Beautiful People (Q3850)
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Beautiful People is a fashion house from FMD.
| Language | Label | Description | Also known as |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Beautiful People |
Beautiful People is a fashion house from FMD. |
Statements
In his show notes, Hidenori Kumakiri opened with a philosophical observation: “What we do not show is truer, and more important, than what we show.” It sounded like a riff on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s famous line fromThe Little Prince: “What is essential is invisible to the eye.”In any case, it was a poetic way of pointing up “side C”—not the front, or the back, but the invisible “intimate layer” of his clothes. That was the crux of a collection that was all about exploring and expanding possibilities in the space between garment and lining.“Having one piece that you can wear many different ways is one way to talk about sustainability,” Kumakiri said backstage, through an interpreter. “You don’t get bored with your clothes because there are many ways to play with them.” (He is moving more into sustainable fabrics too.)If it sounds complicated, there’s a good reason for it. It’s easier to glimpse the ghostly effect of a logo trapped between puffer and veil, or the glint of strass shimmering beneath openwork knit on a fringed sweater, than it is to explain how Kumakiri’s trench is actually a three-fer. But once a model slips between the lining and the outer shell, you get why the designer’s hyperintellectual process has garnered such a loyal following. A tailored black jacket, for example, comes with a lining that can also be a blouse. The silver shearling duffle coat probably has hidden aspects to its personality too, but it looks great just straight up. Elsewhere, a black-and-gray dress is the kind of piece that probably needs its own tutorial. But that’s all part of the game.Beautiful People pieces are actually shape-shifters. Wearing them is more of a participative process than many designers would dare demand—and this season, for the first time, men are being invited to get into the act. But somehow Kumakiri pulls it off. This show was proof that, in the right hands, highly complex conceptual designs can actually appear simple—and even, at times, convincing.
2 March 2020
Beautiful People’s show invitation was a paper pop-up of a rib-cage cutout. A little disconcerting, sure, but designer Hidenori Kumakiri’s unconventional and slightly surreal approach shouldn’t be surprising. In the past he has shrunken outfits to resemble kids’ garments, and his favorite stylistic play is adding or peeling away layers of fabrics in endless shapeshifter games, a metamorphic design process which, even if complex and sometimes frankly puzzling, look as if made by a sweet, irreverent child.The paper rib cage popping out from the invitation was obviously intended as a metaphor: As the designer explained through a translator, just as the breathing expands the body’s internal space, in the same way, juxtaposed layers of fabric allow expanded possibilities for the wearer to transform a top, a tunic, or a dress into something different. To give an example of this rather arcane concept, a dress made by three layers of mesh tulle with three holes (for the sleeves and for the neck) can be worn by inserting the body between one of the layers and one of the holes of choice, twisting its shape asymmetrically and giving the dress an unexpected life.Layering being apparently the collection’smot d'ordre, a layer of meaning was further added to the already convoluted narrative. The designer explained that he wanted to highlight the concept of transformation, presenting 24 looks, as many as the hours of the day, going from night to dawn. The color palette then progressed through 24 gradients, morphing from black to pale, delicate colors.Kumakiri personally helped a model on stage to modify the lines of a multilayered A-line dress, wearing it in different ways. It would’ve helped the appreciation of the elaborate but clever modifying process if the clothes could’ve been observed up close. The models stormed the catwalk at a quick pace; the dresses looked appealing, with simple but inventive shapes; the mutating game had a sweet feel. Yet perhaps a more intimate format would’ve been more suitable to give the collection the attention it deserved.
30 September 2019
Hidenori Kumakiri’s inspirations are often enigmatic. Backstage before the show, speaking through a translator, he said that the concept he wanted to explore in his Fall collection was that of “the SideC, the existing space between the back of the fabric and the lining, something that people don’t usually perceive.” Quite frankly, it seemed like such an impossible abstraction, one wondered how he would be able to translate it into actual clothes. But once the puzzling SideCconcept was put aside and he let the collection do the talking, it definitely made more sense.The first look was a severe, long black cashmere coat, double-breasted and streamlined. It looked elegant in a classic, reassuring way. Then came a sleek, tailored masculine pantsuit in a dry gray wool, perfectly chic and on trend in its slightly oversize proportions. From there, the collection seemed to gently unravel: The silhouette went from elongated and restrained to fluid and almost billowy, floating freely around the body in a series of long dresses, aprons worn layered over filmy leggings or loose satin palazzo pants, and light tunics knitted in asymmetrical shapes.The play between “restraint and indulgence” and “covering up and revealing,” as Kumakiri put it, continued in beautifully cut capes and oversize masculine city coats in checkered wools against breezy ensembles, like a flowing cape in chiffon printed with a delicate lattice floral motif. “It is inspired by the ramifications of the tiny blood vessels and veins running under our skin,” said the designer. “Paying attention to what’s usually hidden can give birth to something new.”
5 March 2019
“I started the collection looking at one of those Double Trouble puzzles kids try to untangle,” explained Hidenori Kumakiri, the soft-spoken creative force behind the cult Japanese label Beautiful People. The toy in question is a metal key chain where two intertwined rings have to be separated. It’s the sort of brainteaser that a gifted kid could solve in a few minutes, while the rest of us, after countless clumsy attempts, are left screaming in frustration. Just Google the diabolic thing to get the idea. But apparently, no riddle or charade is too complicated for Kumakiri.The concept of complex simplicity is often at the center of this designer’s aesthetic; he worked around it once again in his new Spring collection. His deconstruction process was as gentle as it was sophisticated: “Two identical shapes are tightly entangled; to take them apart, you have first to understand how they work together,” he mused. “Only then you’ll be able to make them become a new entity with a new identity. In my collections, pieces may look broken or deconstructed, but in the end, they go back together as one.”The show’s fluid rhythm smoothed the conceptual edge of the inspiration, giving the collection’s transformative quality an ineffable grace. Each piece could morph into a multiplicity of solutions or mutate into a different shape just by unlacing a ribbon, unwrapping a fold, or peeling off a layer. As complicated as it may sound, this reversible, unfinished process of transformation actually looked rather effortless.Fabrics were light and crinkled; dyed in white or red wine to achieve a delicate palette of earthy hues, they felt smooth and sensuous to the touch. To highlight the wabi-sabi organic approach, tailored jackets were washed in salt to make them shrunken; they were paired with pleated silk skirts or ruffled dresses, which wrapped elliptically around the body. They looked like antique Japanese fans, or exotic blooming flowers. Deconstruction was handled with a breezy feel; linings were absent, while a play on asymmetries gave classic shapes an off-kilter freshness and a sense of lightness and fluidity.At the end of the show, to better elucidate the morphing concept, a flock of assistants came onstage helping models to transform their outfits into slightly different shapes. “You can be either deconstructed or constructed,” Kumakiri said. “It’s up to you. It’s about being free, with no constrictions.
In Japan, we never choose between extremes; we don’t have black or white, but we have many, many hues of gray. It’s like being in a fluid zone, where you can choose to be what you want to be.”
2 October 2018
Japan’s fascination with all things Parisian borders on the mythological; the City of Light is seen almost as a unicorn, a symbol of magic, beauty, and romance. For a fashion designer, showing here is the ultimate dream, a consecration like no other; so it was not surprising that, after a couple of well-received presentations, Beautiful People’s creative director Hidenori Kumakiri decided to stage his first show today in the tented garden of the Pavillon Ledoyen, a historical Parisian restaurant. But, unfortunately, he couldn’t be present; he fell ill just before the show.Hidenori Kumakiri is an experienced designer with a cult following in Japan, so his capable staff bravely carried on without him. Backstage before the show, the atmosphere was busy but calm and collected. A spokesperson was on hand to explain the collection’s concept and inspiration which, in pure Japanese fashion, was as charming as it was cryptic.The designer was fascinated by the dynamic between masculine and feminine; for Fall, he worked again around the concept, calling the collection Male/Female—the slash between the two words being of importance. It conveyed a peculiar meaning. Apparently, the diagonal sign was translated by the designer into a stylistic pattern of bias cutting, almost paying homage to the French couturiere Madeleine Vionnet, who mastered the technique with supreme allure.The very Japanese cerebral, controlled approach was infused with a very French sense of sensual nonchalance; the ensuing marriage was definitely seductive, with a whiff of touching, extravagant naïveté. Tailored construction morphed fluidly into welcoming wrapping shapes, gracefully enveloping the body; the precision of elongated lines seemed to melt, softly draped and shrunken, and then let loose. Cases in point were trapeze-cut blankets suspended on shoulder straps, floating around the body like trailing gowns; elsewhere, a flowing velvet orange dress was cut asymmetrically, then softly draped askew around the waist.The contrast between tight and soft, small and oversize, sharpness and roundness was apparent throughout the collection, which somehow read as a Japanese take on French classic staples. It seemed as if the designer was playing in the Japanese garden of a French château. He reconfigured a very Parisian trenchcoat, stretching it across the body in a tight wrap; he shrunk a black Perfecto jacket to childish, bizarre proportions.
Atrèschic redingote was tightly fastened at the waist with off-kilter buttoning, its silhouette was slimmed down and reduced to such hyper-skinny dimensions it certainly wouldn’t allow a French diet of buttered baguettes or yummy croissants.
6 March 2018
Conceptual playfulnessis the phrase that could be the key to reach an (approximate) understanding of the Japanese vision of fashion. When it comes down to it, nothing is simple, nothing is what it seems, and everything is utterly fascinating, even if the meaning is often utterly obscure. Japan casts a spell on you; its sense of beauty is as breathtaking as it is unsettling. Beautiful People’s collections are a case in point. Following last season’s presentation in Paris, creative director and founder Hidenori Kumakiri staged a show of such arcane grace and technical prowess (definitely atrèsJapanese combination), it left the audience puzzled yet totally in awe.Kumakiri doesn’t speak English; you need a translator to communicate with him. Yet he comes across as possessing the typical Japanese single-mindedness that can border on the obsessively genial. He definitely knows what he’s doing: His label is 10 years old, well known, and extremely successful in Japan.“This collection is about making love,” he explained matter-of-factly before one of the mini shows on rotation in an airy, dark space. Upon seeing the startled expression of this reviewer, he felt obliged to expand on the subject. “It’s about making love,” he repeated.To convey this quite clear pronouncement into actual clothes, which seemed no small feat, Kumakiri reverted to the genetic alphabet of chromosomes as a way of elucidation. “It’s like Y and X and how they make love,” he gestured, probably believing he was making his enigmatic concept clearer. Exasperated, this reviewer was ready to declare defeat.Moved to compassion, the designer opted for a more practical explanation. He asked two seamstresses to dress a model in order to make the cryptic X-Y process understandable. Two similar (yet, of course, slightly different) long, tiered, floral-printed, Victorian-inspired cotton dresses, zippered or buttoned for the entire length on the back and on the front, were worn interlocked with an elliptical, twisted movement reminiscent of the spiraling of DNA. And voilà! As if by magic, what came out of all the warping and zipping and unbuttoning was a beautifully layered, romantic dress. “The idea is to make simple things look complex,” said Kumakiri with a smile. No doubt, he succeeded.The twisting-and-interlocking process applied to the entire collection. A striped cotton duster was combined with a cropped black leather biker and layered over a tulle skirt.
A raincoat was reduced to its tailored “bones,” nearly stripped bare, and intertwined with a long cotton dress, almost modest in its turn-of-the-century flair. Every look was a charming surprise of inventiveness, as if pulled from a romantic and twisted (literally) fairy tale. After all, single-mindedness is not such a bad thing.
2 October 2017
Founder: Hidenori KumakiriYear established: 2007Known for: The former Comme des Garçons pattern-cutter makes classic clothes bordering on the conservativeWorn by: Japanese career girlsSpring 2016 inspirations: Idyllic modesty, femininity, and ’50s couture influences with corseted silhouettes
13 October 2015
Founder: Hidenori KumakiriYear established: 2007Known for: The former Comme des Garçons pattern-cutter makes classic clothes bordering on the conservativeWorn by: Japanese career girlsFall 2015 inspirations: American trad, preppy college girls in oversize silhouettes, platform loafers, and a made-in-Japan original textile lineup
18 March 2015
We're posting runway pictures from Fashion Week Tokyo. See the full list of designers here. To read our daily reports on the collections, visit our Style File blog. And don't miss our street-style coverage.
20 March 2013
Hidenori Kumakiri’s base loves his conceptual, noncommittal approach to dressing—after all, why settle for a piece that does only one thing when it might go three ways? For that reason alone, the studio refers to some items as having a side A (front), side B (back, or reversible), and side C (which is usually something to do with bringing a lining to the front).This season, Kumakiri, his maverick patternmaker, and the studio team bent over backward to offer “office ladies” transformable looks that will take them from day to night without having to spend more than a few minutes restyling what they already have on. But it’s not just about the ladies. The brand has recently introduced menswear, hence an extra emphasis on gender fluidity and functionality, as seen in the boxy jacket and trousers in the first look shown here, flowing elastic-waist cargos or—why not?—an apron dress. Pairing trousers with dresses is one way to play both sides of the fence, but layered or pleated skirts with sheer knits made an unambiguous bid for feminine dressing. Those were pretty. So were a couple of black dresses—one long, one midi—that nicely channeled the new minimalism. That said, the fan who is up for fiddling with some of the multiple-armhole knits is a very specific kind of customer indeed.The designer also went deep into fabric research, working wool until it felt like cotton or even silk. Beautiful People people are hooked on that kind of deep dive—which is why the brand now has enough traction to open a new store, its seventh, in Nagoya this spring. In the meantime, American audiences will have to keep settling for the e-shop, although they’ll no doubt be psyched to know that the label is now in talks with stores on both the East and West coasts.
7 February 2020
We're posting runway pictures from Tokyo fashion week for the first time ever. See the full list of designers here. To read our daily reports on the collections, visit our Style File blog. And don't miss Tommy Ton's street-style shots.
18 October 2012