Yumi Katsura Couture SS17 collection: ballad in the Land of the Rising Sun

The Japanese designer, the first official Asian member for the Camera Nazionale Della Moda Italiana, likes to revisit the port of the kimono with a touch of modernity and original fabrics. She has always known how to combine traditions, ancient Japanese art and technical know-how of Parisian couture.

For his collection Summer 2017, “The Life of the Canvases”, has once again reinvented the kimono by redrawing and reforming rectangles of folded and sewn fabrics, but without ever redecorating them.

She plays with this traditionally rectilinear garment, bringing it new volumes and new lines. The kimono becomes a day dress with the orientalist touch, coat-flower-cocoon with the seventies touch, all with a shortened length to accompany women in their time.

The pieces are covered with all-over prints inspired by the Japanese nature, drawings of cherry blossoms, pines, bamboos … The calligraphy is transformed into embroidery trompe l’oeil on clothes.

The folds, the silk, the jacquard, the lace, the gabardine of wool become canvases sublimating the works of the artist Ito Jakuchu.

In this SS17 collection, the designer highlights Japanese art techniques such as Yuzen, a silk dyeing technique used in evening dresses. The work of embroidery and feathers reminds us of oriental birds of fire.

The colors vary from a water worm, to a blue wash through a pink water lily, a red kiss or a liquid gold.

The designer has organized a trip to Japan, bringing love of the Japanese tradition and oriental modernism uncompromising …

Anaelle Coulon