KANSAI YAMAMOTO
He debuted in Paris in 1975, followed by the opening of his first Kansai Boutique in 1977, but his first collection showed in London in 1971. One of the leaders in Japanese Contemporary fashion, in particular during the 1970s and 1980s , Kansai Yamamoto attended Bazaar Icons party is Tokyo, Japan.
Born in Yokohama, Japan in 1944, Kansai studied civil engineering and English at Nippon University. In 1967 he received a Soen prize at the Bunka College of Fashion and in 1977 the Tokyo Fashion Editors award.
In 1999, Kansai and Junko Koshino renewed the kimono, reviving interest in this classical fashion. Kansai is known for his avant-garde kimono designs, including ones worn by David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust Tour. He is also known for his love of color and flamboyance.
“David Bowie first saw my designs at a show in London in 1971, and decided to wear them on stage. This picture was taken in my studio in Tokyo in April 1973, when his Ziggy Stardust tour came to Japan. By then we’d become friends, after meeting at his first American dates two months earlier.”
In 2008, an exhibit named "Netsuki Shinten: Kansai Genki Shugi" (or "Passionate Exhibit: The Energy Principle of Kansai") was held at the Edo-Tokyo Museum. In 2009, a major retrospective of Yamamoto's work was exhibited at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Yamamoto designed the Skyliner train, unveiled in 2010, that connects Japan's Narita Airport with central Tokyo.
In July 2013, he made a comeback to the fashion industry with a showing in the 19th New Britain Mask Festival in Kokopo, Papua New Guinea.