Osaka Street Fashion Show

Yutaka Wakasugi has been teaching fashion for 19 years, a career older than many of his current students. His portfolio includes pupils who have graduated on to top design houses like Yoji Yamamoto, Hiroko Koshino and Yoshiki Hishinuma.

As an expressive outlet for his students he puts on a show free from rules and themes called the Street Fashion Show. Following a predetermined route each student leads a group of models wearing their outfits through the streets on a sunny afternoon. It was a showstopper even in Americamura, a fashion explosion in the heart of Osaka where you’d have to be naked or on fire to get anyone to look at you twice.

One of the participants in the parade, Guido Saldana, isn’t a student. In fact he’s never studied fashion. In a show about breaking the rules they had only one choice, invite him along.

You never went to school? How did you learn to make clothes?
Schools teach complicated ways to do things. It’s the only way they know, teachers learn from teachers. My way is simple because I don’t carry the baggage of how you’re supposed to make clothes.

Why did you want to join the 2004 Street Fashion Walk?
I want to do lots of different things, treat fashion more like an art form than a job. With competitions you don’t have to worry about problems like designing 20 different items every season, back orders all that stuff.

How did you design this line for the parade?
I made it for the person. There was no image; it’s not a line. Before the parade I met with the models and finished everything in five days.

Five days? Did you do any drawings beforehand?
(Laughs) People are always surprised to find I can’t draw. I just cut out fabric and do it. It’s more from a construction point of view than a designer. Construction workers can make clothes because they look at how things fit and the components. Fashion designers can’t build a house because they’re too into the design, not the fit. I work on people’s shapes.

Why so much black?
I don’t want to change the thread in the machines; it takes an hour every time. For me the shape is more important than the fabric. Men’s suits are all the same, just new fabrics. Europeans and Americans always just play with the colors. But Japanese designers are really good at playing with the shape.

What future projects are you working on?
Gearhead work wear. It's hardcore, fashionable work clothing that’s modern and durable. Work clothes are always so stiff and ugly. I work with a lot of steel and I’m always going through clothes, they just burn up. I need clothing that’s flame retardant.

What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received?
I’ve never seen anything like that before in my life!

Published: Japanzine June 2004

The Wedding

What a week it’s been. Saturday the 12th I arrived in San Francisco. Two days later I was on a plane bound for Guadalajara for my brother’s wedding. Every day was a different tour.

On Wednesday we hired a guide and headed for the city of Tequila. You guessed it, home of that evil drink that makes us gag and do strange things. I learned two important things in this tiny town. First of all, even though it’s all produced from the blue Agave plant, if it’s not produced in Tequila, it’s not called Tequila. Second of all, the putrid burning drink we enjoy in the US is nothing like the smooth liquor they enjoy in Mexico.

It’s a very simple process to make Tequila. The Agave is steamed and the sweet juice is ground from the core, or pineapple, afterwards. Then it is distilled into a potent clear liquid. That’s it basically. There’s no other material required or difference in the type of plant it’s produced from. The critical step is what form of that distilled liquor is put into your bottle.

If it doesn’t say 100% tequila, any kind of rot gut blend, including sugarcane, can be poured into the bottle. However, if it’s aged in oak barrels you get an alcohol that can come in various shades, the darker it is the longer it’s been aged. This Tequila is smooth, and sometimes sweet. It becomes increasingly viscous and is a real treat to drink.

The next day we spent in the pool in preparation for the rehearsal dinner. This was followed by speeches from various friends and family that never ceased to leave everyone in tears.

And then the wedding. The bride and groom met fully dressed for the first time in the morning. They had a little quite time on the lawn, if you don’t count everyone peaking out the windows and then they were off for photos.

Later we all got dressed and went into town for the ceremony. From the outside the Church looked old and the simple stones gave no hint of the rich interior. The inside appeared to be solid gold. From the walls hung statues and crosses and the ceiling appeared high enough to trap the clouds. The priest was a tall man with large gnarled hands that seemed to speak on their own. He kept everyone laughing and crying for almost two hours.

Afterwards we hopped in vans and sped of to the Hacienda for a party that would have done Hollywood proud. Thirty different musicians, including two mariachi bands and three dancers that kept everyone on their toes. Everyone ate and danced and drank tequila until the fireworks ended the show.

Two days later I was in San Francisco playing golf with my good buddy Ed. In the evening we made a short appearance at the April launch party for InsideOut Magazine and then headed up the street for some serious Chinese food at Sam Wo’s.

The next day Ed and I were joined by my dad and we headed out to Harding for the full 18 at Harding. Oddly enough, I was running around so much in Mexico I didn’t have any time to catch the sun. But one day on the links in San Francisco and I was red as a lobster.

I must have fallen asleep at some point because the last the I remember was eating Cheesesteak at the Philly Cheesteak Shop on Divisidaro, and now I’m on a train headed back to Osaka for a little street fashion show. I’m pretty darn sure it’s Sunday.

Pictures of the wedding

I am exhausted. Monday morning I hopped on the bullet train and was in Tokyo in under three hours. I went to Roppongi Hills to see what all the fuss is. The fuss is, clearly some people are living life really really well. I spent the afternoon hanging on in meetings with CWM and then some congratulatory cocktails in the Tokyo Foreign Corrospondance Club. We threw back beers, salty fried shrimp and stared at the photos of monumental writers and photgraphers who have been in the club. We finaly adjourned to get ready for the writers party in our swank 70's pad behind the Russian embassy. Aparantly par for the course, I saw the street shut down tight by police twice for Right Wing demonstrations.

The next morning after lunch I was back on the bullet train and in Kyoto long enough to change my underwear and head out again for an intensive course I was teaching on the east coast. Jetting around Japan on trains is mind boggling. I don't know how many miles I covered, but in a car I'm sure I would have been in a ditch splashing Coca Cola on my face to keep awake.

I took the train up to Osaka for a few reasons today. Number one, I had to buy a suit for my brother's wedding. My Japanese has progressed to the point where I can say "cool" (kakui) in English. That seems to take me all the way through the suit buying process. Every suit the sales lady brought me, I just let her know if it was cool or not. At last I had a cool suit and a cool shirt. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a cool tie. Guess I'll have to go on another cool search tomorrow.

The second appointment was two bars that I needed to write reviews for. One bar was awesome with incredible food. The other bar had bad music, bad food and was just plain...bad. Looks like I'll only be writing one review. The bad place, guess I'll just have to go back a few more times until I find something cool.

My apartment is on the fourth floor and I can look down on all the low wooden houses in the neighborhood. The roofs are beautiful. A-shaped with silver tiles that become mottled over time. Along the top ridge is a design made from tiles that runs the entire length. It's beautiful to look at, but unfortunately it's also home to all the neighborhood cats.

The angle is flat enough that they can get up there and lay all day in the sun. Usualy I don't care, they look happy. But today...today a cat must be in heat. I woke up to the most chilling sound of a cat crying. Low and long, getting louder and louder. What woke me up was a sound not unlike a child screaming in pain. I wonder if that's another sign of Spring. Maybe I should follow suit.

Wayne and I spent all night walking into clubs and restaurants in down town Kyoto. My writing for Japanzine is largely about Kyoto so we're trying to get distribution up in the area. What a learning experience.

Wayne can speak excellent Japanese and he's been selling advertising for about a year now. For me, I'm lost. I can only follow about 30% of the conversation so I missed a lot. Japanese business has so many rules of conduct. Whenever it looked like it was time to show appreciation I just started bowing and saying anything that seemed appropriate. "Gambaru, arigatou, okini, sumimasen."

But it was really fun. There's something cool about the small business person. Each place is like a different little country with different styles and customs. They all have stories and advice. When you stop and listen you realize there's a whole community missed everday.

Many of the places we looked at I hadn't even noticed before, even though I've walked passed them a million times. The truth is, standing outside the door, you're trying to decide if you want to commit your hard earned yen before going inside. But when you walk around to lots of different places you get a sense of culture. The entertainment culture. It's all business, but everyone's a neighbor.

What is with the weather these days? It was starting to get warmer so I put my heater away. The next day it rained followed by a cold front that frosted my windows. I was commiserating with a friend about the strange weather and found out it was quite normal.

The Japanese have a term for the weather between Winter and Spring. "san kan shi on." It translates roughly to "three cold three warm." The weather just before Spring fluctuates from cold to warm to cold to...you get the idea. Now we're in the third cold which means the next period of warm weather will carry us into Summer.

Yatta! Soon it will be time for cherry blossom parties.