{"id":70540,"date":"2026-08-27T14:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/70540\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T14:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:37:10","slug":"yayoi-kusama-her-political-and-revolutionary-fashion-before-louis-vuitton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/70540\/","title":{"rendered":"Yayoi Kusama: her political and revolutionary fashion before Louis Vuitton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018My costumes always hint at the path of the new generation\u2019: Yayoi Kusama, the Japanese artist, had no doubts who passed away today at the age of 97.<\/a> Known and loved above all for her polka-dot aesthetic \u2013 the \u2018polka dots\u2019 that, over more than 70 years of her artistic career, have covered walls, shops, parks and handbags, Kusama had a deep connection with fashion, which began well before her collaboration with Louis Vuitton, which in 2012 brought her art into the fashion industry.<\/p>\n

For her, fashion was, first and foremost, art; the clothes depicted in her paintings, and what to wear, were an aesthetic and political choice. In her native Japan, during the Second World War, whilst not yet twenty, she had worked as a seamstress in a parachute factory, and immediately after the end of the war she defied her parents\u2019 wishes \u2013 who envisaged a future for her as a wife and mother \u2013 by moving to Kyoto, where she would study the Nihonga style, traditional Japanese painting.<\/p>\n

But her artistic journey would soon break with tradition: after discovering Georgia O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s works in a bookshop, she wrote to her, sending her some watercolours. The American artist replied enthusiastically, inviting her to move overseas, which Kusama did in 1958: she arrived in New York, the cradle of the avant-garde movements, foremost among them Pop Art, and initially supported herself by selling kimonos she had brought with her from Japan. But she soon found her own voice and her own space, thanks, once again, to fashion: in her \u2018happenings\u2019 \u2013 events combining performance art and activism \u2013 clothing played a fundamental role.<\/p>\n

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Abito di Yayoi Kusama, anni Sessanta<\/p>\n

She covers sheath dresses and coats with pasta, flowers or phallic shapes, before painting them with metallic paints; in others, such as the \u2018See Through\u2019 collection, the \u2018polka dots\u2019 become strategically placed cut-outs in support of the sexual revolution (the \u2018Orgy Dress\u2019 was designed to accommodate up to 25 people). And as her fame grew, her dresses even made it to Bloomingdales and she organised fashion shows; in 1969, she decided to launch her own brand and open her boutique, Kusama Fashion Company, at 406 6th Avenue. <\/p>\n

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Un fashion show di Yayoi Kusama a New York nel 1968<\/p>\n

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