give me SOMARTA!

on my way to the FIT bookstore for a [MUCH needed] patternmaking book yesterday, i detoured into the school's museum to check out their current exhibits: his & hers, vivienne westwood 1980-89, and japan fashion now.  i have little obsessions with pieces from each of the three exhibits, but something incredible attracted all of my attention for the last two days, even though i had seen the japanese display back in november.


japan fashion now showcased the pioneer japanese designers of the late 70's, 80's and early 90's [note: rei kawakubo and issey miyake].  after circling around the masters, i entered into a room of 20+ present japanese designers and lost all hope of catching my breath.  so much variety, ingenuity, and perfection in one room.  but SOMARTA was the epitome of them all.


founded in 2006 by designer Tamae Hirokawa, a former member of issey miyake's design team, SOMARTA is a highly conceptual fashion line.  It is a sub-brand of SOMA, hirokawa's art direction, graphic design, sound, and fashion.  


the images featured are from the S/S 2009 collection.  FIT displayed the first piece (first TWO images), entitled "the jellyfish ensemble" (or something like that).  look closely and you can see boning used to shape the skirt like a bubble + tentacles and trimming down the center reminiscent of fossilized fishbone. i love the idea of translucence, revealing the infrastructure of the garment to be just as beautiful as its exoskeleton.  she could seriously just float away.  i literally gawked at this piece for several minutes...and that HEADPIECE! primo.  but it doesn't stop there, so i picked out two other skeletal faves from the same season.  click the SOMARTA links in the last paragraphs to visit the official website and facebook page for further exploration of this innovative brand.

sourcing:
info: fashion japan: SOMARTA
images: zimbio.com