Number (N)ine: A Closed Feeling
Number (N)ine is closing. Yes, it’s true. After twelve years of elevating his Americana inspired vision from the streets of Tokyo to the lofty heights of Parisian runways, Takahiro Miyashita is taking a well-earned sabbatical from the fashion world. His final collection just showed in Paris and is fittingly titled “A Closed Feeling”, a distinct, fanatical fantasy of dark aristocratic pirates in bejeweled masks wearing washed-out brocades, lace and fur, perhaps the last hurrah of a tortured creative genius.
It is the end of an era for Miyashita who is part of a new generation of Japanese designers including Jun Takahashi of Undercover and Gen Tarumiku of Hollywood Ranch Market, who take their distinctly American inspirations and inject them with the infectious inclinations of Ura-Harajuku, the epicentre of young street fashion in Tokyo. For Miyashita, it’s all about music. From grungy visions of the Wild West to the undeniable influences of Kurt Cobain in his shows, or the musical scores of Nirvana transcribed onto the lining of jackets and tees, it’s clear this man lives and breathes rock. Even the name of the label comes from the Beatles song Revolution #9.
Unlike his predecessors Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, who focus on silhouette, cut and proportions, Miyashita utilizes an intimate understanding of street and music culture although infused with a similar taste for construction and fabric treatments. Perhaps fashion has entered the era of the ‘fashion DJ’, as argued by critic Takeji Hirakawa, where there are no longer ways to make new creations, and instead designers compose a remix or a certain mood of the times. Others such as Karlo Steel of the epochal retail store Atelier New York argue the Japanese designers of the eighties influenced the Belgians such as Martin Margiela and Ann Demeulemeester in the nineties, who are now passing the torch back to the Japanese like Miyashita. Now that the cycle has come a full circle, what will be next? First, we should understand the past.
In a rare interview with Armand Limnander, Miyashita describes his journey in fashion beginning at the tender age of sixteen. A trip to the United States was life-changing for the young Tokyoite, inspiring him to delve straight into assisting fashion magazines before finishing school. Like his peers, he could be found roaming the streets of Shibuya and Harajuku saving what money he could to buy clothes, only to rip them to shreds and reconstruct them into creations of his own. Teaching himself in this way he landed a job as a buyer with the label Nepenthes, often travelling to the United States for research and inspiration, something he continues to this day.
After establishing Number (N)ine in 1996 he began to show in Tokyo four years later, debuting with a collection in black and white with a striking rock and roll sensibility, including patterned shirts and bandanas as well as a signature spider-patterned blouson. In the following years along with his good friend Jun Takahashi, Miyashita would develop a cult following from other young Tokyoites who had seen the gyaru-o boom in the nineties (men with tanned skin, wild hair, and virile, western-inspired clothing – the male counterpart to gyaru fashion) and were looking for something slightly less mainstream and more rebellious.
But life was not always easy for Miyashita, as one of the co-founders of the label, Hidenori Miura left in 2002 to set up his own label, Pledge. Those were testing times and the following year, plagued by health problems he was forced to stop designing for one season. The time off served as a period of contemplation and manifested itself in a certain sense of sorrow, embodied below the surface in his return collection in dilapidated velvet jackets and disheveled pajama outfits set to a Nirvana soundtrack, and the introduction of the new ‘crying heart’ logo was telling.
Eventually he broke through to Paris, and it was here where he elevated the quality of his grungy garments to a new level with an astounding sartorial detailing matched only by his dramatic musical obsessions. Here he was, a rebel from the streets of Harajuku, showing among the biggest names in menswear. A cowboy in his own right scaling the heights of Parisian fashion with the critically acclaimed collection ‘Noir’ in 2006, a compelling sight to behold in militaristic jackets and flowing capes imbued with a somber romanticism not previously seen.
This would continue in the following seasons, with a string of solid collections strongly influenced by Kurt Cobain and Johnny Cash until 2008 when he changed gears, dedicating a show to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones in a wild mish-mash of white brocades and garish purple velvets, brimming with a peculiar sense of underlying paranoia. Perhaps it was the grueling fashion schedule over the last nine years or the need for constant self reinvention, but what’s clear was a creeping sense of instability. The invitation for the final season was a giant ice cream sundae in sickly pale colors, and while the garments were stunning and arguably the best of his career, it alluded to the imminent meltdown.
It’s certainly sad to see the end of a label from a man who willingly admits he would give up music for fashion if forced to choose. But is this the end of Miyashita? At least in the way we know him now. After selling this last breathtaking collection, Number (N)ine will be shut down and the shops closed. But as one door closes, another one opens. “Takahiro is emotionally and physically exhausted. He is taking a break and will be back with something soon,” the label wrote in a letter. We hope he will.
Written by Brian Chung