#koji hamai

[thearchiveshop]

Koji Hamai “gradation Type 1″ march 1995

This garment make from hundred per cent two way stretch polyamide textile.

spattered with a fine coating of titanium, the gradations made by interfering with spattering process.

[metaphlora]

[transfinitism]

Designer rewrites the jean map

(http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/1999/07/15/general/designer-rewrites-the-jean-map/#.Vy7nnRUrL-Y) BY VALERIE KOEHN JUL 15, 1999 They look and act like ordinary blue jeans. When they’re dirty, you throw them in the washing machine. The color will fade with numerous washings, and like any other denim, they may shrink a little in the dryer.

These jeans, however, are made with washi (Japanese paper).

Koji Hamai is the inventor of washi denim, a product of the 35-year-old fashion designer’s constant pursuit of interesting and comfortable fabrics. About three years ago, Hamai began hunting for a light, thin, yet durable material, and finally found what he was looking for at a factory in Aichi Prefecture.

What Hamai discovered was paper yarn: washi twisted and twined into thread. It is this paper yarn that Hamai weaves horizontally with warp threads of vintage-style indigo cotton to create his washi denim. “In the Meiji Period, people would rub washi with persimmon tannin and use it as rain wear,” says Hamai. “When I learned this, I was convinced that washi was a material that I could use.”

Hamai came to appreciate not only the traditional beauty of washi, which is used in Japanese homes and other designs, but also its practicality. It breathes well, especially in the hot and humid summers of Japan, and is antibacterial.

“In fashion, people get caught up in the visuals of design. I like to think about the invention and development of the functional aspects,” says Hamai. “I actually think of washi denim more as product design than as fashion design.”

Hamai set up Hamai Factory in 1991 after working for 10 years at the Issey Miyake Design Office. His first job after graduating from Bunka Design Institute, however, was at a textile factory, and this is where he discovered his penchant for textiles.

A finished piece of clothing for Hamai comes only after a thorough and philosophical examination of all the parts, from beginning to end. His interest in fashion lies less in clothing trends than in the process of how a product is made and its social significance. Some have even referred to him as an environmentalist (he says he isn’t), because of his work with leftover or used materials.

One such project involves T-shirts he makes with zanshi (leftover threads). These leftover threads are generated from the manufacture of multicolored shirts. Since they’re irregular in size, shape and color they are usually tossed out as garbage.

Hamai began experimenting with zanshi on an old-fashioned circular knitting machine about six years ago. The results were colorful Missoni-like striped T-shirts. While they were essentially mass-produced on the machine, each shirt was slightly different because of the diversity and the very nature of zanshi.

In 1994, Hamai held an installation at Somido in Ginza’s Sony Building where he ran off 1,000 zanshi T-shirts on the spot from the antique knitting machine which he had brought to the venue. Hamai likes to call the T-shirts “mass-produced originals.”

Such installations are Hamai’s antidote to the fashion show, which he finds boring and outdated. Hamai aims to show the consumer his designs by revealing the behind-the-scenes process of clothes production. Since 1992, Hamai has held numerous exhibitions, including ones that feature his experiments in contrasting indigo-dyed fabric with stainless steel fabric, and with combined automobile and fashion technology.

The installations also help him examine the gap he’d begun to notice between the fashion creator and the consumer. “The fashion designer constantly tries to make something new and original. But the consumer, or at least I, ultimately want something that’ll last a long time, regardless of style,” he says.

While Hamai calls himself a fashion designer, other job titles come to mind: inventor, performer, scientist, philosopher and perhaps even teacher. Hamai is currently holding a series of workshops called Life Design Project (LDP). Lead by Hamai, participants examine the various physical and mental effects of the design, comfort level, fabric and color of the clothes one wears.

“The idea is for me as a designer to work together with the consumer in thinking about and actually designing clothes,” says Hamai. “I want it to be collaboration.”

While washi denim is Hamai’s current claim to fame, it’s quite likely that the probing and ever-curious mind of this designer will create something to talk about more than once.

[blushingcheekymonkey]

koji hamai - mantel 'dry fish' (1995)