Japanese designer Hanae Mori bids farewell to haute couture

[Salty Sour Sweet]

Not sure how revelant it is, but I spotted the small
Kurosawa and Oshima line and thought some of you guys
might be interested.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1541&ncid=1597&e=7&u=/afp/20040623/en_afp/afplifestyle_france

PARIS (AFP) - Hanae Mori, the Japanese designer who
led the way for her country into the starry spheres of
high fashion, is bidding farewell to the runway in her
last haute couture show here on July 7


The 78-year-old Mori, known for delicate kimono print
fabrics and classic tailoring, became in 1977 the
first Japanese member of the Syndical Chamber of
Parisian Couture, the French governing body of top
fashion houses. 


In a statement, her company said that after 50 years
of work in fashion spanning Tokyo, New York and Paris,
Mori would retire and her haute couture subsidiary
would close, 

The designer opened her studio in Tokyo in 1951 and
was making costumes for Japanese cinema by 1954 for
the likes of Akira Kurosawa (news) and Nagisa Oshima.
After the first haute couture show in Paris in 1977,
her butterfly-imprint textiles became a signature in
their own right and a beacon for a more conservative
international clientele. 


But, like most fashion houses for whom haute couture
has become a marker of identity more than a money
maker, her line never turned a profit, said industry
magazine Women's Wear Daily. 


Her retirement signals a fresh loss to the
made-to-measure craft, an ensemble of fantasy and
fabulously intricate, painfully expensive individual
clothing pieces held to the world's highest standards.



In the past month, according to Women's Wear Daily,
both Emanuel Ungaro and Donatella Versace announced
they were leaving the rarified world of haute couture,
while Japanese minimalist Yohji Yamamoto, who has
shown his sole ready-to-wear collection since 2002
just before the June and December shows, said he was
reverting to the normal season. 


The Mori ready-to-wear line and accessories
businesses, bought by Mitsui and Co. Ltd. in 2002,
will continue to operate, the statement said


=====
Rowe's Rule: The odds are five to six that the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.


		
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