A Quiet Journey

Cultural heritage and the landscape of the country link through aesthetic harmony, through centuries of a deep understanding of the balance of creativity and the climate, making beautiful things and the language of the terrain. To place a model in the land by Fujisan, (It is what was incorrectly in the past referred to as Mount Fujiyama, this is not correct as it is Fujisan (富士山)) is a truly special location in terms of history and reverence for this place, this is vitally important to bear in mind as we look at the beautiful images.

With discrete references to traditional dress, with tiny details summoning up imagery from the wrapping of a parcel to the placing of a flower, this story is as much about a tender nuance of style, fashion, historical details, and culture across the centuries.

There are pieces folded and pressed, wrapped, and tied. Lines tracing like threads or binding strings, tiny and fragmented details that in first glance are simply beautiful but on reflection are deeply appropriate to the setting. The swans and their wings like the traditional herons in Japanese art, are sharply feathered flights of fancy whose lines are perfectly set alongside a model in folding and opening panels of fabric both in jacket and skirt. The huge, triangular silhouette shaped piece, fabricated like a jigsaw of patchworks and ruffles opens up like wings. The models hair forms clouds ascending upwards as does the mountain and the bird in flight. It’s all about harmony and balance, about a quiet loveliness, but also with a strength that is found always in Japanese art and artefacts, from a paper parasol to a kimono, from the rest for your chopsticks to the sliding panels in a traditional house. In a country known to have earthquakes it is no surprise that the ephemeral and the easily transportable has a strong creative underpinning.

East and West meet often in stories, and to balance cultural appropriation with cultural appreciation is today our inspiration in terms of fashion, from makeup to construction of the garments. This story offers us images that communicate respect for the surroundings, indeed, love in how the model is placed in the shots, how she breathes in the atmosphere of the scene. Like the extraordinary Diana Vreeland story for Vogue in 1966 The Great Fur Caravan, which was loosely inspired by the Classical Japanese epic The Tale of the Genji, this story too absorbs the location. It edits the clothes and visuals to sit within in it, not on it or treat it as a trick “background,” it is about creative empathy.

So, Cellotape and their team invite you to look at a story that is modern, yet timeless, that is placed in Japan but isn’t in the manner of Madame Butterfly, but in the style of today. It’s a story of how a creative fashion team can go beyond making beautiful images and creative a narrative that sums up a moment in time, a quiet harmony between the extraordinary landscape, the clothes, the shapes and emotions formed by the pieces and the model, and an acknowledgement of the culture in which the images are being created. Just like the traditional Japanese art of flower arranging, Ikebana, which literally means “giving life to flowers” this fashion shoot also focuses on minimalism, asymmetry, and negative space. Indeed, one might say it is perfectly balanced in quiet harmony.