Talk: Framing Fashion and Architecture

A discussion of Japanese Fashion and its relationship with architecture in structure, display and desire. From the mechanics of static display for items designed to move and be worn, to practical experience of architectural dialogues with Japan's leading fashion houses - Comme des Garçons, Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake. Featuring architect and designer of Future Beauty: 30 years of Japanese Fashion, Sou Fujimoto, and a cast of UK design talent.

Since opening his own Tokyo based architectural practice in 2000, Fujimoto has become one of Japan's leading architects. With a history of residential and conceptual projects, Fujimoto's portfolio includes projects such as his Tokyo Apartment, a contribution to the V&A's 2010 summer exhibition 1:1 Architects Build Small Spaces, and the design of new retail space for Issey Miyake's innovative 132 5 range of clothing. Alongside his work for Miyake, Fujimoto's exhibition design for Future Beauty - a flowing white curtain, delineating the exhibition spaces - places him in a position of considerable experience with negotiating fashion and architectural form.

Fujimoto will be accompanied on the evening by architect Sophie Hicks. Hicks turned to architecture following editorial positions at Tatler and British Vogue in the 1980s, and has since won much acclaim for retail and exhibition spaces worldwide - as go-to architect of fashion label Chloé, and designer of Yamamoto's Parisian retail HQ. Critic and writer Yuki Sumner, (author, New Architecture in Japan) and design futurist and cultural critic Cher Potter, complete the panel, adding their insights to the debate.

The panel will discuss their relationship to Japanese fashion, fashion's relationship to architecture, and the work of some of the leading luminaries of fashion's last 30 years, in conversation with Design Museum Director and author of the monograph Rei Kawakubo and Comme des Garcons, Deyan Sudjic.

Image courtesy of Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garcons, Autumn/Winter 193-4. Photograph by Naoya Hatekeyama, 2009 Lambda Print. Collection of the Kyoto Costume Institute

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