The three-month exhibition marks the first time the iconic Comme des Garçons fashion brand has brought its collection of 100 garments to Australia, throwing the spotlight on the changing face of Brisbane, a new world city ranked by Lonely Planet as “Australia's hippest”.
As the guidebook noted, in Brisbane, sub-culture undercurrents run deep, with “cool bookshops, globally-inspired restaurants and cafes, bars and band rooms aplenty”. Here, Japanese cultural influences from fashion to food and the arts have also helped elevate the city's experience of “cool” to a whole new level.
According to pop culture expert, Doctor Toni Johnson-Woods, thirty years ago, when the Comme des Garçons brand was launched, you'd be hard pressed to find a top-notch sushi bar, let alone Kaiseki dining (Japanese degustation) in Brisbane. Chopsticks were still considered “exotic” and The Karate Kid was the epitome of cool. Fast forward and Brisbane has come of age, not just within Australia, but as a rising new star in Asia: a city confident in her own skin.
If you are in Brisbane between now and February 2015, why not extend the J-cool experience with these Top 9 Japanese gems.
1. Future Beauty: 30 years of Japanese Fashion
(1 November 2014 – 15 February 2015): the only Australian showing of this global blockbuster curated by world-renowned fashion historian Akiko Fukai, director of the esteemed Kyoto Costume Institute. In parallel with its Future Beauty exhibition, GOMA has also secured the world's first Comme des Garçons pop-up shop within a gallery environment.
2. We can make another future: Japanese art after 1989
(6 September 2014 – 20 September 2015): highlights work by more than 40 contemporary Japanese artists drawn from the Queensland Art Gallery Collection. Visit www.qagoma.qld.gov.au for more information, including details of the 'Future Beauty Up Late' program.
3. Sake Restaurant & Bar:
Acclaimed as one of Australia's masters of Japanese cuisine, Executive Chef Shaun Presland's story is as amazing as the sushi he serves in his Eagle Street Restaurant. A Brisbane boy who completed a chef's apprenticeship with the Army Reserves, Shaun travelled to Japan in 1994 where he worked for two years in a ryokan (small inn) and learnt authentic Japanese cooking from the ground up.
4. Bird's Nest:
Billed for bringing traditional Japanese street-food, Yakitori, to Australia for the first time, Bird's Nest co-owners and 'besties' Emi Kamada and Marie Yokoyama are Brisbane girls with Japanese heritage. Using only organic produce, their Yakitori (skewered chicken) follows an age-old method of cooking over white charcoal (Binchoutan), using an incredibly high burning point that imparts great flavour onto the food.
5. Apartment
Tucked away on Albert Street in the city, local kool kats and brothers Nick and Ben Chiu offer the only other avenue in Brisbane to purchase Comme des Garçons, alongside a heady range of Japanese street wear at their men's boutique, Apartment.
6. Cult Brisbane-born label, dogstar,
is gearing up to launch its Summer 2014 collection and first boutique off home turf, in Melbourne. The label, renowned for its bold, edgy lines, is the creation of Masayo Yasuki who moved to Brisbane in the 1990s and found the freedom and inspiration here to be creative.
7. Fukutoshi Ueno
Forget IKEA. Brisbane designer Fukutoshi Ueno's flat-pack 'Dress Code' – a striking furniture piece created in collaboration with friend and celebrated fashion designer Akira Isogawa – can be purchased via Artisan in Fortitude Valley. So cool, in fact, that those “in the know” at the National Gallery of Australia purchased it for their permanent collection.
Kazuyo Kashiwagi last year opened her own artisans' store, Kazuyo's Collection, on bustling Boundary Street in West End. Home to a collection of Japanese and Australian wares, her store also includes sought-after handbags crafted from vintage kimono fabric.
9. Lust for Life gallery
Young Brisbane designer Tiffany Atkin translates her love of Japanese pop culture and her experience living and working in Tokyo into a unique range of art, accessories and homewares. Don't miss a February 2014 exhibition of her work at Fortitude Valley's Lust for Life gallery.
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