The world's garments might be made in factories, but fashion is made in the media. In an age when trends coalesce and melt away in the time it takes to put a "#" in front of a keyword, an age when fashion has the potential to be more democratic and idiosyncratic than ever, isn't it strange then, that so much power is still held by monolithic, archaic magazines?
The current exhibition at Contemporary Art Gallery, Art Tower Mito (a prefectural museum about two and a half hours north of Tokyo) presents an alternative way of approaching this system that produces "fashion," by showing the work of a group of artists, designers and photographers, led by a softly spoken woman named Nakako Hayashi.
No, you probably haven't heard of her, but over the past two decades this editor and writer has been waging a delicate war against the hegemony of fashion, attempting to revive the aura fading from the clothes we wear. Through her work in magazines such as Hanatsubaki, Purple, Ryuko Tsushin and Here and There, she has spelled out a DIY and personal approach to clothing; one of ownership and subjectivity.
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