Word: cloth
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What occurred between the noontime rally and the "loss" of the banner is a classic example of the abuse of bureaucratic power and systematic harassment of revolutionaries. The fact that the banner was hand-painted on a delicate cloth and worth $500 is not as important as the implicit message delivered by the Harvard Administration to leftist activists...
...part of the life of the nation. The symbols of religion are everywhere. Kyoto, the ancient capital, has more shrines and temples than cigarette shops. There are even Shinto altars in numerous offices of major cities. New skyscrapers are often decorated with red-and-white-striped sheets of Shinto cloth. Rural village homes, where traditional spirituality survives, typically have both a kamidana (Shinto altar) and a butsudan (Buddhist altar...
...names on the labels in a boutique, there is a growing perception of the changes these designers are trying to make. Fabric sewed and folded into shapes that shift on the body like shadows. Colors that seem to come from the shaded, sun-dried underside of the spectrum. Clothes that reshape the body with the undulations of their fabric. Garments in which the space between the body and the cloth sets up a sliding, changing movement that is like an ever mutable silhouette. Fashion is meant to be a frivolous business, but consider: in no other area of culture...
This may seem like heavy freight for mere fashion to bear, but Japanese designers do not usually make the fussy Western distinction between craft and art. Issey Miyake talks about the "energy" of fabric and works with a bolt of cloth like a sculptor with clay, not molding it into a presketched design but draping the whole length over a body, drawing the shape of the final garment from the fabric itself as it works in easy collaboration with the body. Rei Kawakubo, the most austere and cerebral of these new designers, speaks intensely about "getting down to the essence...
...denim," he says. In those early years, the shapes had their traditional roots as well. Miyake made a housecoat, called a tanzen, into a hooded wool coat and turned striped cloth used to lead horses on ceremonial occasions into a jersey. He made tucked cotton jumpsuits so intricate that he evoked origami, the ancient art of paper folding, and he turned a farmer's backpack into a knit jacket. Says he: "I was trying to peel away to the limit of fashion...