THE DINING CONTAINER | A CONVERSATION BETWEEN HIROFUMI KURINO & LINDA LOPPA

LINDA LOPPA

Kurino-san, we know each other since a long time, we have so many stories together from the fashion in Antwerp, till coming to you in Tokyo visiting the shops and so on. So we have a lot of memories and it’s nice to close this chapter of 11 conversations with you.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Thank you.

 

LINDA LOPPA

It’s also special to me that this is the 11th, because 11 is an open number that gives infinity, that goes to the future. So I hope closing this chapter with you will be the opening of a new one. So maybe just a small introduction of United Arrows and your story there. 

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

30 years ago, 31 years ago, we started our company, 1989. We started our company and in 1990 we had our first show. And, for example, from 1991 we were dealing with Dries van Noten, from 1994 we were dealing with Martin Margiela and we had a lot of interesting production from all over the world. And also from the Japanese companies, like Comme des Garçons, you know Watanabe, Undercover and in 1995 we became a public company. So, our share was open. So for example, Linda you could’ve been our stockholder.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Oh, that’s nice.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

And I was the managing director in the managing board from 1989 to 2009. Then I left the board and became a senior advisor. But I’m still working mainly with United Arrows and at the same time I’m doing a freelance job; A kind of journalist or sometimes I teach or guide the students from Polimoda or students from another school. 

 

LINDA LOPPA

So, I’m going to start here with the Speakers Corner, that was a conversation between Sam Cotton and Anne Timerman. I wanted to ask you today, how do you feel today and what is the future that we should speak out loud in the fashion system that we would like to have. Because we’ve had kind of a year where we’ve asked us these questions. 

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Until last year the situation around fashion was very commercial, but maybe because of the COVID19 the whole retail system or the feelings of the customer are changing. So now we heard a lot of interesting voices from the journalists or the customers and at the same time the people ask me to say more words from a fashion professional point of view. 

Especially this year, I published my own book and this is my first book. The title is “The World After Mode”. So, I said, the old style of the people following the same mode, the same trend, same fashion was over. And maybe this tendency has already happened, maybe 5, 10 years ago, this change had already started. But because of the COVID-19, suddenly this change became very drastic. So many people need many voices and it is time to have our own voices. And it is time to say something for the industry, for the fashion and also for the environmental systems.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Indeed, we need also ethical discussions, I think, about our businesses. 

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Yes, yes. The fashion industry, we should think about how we pollute the world. 

 

LINDA LOPPA

So the second container we have is the Science Container. We did a lot of research, there is a lot of research on new fabrics, on new elements. We had this discussion with Suket Dhir in India, new Delhi, and Armando Chant who is an artist in Melbourne. And I was feeling that science is so interesting, but we know little about it. So I thought, how can we make it more modern? How can we make it more contemporary and implement it to a wider audience? What is your idea? How would you do that? 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Many people ask me about many different questions but some question has the same point of view. It is how we can balance human skills and artificial intelligence. So, how we can strike a balance between like a shoe technique and a digital technique together. For example, you’ve mentioned about India, India has a very long history about making fabrics, dyeing fabrics. There they have fantastic skills and fantastic craftsmen, like Dries Van Noten is using. But at the same time, India is famous for the modern science and also famous for being good in mathematics. So I think, for example, that Indian people have both the creative side and the scientific side in their DNA. And of course, in general, now we live in a very, very digital world, but at the same time we realized that science is not the answer, science is not the final answer. 

 

For example, during the lockdown people needed the mask but the lockdown made the transportation difficult, importing masks. So people started making their own mask and happily we have still have many Japanese factories that can make masks. So from the simple mask to the very luxury mask, which are made by the Kimono fabric in Kyoto. Now we can see a lot of difference, a lot of variations of masks. At the same time some mask has a highly technological function inside the mask. So I also think that this COVID19 situation gave us a chance to think about how we can live with our hands and the digital technology together. Especially fashion I think we can do both ways.

 

LINDA LOPPA

So, I think also that making exhibitions, events and digital events around science and around research could make it more accessible and more modern in a way that it doesn’t seem like behind closed doors, but that we can be part of it. Do you agree?

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Yes. Last year at Tate Modern, I saw a big exhibition of Olafur Eliasson. Olafur Eliasson maybe he’s a good example of, on one side he’s very good in modern technology, but on the other side he really wants to protect nature. So, he used his modern technology to remind people to open their eyes on how our earth is important, how our earth is delicate and how we should hurry to save this world. 

 

LINDA LOPPA

That’s a beautiful example of Eliasson. I agree, I agree. Wonderful. Then the next was the Digital Container, because of course, thanks to the digital we are talking today and thanks to the digital we have a lot of possibilities to meet in this moment. But is it the only solution of communication, can’t we find more human relationships instead of those algorithms and those data that, actually for the moment, know more about us than we know about ourselves. So, is it not a danger to go too much to the digital and what is for you the balance between the digital and the analogue?

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

I totally agree with you that the digital is a little bit dangerous situation and the people believe too much in the digital or the algorithm. And I can give you a very strange experience. This week I said, my book was published. So sometimes I check what kind of a reaction is there to my book. So sometimes I check my book’s title on the computer. So one day, Amazon recommended me one book and that was my book because the algorithm analyzation made such a stupid mistake, and I really, really laughed.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Yeah that’s a good one.

HIROFUMI KURINO

So, this is one very silly example of how we should not believe the algorithm. 

 

LINDA LOPPA

So I think there is a kind of danger, that we have to be careful that we go back to not losing our emotions and especially the fashion industry, I guess.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Yeah. And also this is maybe, it’s kind of a silly situation for the algorithm. But, if I can point out on the mistake, I’m very welcoming about the mistake, because, since we’ve made a mistake, humans can progress. If we’ve never made a mistake, we would’ve never proceeded. So that’s why the computer is planned to not make mistakes. So, that’s why I don’t believe in this digital system too much.

 

LINDA LOPPA

The Little History Container is something that is precious to me in this project, because I don’t believe in big exhibitions anymore of fashion. I thought that in every city, in every country, in every culture there is so much to tell about the little simple or beautiful garment, that it would be nice if we could have little containers, little, little, little, even in a little small shop or a little space or in your office. I see all those plastic books, it would be a nice installation. And so, I wanted to ask you what would be your garment that you would choose in the first little container in the Little History Container.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Now the computer system can handle the big data, so they can take the human history, 50.000 years of human history can be handled by a computer. But at the same time, I would think that if we should learn from everything we never learned. So we can learn from our head, our mind, our brain, otherwise we should say that 100% of the big data is the only solution. So, like you said, the small is good because, it’s an illusion that we can learn everything. We could never learn everything and we could never remind everything. But I think that our brain still has a lot of capacity. I read an article about humans use only a very small, small, small part of the brain. So I’ll try to use more of my brain, but not more of the digital stock not from the big data.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Thank you, I’m very honored. I wanted to ask you, you were saying in one of your interviews that the Kimono was quite a genderless garment. I was intrigued by that statement, as the Kimono for us, Western people is a kind of unbelievably beautiful and complex, but at the same time, amazingly rich and emotional garment. Especially for, I think for all the people in fashion, that must be of the main, important garments in the world history. So, could you touch that a little bit?

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Yes, the Kimono story is very important and very deep. So, if we just see the shape or if we just see the making of the Kimono; the Kimono itself it’s gender free. There’s no gender. But at the same time, the way we wear the Kimono it’s strict, originally men have their own way, women have their own way. And for example, in the Western clothing, men’s jacket, men’s shirts, left side is over and right side is over. It’s the Western way. Kimono has the same history. So, this is the basic difference between men and women in a Kimono. And also if men are wearing the Kimono, there are not so many layers, but if women, wear the Kimono, there are many layers. So, in this historical and cultural part, especially for the women, the Kimono is like, enjoying the culture itself. So the Kimono, especially the fabric of the Kimono has a lot of techniques, some technique has already gone, some techniques are already lost, or still very good craftsmen in Kyoto or in the countryside in Japan, are still handling the classic way of weaving the Kimono. But anyway, the most charming part of the Kimono is the fabric. The weaving, the colors we’re using, the thread we’re using are the charm of the Kimono and also, it has basically no age, no size. So, the same Kimono we can resize it from mother’s size to daughter’s size or grandma’s size to granddaughter’s size. Or finally, in my grandmother’s days, they were making the cloths to clean the table form a worn-out Kimono. So, the Kimono it was one of the most sustainable clothing in Japan in the past.

 

LINDA LOPPA

We come to the Critical Container. It’s also one of my favorite containers. I think we must be critical and although we are well educated, we have to find the words to do that. And I was hearing the conversation with Angelo Flaccavento, that you know well, with Anna Yudina, she’s a good writer and editor of books, mostly on architecture. It was a very good conversation also about poetry. I think poetry is something that, yes, that, I think Angelo is a poet, he writes so well when he writes about fashion, he’s very sharp when you talk to him, when you see him, he’s like a poet. And I said, why not writing in poetry? Do you agree? I guess, yes.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

You know, in my book I said finally the philosopher or the poet are the ultimate fashion people. Because, they create. Philosophers create and poets create without a shape. So philosophers and poets never create any physical thing, but create the concept. And they create the thinking, which is the biggest flexibility and freedom in the world. So, I’m really charmed by those people who are magicians for the world, philosophers and poets.

LINDA LOPPA

So we agree. And lately you were reading Saito, the young philosopher.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Oh yeah.

 

LINDA LOPPA

How did you came to his work?

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Kohei Saito he graduated at the University in Germany and his main subject is Karl Marx and, The Capital. He’s just 33 years and when he was 31 he received the Deutscher Memorial Prize 2018. I really respect his work because he found an ecological point of view and a sustainable point of view from Carl Marx’s latest work. And this is kind of a revolution for the people who study Carl Marx. And also, now we see a very edgy time of the capitalistic world. So in his work, Mr. Kohei Saito said that we should stop the capitalism. So stopping capitalism it’s the most radical thinking, but at the same time when we were in the 1960s and 1970’s, we’ve said the same thing, but in a more radical way. So, the point that I respect of Mr. Kohei Saito is that he’s not pushing violence or a radical revolution, but he said to think more and just change the system. So, if we seriously try to change the system, for example, change the fast fashion system or the fast food system, we can stop damaging the world. So I really respect this point. Mr. Kohei Saito he’s one of the best philosophers and the best economist, I think.

LINDA LOPPA

So young people are writing, which is great.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

LINDA LOPPA

We come to the Now Container now, we come to the Now Container and I’ve dedicated this container to young people in their twenties. Because it seems they have the key of the answer of everything that goes wrong in the world. It seems they really have a great voice and they have a lot of attention. And because they are very critical to us, the older guys, and they think we did everything wrong, so they are quite critical and I think they can have a voice in the future. 

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

I really agree with what you’re saying, and of course, you know, now everybody knows about Greta Thunberg. So, she’s just a 16, 17, she comes from Sweden. She’s studying her demonstration just by herself. But at the same time, she can move millions of people to say yes to her activities. So I really, really believe these new generations. And at the same time, at this point, social media is acting well, social media is there too. So they can learn, they can use and they can put their voice in the social media. 

So this is the biggest difference between our twenties and their twenties. I think for the mind, Linda’s time, Kurino’s time is the same. But they have also the digital, the social media and they can use it. So, I should say to the old generation, don’t be afraid too much. Don’t be afraid of social media, don’t be afraid of the young generations. Because they’re not against you. They just try to be honest. They just try to carry on this world. That’s why they say no to you. And the “no” is the start of the “yes”. “No” is a positive “yes”. So if they’d always said “yes”, there would be no future. So, I really respect the people who can say good a good “no” to the world. And, we should hear their voice and the same for this digital world. 

For example, if, as you mentioned, the young fashion designers, if they were in Paris or Milan in the 1980s, they’ve had to wait for some buyer or some journalist to put their name on Madame Figaro or the International Herald Tribune. They should’ve waited, but now they can put their work on a social media, in the computer and quickly some people will find them. So, it’s a very new world and still, nobody can use the 100% of this new equipment. So, we should get used to this. And we should put our human side into this digital and try to find the charm of the human in this digital social communication.

LINDA LOPPA

Yeah, In fact, we have to work on this. My next container is the Surprise Container. I mean, are we surprised today? I want to be surprised. I don’t know, there is a lot going on between local and globalization and local and global and I think the surprise is going to come from the local communities.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Yeah, yeah.

 

LINDA LOPPA

And you have that project in Africa.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Yeah.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Can you talk a bit about that? Because it was a surprise to me that you were there. I saw pictures, you working with the people, it was really nice. Can you talk about it?

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

I have two different African projects. One project is, we work together with the United Nations, Ethical Fashion Initiative, EFI. This project is to make products in Africa, for example, we’re producing fabrics in Burkina Faso and we use these fabrics in our tailoring. So this activity is to help local people to get a job. And at the same time this activity can save the classical, local, traditional skill, of the hand-weaving in Burkina Faso or hand-beading in Kenya. So this is one project. 

The other project is, we work together with African designers. This started last year, and we named it “FACE.A-J”, “Fashion And Culture Exchange. Africa-Japan”, “FACE.A-J”. So, maybe the original idea was during Pitti Uomo, many years ago, Pitti did the presentation, the title was “Constellation Africa”. They introduced several young African designers. And I’ve found many young talents from Africa. So naturally, me and my colleague started to be interested in African young designer. And we would like to introduce them to the world and at the same time people in the major fashion field, found out some talented African designer, like, also Linda-san you might know, Thebe Magugu or Kenneth Ize last year at the LVMH prize. And also this year Sindiso Khumalo we found her at the LVMH prize. So until recently people thought just about Europe or America as the center of fashion, but no, no, no there are a lot of creative people out of Europe, not out of Africa, but out of Europe.

LINDA LOPPA

There is the Lagos fashion week and there is a lot of creativity. Yeah.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Yeah, I went to the Lagos fashion week. And also, originally African people love fashion, not as consumerism but as a joy of life, this point really charmed me. Because, I’ve mentioned about the capitalism in another chapter, capitalism is consumerism and the consumerism sometimes kills the creativity, consumerism kills the joy of wearing. But the way American people do is that they just enjoy wearing clothes. So it looks like in our twenties, our early sixties, seventies, we really, really enjoyed dressing up ourselves. So, I’m very happy to see the African people having this DNA. And I like to work together with young African designers and introduce them to the world. This are the activities we’re doing.

LINDA LOPPA

Yeah, I think you can do a lot as a big company. You could also not do it, but you do it.

 

HIROFUMI KURINO

Thank you.

 

LINDA LOPPA

I think that’s very important to say so. I come to the Brain Contain, the brain, which I think we have to train a little bit more. Because many people are forgetting that we have a brain and I had a fantastic discussion with Sissel Tolaas. You know, Sissel Tolaas the smell researcher and artists, and Fabien Beckers. I felt during all my conversations with many people, recently, many of them changed jobs, and he did that as well. And Sissel Tolaas who is really passionate woman, she was really amazing and talked about tolerance, that smell could help tolerance. I thought it was a nice statement to work on that. What do you feel?

HIROFUMI KURINO

Yeah. I’ve read an article about smell. We have a lot of senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. But smell is very, delicately related to memory. And sometimes people have problems with memory or sometimes people become forgetful. Smell can help them to remind things or vitalize their brain too. So, I think there’s still a lot of mystery in the human body and of course in the human brain and those kind of recent researches on senses like smell can help the scientific side and medical side too. So, we should learn more about the brain. Also I’ve read an article about our eyes. Our eyes have a white part and a dark part. Within mammals, only humans have this white part and this dark part. This has a reason, because we can talk with the eyes. And if we were monkeys or lions, we should not show our eyes because our enemy could read us. So, if we were wild animals, we would protect our eyes from somebody reading our mind. But our eye is the opposite. The reason we have the white side is the opposite, other people can read our eyes. So this is a very interesting physical and brain research about communication and how the human body is made, I think.

 

LINDA LOPPA

I want to go further to the Pattern Container. The Pattern Container for me is, I’m the daughter of a tailor, you know, so I’m born with the pattern, my father was a tailor. And the pattern is so interesting because it’s from a two-dimensional that goes to a three-dimensional. But not only the pattern of fashion is interesting to me, but also patterns of society, patterns of cities, patterns of life, patterns of behavior. And so, I don’t know, I thought it was a good moment to talk with you about Tokyo. It’s so interesting, that city, with different cultures in different cities, it’s like one big country with different ways of living, how is Tokyo for you, because it’s so fascinating. I miss it a bit.

HIROFUMI KURINO 

Thank you. I was mostly raised in Tokyo, so I like Tokyo and I still love Tokyo. Now after COVID19 the situation in Tokyo became a little bit different. Until this March, Tokyo was people’s dream place. People wanted to go to Tokyo. And all the big companies, big designer brands have their flagship shops in Tokyo. Okay, this is understandable, Tokyo is New York, Tokyo is Paris. But after COVID19, people are afraid of Tokyo and at the same time people found out the charm of their local place. So now we are living in a very delicate, middle of the road where the people’s dream of Tokyo is half lost and half still exists. Maybe the best solution is that we should see Tokyo as local and not as a center. So, this concept of forgetting about the center, forgetting about the local must be the post pandemic world thinking. 

Also Kohei Saito in his book about the Capital of Karl Marx said that now the European centrism, the Western centrism, this period is over. At the same time the city centrism is over I think. Tokyo is still charming and I like Tokyo, but we should change our concept. Not a centric city anymore, but one of the very interesting local, same as Nagoya, Osaka or same as Kanazawa, Kyoto. I can say the same thing about Milan or Tuscany or Paris or Avignon. So, all the places are interesting, especially after this pandemic. And at the same time, the positive side of the digital, the connection can change the positioning of the center. I think the map of the world is changing.

LINDA LOPPA

Smaller cities have the capacity to bring something new, based on invention and naivety.

The last container is Exhibition Container. I like curating, I did many exhibitions in Antwerp and abroad. How is your feeling about fashion museums? If I might ask you.

HIROFUMI KURINO

So, we already saw many nice fashion museums and, of course, we can learn from, the Victoria and Albert Museum or the MoMu in Antwerp or the Musée Galliera in Paris. There are a lot of nice fashion museums and we can learn. But maybe they should think about the next step of what is a museum itself. Because sometimes people think too much about the function of a museum as an archive. But if we just think about the past, there’s no future. So the idealistic way of a museum might be open, very open to new things, and people can use the things or people can research the history or the materials or the garments in the museum. A museum is like a dictionary, a museum is like a tangible dictionary. I like to go to museums, from museums we can learn a lot of unknown things and some things we can’t understand, this is very important, I think. Because if we could understand everything, we would become stupid. I’m very much charmed by the things we cannot understand or things that make me feel uncomfortable. For example, the Fondazione Prada in Milan, there is a very good curation. I always feel a strong power from Fondazione Prada, because it doesn’t give me the comfort, but sometimes a very strange feeling or also a negative feeling. But we need this, we need this good poison. We need good noise in our life. So, art can open your eyes and some fashion brands like Margiela, Comme des Garçons can open your eyes. So at this point, the fashion museum shouldn’t be just an archive, but also evoke, also provoking people might be a very important part of the fashion museum.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Thank you Kurino-san for this wonderful dinner, I would say. Maybe it was a dinner, it was a good conversation. And we keep on provoking. I will do the same, because I think we need to do that. And if we can give other people the push to provoke, please do it. Thank you so much for this conversation. Thank you. Have a nice evening.

HIROFUMI KURINO

Ciao ciao.

 

LINDA LOPPA

Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.