded by Japanese designer Takahiro Miyashita, quoted the end of the quartet in the main theme of the Fall/Winter 2021 collection. This is not a hint of Miyashita's future direction, even though the designer made the decision to "end" in 2009 — on February 20, 2009, he officially announced his decision to retire with an official statement from the Number (N)ine brand, less than a month after the release of the Fall/Winter 2009 collection.
The Soloist's Fall/Winter 2021 collection is named "Re", and on the second day of the series' release, junsuke Yamasaki, former editor-in-chief of Dazed & Confused Japan, had a conversation with designers about the creation of Fall/Winter 2021, and Takahiro Miyashita said in his interpretation of the concept of "Re": "It represents both the thesis and the opposite, freedom and constraint, it is an update to the past and the present, and this attitude is reflected in 2021 Autumn/Winter series of works. It's the beginning and it's the end, and I'm somehow shuttling back and forth between the two."
Takahiromiyashita The Soloist's Fall/Winter 2021 collection | Via Takahiromiyashita The Soloist
The beginning is often the end, and the declaration of the end is the beginning of the beginning, T. S. Eliot's writing of the quartet, which was transplanted by Takahiro Miyashita into the main concept of the "Re" series, and on another level, it also has a certain degree of fit with the designer's personal career resume. More than a year after the number (N)ine was marked, in July 2010, Takahiromiyashita The Soloist was born, and Takahiro Miyashita returned with his unfinished vision of menswear. As Eliot writes, declaring the end is the beginning of the work.
At first, after the news of his departure from Number (N)ine was announced, speculation about the reasons for the designer's withdrawal was incessant, and such as the idea that words such as the exhaustion of inspiration were once rampant and seemed to become the definitive evidence. It wasn't until January 2020, a few days before takahiromiyashita The Soloist's third Paris fashion show debut, that Takahiro Miyashita revealed the reason for his departure in a conversation with StyleZeitgeist founder Eugene Rabkin: "For me, designing clothes is like making music, Number (N)ine became a professional band, a band I didn't want to join. I'm losing myself, I don't think I'm expressing myself through these costumes anymore."
Designer Takahiro Miyashita | Via Alessandro Simonetti
The right to free expression of creativity is at the heart of cult designers like Takahiro Miyashita, where there is no possibility of compromise, and it is not about a change in design style or anything that can be presented from the surface of the clothing image. It connects the designer's personal world, intimate experiences, and thoughts that cannot be expressed in words, and when this passage creates a crack that cannot be bridged, Miyashita's "loyalty" to himself prompts him to make a choice.
Number (N)ine's Fall/Winter 2009 collection seems to correspond to T. S. Eliot's quartet of "declaring the end is the beginning of the beginning", while the Number (N)ine's Autumn/Winter 2004 collection, which debuted at Paris Fashion Week five years ago, does not seem to fit the sentiment of the previous sentence "What we say is the beginning is often the end". It was Takahiro Miyashita's paris debut collection, and nearly two years after his best friend Takahashi Madeu appeared in the Western fashion world, the number (N)ine, which had an equally strong cultural orientation, took over, and in that period, it was not the end, but the beginning of another Cult Brand cultural wave.
In the new "THROWBACK THURSDAY" section, NOWRE chooses to step into the aesthetic world of designer Takahiro Miyashita, looking back at the Number (N)ine Autumn/Winter 2004 collection that debuted at Paris Fashion Week, which is the beginning and the end, and Takahiro Miyashita is somehow constantly shuttling back and forth between the two.
Cult Brand begins
Via Yusuke Uchiha
As far as the profession of fashion design is concerned, there is an almost sharp contrast and distinction between the cobain and the designers who are not from the co-class, which is particularly evident in the early stages of their respective costume creation. Creatives who have received college education will mostly choose to start from the direction of fabric, tailoring, texture, etc. In general, the composition of clothing can be seen as the creative framework of college designers, his/her style grammar, personal perspective, most of them around this framework. The focus of the non-class creatives, in summary, is not to focus on the elements of the clothing composition, but to place the interpretive scenes and crowds of the costumes, as well as their corresponding cultural settlements and ancillary group effects, in the center.
Takahiro Miyashita is a typical representative of designers who are not from the class.
Via StyleZeitgeist Magazine
Miyashita's close friend, UNDERCOVER founder Dun Takahashi, once said that the difference between their group of designers and the older generation of Japanese designers such as Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto is that they are more influenced by youth culture, especially music. This group of designers, including Takahashi Dun and Miyashita Takahiro, in their youth, that is, the important period of value formation, received the impact and nourishment from Western youth culture indiscriminately, and they longed for the sense of identity given by the group settlement, and formed a demand for clothing to show identity and attitude on this tone. The punk gene that Takahashi Shield injected into UNDERCOVER more than once expresses the idea that we make noise, not clothes, and in the context of Number (N)ine's works, people can sometimes perceive the world of rock music and independent films constructed by Takahiro Miyashita, which is also born against the bone and does not follow the rules.
Fundamentally, the character of Number (N)ine is also a true portrayal of the designer himself, and the resistance to standardized education determines that Miyashita Takahiro's life path will not be followed step by step. In high school, he opposed all the pedantic content printed in books, skipped class, drank alcohol, gathered in crowd fights, and took root with friends in the streets of Harajuku and Shibuya, so that he was eventually expelled from the school. When young people of the same age were playing their respective roles according to the arrangement of family and school, the problem boy Miyashita Takahiro "had to" enter the society. It was a far-reaching shift in the trajectory of his life.
"I've been thinking about how to get cooler. I thought, if I hadn't met those friends, that wouldn't have happened. Also, I think the special feel of clothing is crucial to shaping my identity, and looking back, I really take a lot from the streets." In an exclusive interview, Takahiro Miyashita recalls the rebellious times of his early years. After leaving school, he initially worked in a grocery store, then went to Check Mate magazine as an assistant stylist, and the only little income he had was spent on buying clothes, and Miyashita would disassemble the purchased items in order to remake them, which was the beginning of his contact with design, no one to guide, and perhaps no reference at all. The encounter with Nepenthes in the mid-1990s really opened Miyashita's eyes and laid the foundation for his future creation of Number (N)ine.
Nepenthes co-founder Daiki Suzuki and Keisa Shimizu (right) | Via Christian Werner
Prior to joining Nepenthes, Miyashita worked at a clothing store called Propeller, and because of his love of American-style pieces, the Nepenthes store became a frequent place for him, which also attracted the attention of the store manager, and informed Nepenthes founder Keisa Shimizu that there was a boy who often came to the store wearing personalized clothes. After some observation, Keizo Shimizu formally meets with Miyashita and invites him to join Nepenthes. During this period, he began to travel regularly to the United States to conduct single-item selection and local research on American style, and cities such as Austin in Texas, Bart in Montana, and Portland in Oregon became places for Miyashita Takahiro to gain an in-depth understanding of American style.
In an interview published in the 15th issue of Highsnobiety magazine in 2018, Takahiro Miyashita shared his views on Kiyomizu Kezo, saying bluntly that Kiyomizu Keisa is not the kind of person who is outspoken, and he did not explain or tell Miyashita how to make clothes step by step. Instead, he wanted Miyashita to learn from observing his work. And admonish yourself to be free. Do what you feel is right.
In fact, Kiyomizu Keisa's excavation of Miyashita Takahiro is not limited to inviting him to join Nepenthes, he always has an idea, this young man will do his own series. In this way, Miyashita launched his first collection during nepenthes' tenure, with a total of 20 styles, almost most of which were derived from previous reconstructions of existing clothing. After this series came out, he began to put personal branding on the agenda.
In 1996, number (N)ine, taken from a repetitive lyric from the Beatles' experimental song "Revolution 9", came into being, and Takahiro Miyashita's life course opened a new chapter, he will meet the next Bole and confidant who has an important impact on his career, and he will return to the turbulent moments of those growing up years, looking for young people who converge with his love, and establishing a cultural settlement portrayed by clothing.
It is worth mentioning that according to Miyashita Takahiro himself, the (N) in the Number (N) ine brand is actually written on behalf of Nepenthes.
「Give Peace A Chance」
Grailed Street
The figure of UNDERCOVER founder Tsutomu Takahashi, in the story of Takahiro Miyashita, is a constantly mentioned existence, two Japanese designers with mirror-like cultural attributes, immersed in the same soil of youth, as Takahashi Said: "I like the similar way we look at things, and we have the same cultural references in our works, such as music and movies." In 1996, after the second series of displays of the Number (N)ine brand, Takahashi came to Takahiro Miyashita's studio, and the somewhat shy Miyashita just said hello and left in a hurry, after which Takahashi found his contact information and invited him and his girlfriend to his home for dinner. Mutual appreciation and recognition ultimately contributed to the longevity of this friendship.
In 2002, Takahashi made the decision to travel to Paris at the suggestion of Rei Kawakubo, founder of Comme des Garçons, and two years later, Takahashi, who had already taken root in the Western fashion world, gave the same advice to Takahiro Miyashita. The latter talked about the past in an interview: "I remember jun persuading me to do an exhibition in Paris, I was completely unsure, I considered a lot of factors, but if Jun said so, I should do it." 」 In Takahashi's eyes, Takahiro Miyashita had surpassed the platform of Tokyo Fashion Week at that time, and he needed to find a broader stage for his cultural aspirations.
Takahashi Shield and Miyashita Takahiro | Via Google
After the visit to Paris was confirmed, Takahiro Miyashita began to prepare for the Fall/Winter 2004 collection, and in the presentation of the theme, he chose the 1969 single "Give Peace A Chance" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which was completed during the second reclining protest by Lennon and Yoko Ono. After the outbreak of the Vietnam War in 1969, John Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono held two week-long peaceful sleeper protests, at the Hilton Hotel in Amsterdam and the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, to express nonviolent protests against the acts of war. The recording of "Give Peace A Chance" took place in Room 1742 of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel.
Lennon protests with his wife Yoko Ono at a recede in Montreal | Via Getty Images
On May 25, 1969, the first day of arriving at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Lennon mentioned the phrase Give Peace A Chance in an interview with the media. During the week-long recessive protest, Lennon and Yoko Ono summarized their dialogue about peace, adding melodies and lyrics, into a single, and recorded the song on the last day of the protest.
Takahiro Miyashita chose the title of the single "Give Peace A Chance" as the theme for Number (N)ine's Fall/Winter 2004 collection, setting the anti-war tone for his Paris debut. This move also echoed the turbulent international political climate of that period, when the panic that spread during the 9/11 incident in 2001 had not yet dissipated, and the clouds of subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq once again hung over the Middle East. In his series debuting in the Western world, Takahiro Miyashita strides sharply and forcefully into this sensitive political issue, exporting Number(N)ine's anti-war attitude from the perspective of a cultural narrative. From this point of view, he and Takahashi Dun led UNDERCOVER to Paris Fashion Week's Spring/Summer 2003 collection "SCAB", which has similar characteristics, which is also the identity of the two sides in the level of cultural reference.
Music, especially rock music, as the core essence of Miyashita's works, almost fully represents the external skeleton and inner emotions of the Number (N)ine series. His insane fascination with pioneering figures such as John Lennon and Kurt Cobain is not only expressed in the visual reproduction of their images, but also in the transmission of their emotional world through these iconic appearances. The dress of a musician is a manifestation of his own spiritual world, and as the late American musician Frank Zappa said, no iteration of musical style will survive unless accompanied by a change in the style of clothing.
John Frusciante | Via Steve Rosen
In the Number (N)ine Fall/Winter 2004 collection, Takahiro Miyashita's music focuses on American experimental rock singer John Frusciante. In the background of the runway's music, Miyashita chose John Frusciante's "Forever Away", "Falling" and 2001's "Going Inside" released by John Frusciante on "The Brown Bunny" album in 2004, placing them in the opening, middle and closing scenes. The two singles "Forever Away" and "Falling" are the soundtracks created by John Frusciante for the experimental road drama film The Brown Bunny released in 2003.
Going Inside album cover | Via Warner Records Inc.
Looking closely at Takahiro Miyashita's musical choices, we can also see the Japanese designer's private state of mind, the "Forever Away" that was first played in the opening part seems to express his emotions of leaving his hometown and going to Paris, and the repeated Forever away from / Forever away from home lyrics in the single seem to echo the "Revolution 9" in a sense of the source of the brand name, and the cycle is repeated Number nine lyrics. In his first series on the European stage, Takahiro Miyashita unveiled the number (N)ine trip to Paris through the intertextuality of music and brand identity.
This reminds people of Takahashi's specially placed four-leaf lucky grass logo in the UNDERCOVER Spring/Summer 2003 collection "SCAB", two Japanese designers with strong rebellious characteristics, but both have an incomparably delicate heart. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why Takahashi Shield and Miyashita Takahiro regard each other as confidants.
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Number (N)ine Fall/Winter 2004 series runway | Via YouTube @Félix R.
The anti-war theme of "Give Peace A Chance" is directly extended in the Runway Look of the Number (N)ine Fall/Winter 2004 collection, with the first six models appearing in ASAT Camo camouflage. Created in 1986 by two American hunting enthusiasts, Jim Barnhart and Stan Starr Jr., the motif was originally positioned in the category of camouflage in hunting costumes, but with the expansion of U.S. military involvement around the world in the 1980s, the Army's demand for camouflage increased simultaneously, leading to the idea of responding to different climates, landforms, and vegetation with a single type of camouflage, while ASAT Camo (All Season All Terrains Camo) The concept of all-weather all-terrain camouflage catered to this need, and since then, the ASAT Camo has become one of the regular camouflage uniforms of the U.S. military.
ASAT Camo | in all-terrain camouflage Via ASAT Camo
In his Fall/Winter 2004 collection, Takahiro Miyashita adjusted the ASAT Camo motif from the regular form of thorn to a heart shape, in order to express the anti-war consciousness conveyed by the entire theme. The models walking in the order of the series of items, indifferent eyes ignoring the camera, looking down at the ground, as if resisting something. But it is not decadent and empty, between the sometimes wrapped, sometimes exposed eyes, people capture the determination and determination, Miyashita Takahiro through the fashion show formed the emotional extension, once again with the "Give Peace A Chance" theme of the background of the quiet protest reached a juxtaposition, and the number (N) ine 2004 autumn winter opening message, but also set a consistent tone for the entire series.
Number (N)ine's Fall/Winter 2004 collection unveils ASAT Camo's | Via Archived.co
With the opening of John Frusciante's 2001 album's companion track,"Going Inside," a series of models wearing T-shirts based on gothic fonts and Morse codes appeared, another appearance of Miyashita's cultural narrative involvement in politics in the Fall/Winter 2004 series "Give Peace A Chance", transforming from a silent protest in the opening to a direct satire.
Number (N)ine 2004 Fall/Winter 2004 closed slogan T | Via Archived.co
The slogans, which are screen-printed on the front of the T-shirts, point directly at the U.S. government authorities at the time, such as "DIFFERENT BUSH, SAME AGENDA" (different Bush, the same agenda), alluding to the many acts of aggression waged by the two presidents of the Bush family during their tenure (the first Gulf War in 1991, the Afghan war in 2001, and the Iraq war in 2003).
「DIFFERENT BUSH，SAME AGENDA」口号 T | Via Silver League
「REPUBLICAN’T」口号 T | Via Silver League
「HAVE YOU SEEN THE BUSH, LIAR？」口号 T | Via Silver League
「HAVE YOU SEEN THE BUSH, LIAR？」 (Liar, did you see Bush?), then satirized George Bush's all-out invasion of Iraq in 2003 on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and secretly supported terrorists, and finally for more than 7 years, the US military could not find the so-called weapons of mass destruction, but took the opportunity to eliminate the anti-American Saddam regime, and the American people called George Bush a liar; "REPUBLICAN'T" It points to the Republican Party, the ruling party in the United States at the time, and both President Bush were Republicans.
Number (N)ine Fall/Winter 2004 series runway | Via Archived.co
The Number (N)ine Fall/Winter 2004 collection ends with the lyrics of John Frusciante's "And if anything unfolds It's supposed to Ooh", with Takahiro Miyashita's closing greetings appearing hasty and short, only to appear in the camera and then turn around. There is an extreme opposition between his sharp and unruly design theme and his shy personality, but this does not prevent Number (N)ine and Takahiro Miyashita from becoming a new force in the Japanese wave of the Parisian fashion scene. After that debut series, Takahashi told him that the show was just an experiment, and in Miyashita's view, it was not enough to just express these directions, he could change something and try to make a statement. As he said in a conversation with VOGUE contributor Tiffany Godoy, the only mission he wants to accomplish:
"Men's traditional clothing looks consistent, like a dark blue blazer with gray pants and so on. Why do people only want to see a certain type of clothing for men? What I wanted to achieve was the kind of vision that I and Takahashi Shield had done —diversity, and a broader vision of menswear. Clothing should have colors and dreams."
Alessandro Simonetti Street
In The Soloist's Fall/Winter 2021 collection, mentioned at the beginning of the feature, Takahiro Miyashita established a detail containing hidden musical scores, symbolizing a musical score through two straps of a jacket and shirt on the upper body, and three straps of the lower pants, and his costume representing notes. As the designers put it, this series of strict rules against the score, the silhouette of the garment moves freely between the pencil-drawn lines, creating a beautiful melody.
This setting may also reflect the creative career of Takahiro Miyashita, the troubled teenager who wandered the streets of Harajuku and Shibuya, the design talent valued by Keisa Shimizu, the shy rising star who was regarded as a confidant by Takahashi Dun, and even the last great Cult Designer in the mouth of Highsnobiety Editorial Director Jian DeLeon, who was the creator, performer and interpreter of the scores of Number (N)ine and The Soloist. Various accounts of youth culture, swirling between the gaps in the grand score, record Takahiro Miyashita's "pitch fingering" in the form of symbols. Although these cultural groups and symbols in the designer's eyes have long since lost their influence, they remain at the heart of his score—"I inevitably return to these sources because they have profoundly influenced me in my formative years."
It is the beginning and the end, and Kiyoshi Miyashita somehow shuttles back and forth between the two.