A Dose of Reality Lab

A new fashion and design show re-evaluates Japanese “monozukuri”.

When Issey Miyake developed his new fashion range 132 5 the team had to look again at shapes, fabrics and concepts. The range used 2-dimensional geometric shapes that folded down to be completely flat.

The exhibition “Reality Lab” takes the development of the collection as a starting point for exploring other new uses for materials and techniques, and for looking a-new at old ideas.

Hiroshi Iwasaki's 'CAS' series (2010) are huge images of produce from Tsukiji Market preserved by CAS (cells alive system) technology, which freezes living cells.

The main room of the exhibition is dedicated to Issey Miyake and his 132 5 team's fold-up-fold-down fashion designs.

The 132 5 team also worked on using folds in lighting fixtures.

Scientist Jun Mitani collaborated with Wow to produce a series of 'impossible' geometrical shapes and a video showing how they could be folded. 'Spherical Origami' (2010) was developed using an original computer application to create origami that only software can perform.

France-based Israeli designer Arik Levy's exhibit showed trees plastered to trees.

William Andrews

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William Andrews

William Andrews came to Japan in 2004. He first lived in Osaka, where he was a translator for Kansai Art Beat. Arriving in Tokyo in 2008, he now works as an writer, editor and translator. He writes a blog about Japanese radicalism and counterculture and one about Tokyo contemporary theatre. He is the author of Dissenting Japan: A History of Japanese Radicalism and Counterculture, from 1945 to Fukushima.

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