written afterwards (knit)

The written afterwards website shows an exciting and challenging body of work created by yoshikazu yamagata and kentaro tamai using fashion as a versatile tool for communication.
The well-known 'my town in my home' knitted houses were created in collaboration with textile artist mafuyu. This stimulating collaboration confronts what we expect from craft and fashion. Here we see the house as an item of clothing - that which defines us, a huge building softened and reduced, becoming something to play with or within, as we might have done as children....
Of course, they are intended to be used as fashion or as toys and were featured in the children's book elaelaopa. This is a considered approach to fashion as identity... but also as play, escape, warmth and comfort.Working in collaboration with other artists prompts the creation of work that is refreshingly wide-ranging.
In contrast to the knitted houses, here we see a deceptively complex piece of craftsmanship in an ethereal and delicate, intricately worked lace panel.
Using the panel in the forms of art, installation and fashion is testament to the imagination and adaptability of the item. Crossover is of course what so many artists do, be it illustration, film, photography, craft and so on - why not allow the pieces themselves to be multi-faceted.
Their brave approach to collaboration leads to an impressive adaptability across their many ideas and applications.
The clothing items they have produced are equally well constructed, challenging and considered.
'the everyone's new clothes' (pictured below) was a piece of work based on Hans Christian Andersen's the Emperor's New Clothes. Here they work ever-playfully with notions of fashion and beauty, turning the gaze back on the viewer by using industry players as the models.
Showing first in London in 2005, yoshikazu yamagata, took prominent fashion personalities and imagined what they might wear under their clothes. Then he presented them with their alter-egos on the catwalk.
The piece was later shown (above) to the Hinohara kindergarten in a Tokyo village, performed by dance troupe the bambiest.

I first came across 'my town in my home' via selvedge. It was also recently featured on bloesem.