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TOP > Report > Creative Café features architecture series No 3 Telling a story through dress (clothes) - architecture and fashion 1/3

Creative Café features architecture series No 3 Telling a story through dress (clothes) - architecture and fashion 1/3pict

2010.10.02

Hiroyoshi Fukamachi
Studied under Tatsu Nagamori Akira (representative of Office Nagamori). Engaged in fashion textile plan development at Marubeni, and Marubeni fashion planning. Also engaged in a local economic revitalisation business, the import and sale (Mitsukoshi, Tan Ise) of womens’ miscellaneous goods, planning factory systems and Department Store brands. In 2005, became independent. Also a representative of Meta art Japan, and a Tokyo University of Art and Design part-time teacher.

IMG_0680.JPGNohara:I would like to thank so many people for coming here today. We really have exceeded our seating capacity! At Tokyo Tech, we are pursuing various types of activity under the Creative Flow title. Although there are many aspects of science and technology which have become common, really without science we could not have established the world as we know it. When we think seriously about science, many factors remarkably like art appear. It is through this thinking that we, through these activities, hope to accumulate experience and thinking on this aspect.

●What is fashon 
Fukamachi:Good evening everyone. My own parents' work had a relationship with fashion once, and during my upbringing, I was surrounded by thread and cloth, sewing machines and many clothes. From my middle and senior school I tried buying various fashion magazines such as Marie Clare and Vogue. As far as I was concerned, fashion was an indispensable habit.
Now I would like to think about how fashion fits into the concept of science and art with in today's Creative Flow event. Moreover today, we are within the series whose theme is architecture and society design. Before starting my talk, what actually is fashion? Let's think about this a little. What sort of image does the word fashion conjure in your minds?A:Paris collection?
B:Paris?
C:cloth?
D:shoes, cloth etc?
E:lifestyle?
F:Trends?
G:Finery , apparel, dress?
Fukamachi:lifestyle. Recently the large trading houses have absorbed fashion departments, textile departments, and sections concerned with the implications for the industry environment of lifestyle changes. 'Fashion' has become established as part of our overall lifestyle.
At this point, I would like to think one more time about the word fashion. The origin of the word is the Latin for 'factio' which means 'things which are made'. Fashion basically means something which has been made. Related words are 'affect' (e.g. affecting the emotions), 'fact' (truth, information), and faction (group, party etc). This means that we can express fashion as something which uses 'fact' to make something which 'affects' the emotions of different groups (factions). This makes it a word which is clearly involved in our everyday lifestyle, doesn't it?
If we say fashion in Japan, there is trendy fashion and basic fashion. Since fashion is trends, trendy fashion seems a bit strange perhaps. If we simply say fashion, I think we are talking about clothing and things closely related to clothing. More recently another word which has featured is 'mode'. This has the Latin origin of modus (method or scale). It may be best to think about 'mode' as expressing a broader trend than the word 'fashion'.

NB: below I use the word fashion in various ways. Firstly, to relate to clothes and closely related items, next to trends, then fashion in the sense of architecture and things which are made, finally fashion as a combination of the above meanings.

●Fashion- from the surface to the inner meaning
Fukumachi:Have you heard of the Tokyo girls collection? It's not just fashion models, but a fashion event which brings out the whole topic of talent. Not just the collection models, but that many other models who have a feeling of affinity also come wearing their own clothes.  You may think it is an event to sell clothes but in reality, its main objective is to create a scheme for shopping via a mobile handset. You can purchase while watching the show. In addition to selling clothes, there are also profits from the use of the mobile handset. The main players in the industry are different. So on the surface it is a clothing event but underneath there is a different objective. If you look at the source of funding you will understand. This is an example of where fashion is the creation of system.
Fashion is not just about creating clothes, it can be seen as a way of creating a whole system. In this case, you establish the viewpoint of fashion as architecture (societal design).

●Trends in the lifestyle industry brought about by media.
IMG_0747.JPGFashion and psychological marketing had a deep inter-connection with research into brain science. What the industry expects from brain science is somehow to generate profits by creating customers. How best to have customers buy your own companies products. While researching the market, one can make clearer the psychological mechanisms involved in purchasing. For example, everyone will know the creation of the 'Gandam' generation. The ideal customer for your company is like the 'Gandam' generation who, once they have come to like it, they will continue to buy for ever.
By the way, there has been an accident recently in a scientific laboratory, what were you able to learn?  
S: Fire cannot be used?
Fukumachi:yes; the handling of fire indeed. In households with children, the use of IH heating has increased so that even if you put paper on the kitchen table and turn on the switch there is no flame. However I use gas or a spirit lamp in experiments, and there is the possibility of burning if you are careless. So why has IH heating become popular?
M:Energy wars?
N:If you don't use fire, the risk of causing a fire is very low.
P:The convenience of cleaning
T:The convenience of cleaning
Fukumachi:concerning energy efficiency, which produces less carbon dioxide-gas or electricity?
N:At first glance, I think that gas produces more carbon dioxide, however in reality, if you think of it from the point of view of energy efficiency, IH heater efficiency is very bad.
Fukumachi:yes. As expected, an engineering expert! Well, why has it become popular? This is connected with fashion. In order to make a thing, and to sell a thing, its fashionableness is very important. So let's think about the system for creating fashion and trends. How you create a trend is very important, so who decided to introduce IH heating?
:Women?
Fukumachi:women. While men who do housework and older families may be involved, probably women are in the majority. In general what is it that women and housewives like?
: Fashion
Fukumachi:fashion. This may be a slightly distorted image but, specifically at the time that IH first appeared, what type of people were involved in making it popular amongst housewives? 
Fukumachi:fashion. This may be a slightly distorted image but, specifically at the time :Yes, it was a Korean drama star who made it popular. The Korean movie ' The eraser inside me' was about a woman who had lost her memory, and included a scene where IH heating is used because it would be too dangerous to use fire. As a result, some people who watch the movie thought 'that's good!' and ' I must have one of those too!' The product, by appearing in an emotional scene, shared some of the feelings- applying the 'Suspension Bridge theory' of psychology and brain science. Whether it is men or women, in addition to magazines and television, film is also an important trend-creating media for creating motives in purchasing.

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