Art and Design Commons^™

Dress, Risd Museum, Kate Irvin, Pradeep Sharma

Channel

Junya Watanabe is a master of shaping and manipulating carefully chosen, often technically advanced material. This dress, designed for his Spring 2008 collection, exemplifies the designer’s keen interest in sculpting novel creations replete with historical references. Collaborating with Liberty of London, Watanabe employed yards of the English firm’s renowned Tana Lawn fabric, patterned in tribute to the Indian export textiles eagerly consumed in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. In a twist to the story of East-to-West trade, Watanabe worked with Liberty fabric produced in Japan to develop a silhouette that references the Indian dhoti, a traditional garment worn …