Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg

mina perhonen - fashion & design

The work of the Japanese fashion and textile designer Akira Minagawa and his brand minä perhonen can best be described as timeless, whimsical and with a great deal of feeling for minute details. 

From 24 October 2009 to 28 February 2010 inclusive, the Audax Textielmuseum Tilburg presents an outline exhibition of this work.

Apart from the fashion collection that sells all over the world, Minagawa also designs interior and furnishing fabrics. These last are produced by the Danish company Kvadrat and are also used on Arne Jacobsen chairs such as the Egg, the Swan, the series 7, manufactured by the Danish REPUBLIC OF Fritz Hansen. The brand minä perhonen   also has brought a small porcelain collection onto the market and Akira Minagawa has designed a number of chairs himself. Recently the designers of the brand drew for a print for the famous storm umbrella of Senz.
In their work Akira Minagawa and his designers are continuously looking for the boundaries of what is technically achievable. That results in fine details that are hidden as small surprises in the clothing and fabrics. Using various weaving, printing and embroidery machines, they combine old and new techniques in a wayward manner.

Who is Akira Minagawa?
Akira Minagawa  (Tokyo 1967), educated at the famous Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, started his fashion label in 1995. In 2000 he opened a first fashion store in Tokyo, but in 2003 he decided to change the name of his label to minä perhonen. minä perhonen means i, the butterfly in Finnish. In this way Minagawa refers to his passion for the culture of Scandinavia and the symbol of the butterfly in the open air. The butterfly became the new logo of the fashion label: it is a series of scrawly drawings that symbolise these butterflies that move, experiment and grow. In this way they characterise the work of Minagawa that can best be summarised as a constant and continuous process, in which all the fabrics, prints and pieces of embroidery recur in new forms.
Starting in 2004, minä perhonen was presented both in Paris and Tokyo during the fashion week. In 2006 he received the prestigious Japanese Mainichi Fashion Grand Prix prize. In 2007 he opened a second store in Kyoto. In 2008 he began designing porcelain. In the Netherlands minä perhonen is sold by Tamago in Amsterdam.
For more information about the designer, visit: http://www.mina-perhonen.jp

minä perhonen and fashion
Now that the international fashion world falls more and more under the spell of durability and attention to craftsmanship, is minä perhonen more and more often put forward as an important representative of this new spirit of the age. What is exceptional is that the brand radically breaks the tenacious fashion rule that everything can only last for one season and must then make way for something new. The clothes can cover more than one season, because the fine details in the fabrics, the prints and the pieces of embroidery form the core of the designs: they are used again in each new collection, such as the pieces of embroidery called forest parade or forest girl. 
    
Thus each piece of clothing is an artisanate tour de force that can go beyond the fashion trend of one season. Minagawa also uses the same ingenious material constructions in the design materials that he designs for Kvadrat.

Special attention to fabrics we already saw earlier with important Japanese fashion designers such as Commes des GarÇons from Rei Kawakubo, Junya Watanabe and Issey Miyake. They, too, applied themselves to combinations of new technologies mixed with centuries old Japanese traditions. Akira Minagawa can be seen as a new and fresh talent, because he has come up with a completely new expression and language, arising from his more poetic vision, which is also based on durability. 

Exhibition in Tilburg
More than fifty outfits from the minä perhonen body of work can be seen at the exhibition. In addition, attention is paid to interior textiles, the covered chairs, the porcelain and fashion accessories, and the method of work is being demonstrated by means of sketched and short films. Three woven plaids are also being shown, which the designer had produced in the TextileLab especially for the exhibition and for the museum collection.
Bordering on the exhibition area is a place fitted out with work made in Japan by the (young) Dutch fashion designer Sanne Jansen. Jansen met Minagawa at a master class that he gave in the TextileMuseum. There he offered her an apprenticeship in Tokyo and brought her into contact with the Japanese fashion industry and fashion stores. http://www.sannejansen.com

The exhibition has been put together by guest curator José Teunissen, lecturer in fashion design at the ArtEZ Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem, in collaboration with Akira Minagawa and Hanneke Oosterhof, head of Presentation and Collection at the TextileMuseum. A publication (Dutch/English) is being brought out for the exhibition, with illustrations of the work of minä perhonen and text written by José Teunissen, among others. The layout has been taken care of by Tsuyoshi Tane, partner in Dorell.Ghotmeh.Tane / Architects in Paris. The graphic design is by Frederik de Wal.
The exhibition has been brought about with a financial contribution by the Japan Foundation.

During the exhibition there are various products from minä perhonen for sale in the TextileShop, including the plaids woven in the TextileLab.