LEARNING ABOUT CHAOS LOUNGE, NENDOROIDS AND OTAKU MEMES THROUGH CHLOMA’s 2013 SS COLLECTION.
カオス、ねんどろいど、おたくネタなど、CHLOMAの2013年春夏コレクションを通して色々お勉強になった。それより、１年振りのコレクションは最高に良い！
As I stood in front of my closet this morning, I had one thing distressing my mind: why don’t I have any Chloma in here?! No oversized digital screen print sweatshirts and no “deforme” techy leather/neoprene skirts to put on. I needed to traverse Harajuku on a saturday and I knew I needed some fashion “armor”. It would have been perfect. Alas, I had none.
My mood went from happy p ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ to sad p ʕ •`ᴥ•´ʔ
今朝のことだが、家のクロゼットを見回して、
Recently Chloma presented their first collection in over a year at a small gallery in Nakameguro. It was a small offering, but the idea behind it was interesting: become your own avatar. It refers to the Japanese iteration of the word (and not those blue creatures), which are the pixel characters one navigates in old-school RPG games. What does that mean?
とはいえ私が望んでいたこれらの洋服は、
“Well, the proportions in those characters are always a bit off. It’s deformity of the body. We tried to recreate those flattened proportions here in 3D,” explained the two designers Reiko Sakuma and Junya Suzuki. So in Chloma-speak that translates to oversized tops like sweatshirts and coats, but the interesting pieces here are the skirts. They sit at one’s natural waist but they are elongated so they cut off the legs but balance perfectly with the big top. So then you are faced with an optical illusion in front of you… the middle is absurdly tall while the legs, head and feet are shrunk inside.
“アバターの体型はどれも実在しないようなものばかりで、
Ghesquiere also played with these proportions at Balenciaga for this season bringing it into the trendsphere. They even had those digital prints sweatshirts, although they are far too 80s-dude-basement-bedroom-posters for my taste. I much prefer Chloma’s collage of Japanese internet memes:
先日辞任したBalenciagaの元デザイナーNicolas
I love how the layer of gauze makes it looks fuzzy like it’s from an analog TV with bad reception.
デジタルプリントの上からはガーゼ素材がレイヤーされており、
Reiko wore her outfits with flat sandals she made herself.
デザイナーのレイコさんはこれに、
Chloma was in the global eye recently with the latest issue of Dazed and Confused where Kyary Pamyu Pamyu is wearing one of the brand’s earliest creations, the “Gundam Coat”. At this time it just went by the name of Junya Suzuki. If the coat hasn’t been bought already, it’s available at Gokai in Akihabara (I need to save up to buy it. I still think it’s beautiful although it’s probably battered from all the shoots by now….>_< )
そして関連で最近インターネット上で大いに話題になっているのが
FYI the vinyl accessory is by Jin Okuma.
Years ago, when Junya made this coat and tried to sell it at CANDY in Shibuya, it just seemed like a really wild and creative idea for a coat. Then I met the designer in person and he started throwing around keywords that flew right over my head. “Manga girl”, “Perfume”, “Chaos Lounge”. Whatsathatmean? Of course now we see “manga-inspired” fashion is a dime a dozen in Japan, I know that Perfume is an idol group that made it popular, and Chaos Lounge is….. well, I still don’t understand exactly the who/what/where/why of Chaos Lounge but I believe it’s a group of otaku who make pretty edgy art and/or fashion installations.
In the Dazed interview Suzuki talks about a Nendoroid outfit he made. I had to Google that one (“Nendoroid”. Noun. A re-imagining of an anime or cartoon character in a 2.5-head, small-body porportions. I think it’s referred to as “chibi” often in English).
この初期作品のコートは今までにあらゆる最先端の雑誌を飾ってき
Do I want to shrink inside my clothing? On the contrary I would love to contrast it with wicked accessories and heels. And it looks comfy! The main point of this story is I survived the Harajuku mob today, but it would have been so much more rad as a nendoroid.
先のDazed誌でも彼の頭の中にある人物像を語っており、
Chloma’s lookbook should be out soon- looking forward to their visuals!
Chlomaのルックブックについても近日公開されるようなので