THE STORY 19 FALL WINTER

One of the most essential pillars of Mame Kurogouchi's production process is collaborations with craft makers that incorporate Japan's traditional crafts into their creations.

At the birth of the brand, Maiko Kurogouchi set out to find makers of arts and crafts outside of fashion. Since then, she has maintained lively discussions with them in order to morph her visions into the actual products.

Among many pieces of inspirations she collected and drew from are decorative Yokoku technique where patterns are scarped onto pieces before being fired to bring them up to surface and Kintsugi, a way to repair broken pottery by connected pieces with lacquer mixed with powder gold.

In an attempt to give a form to her dream where she saw herself wrapped in a thick fog, Kurogouchi reflected her wish to hold onto, connect and perpetuate these dangerously ever changing images by expressing them into accessories based on the idea of Yokoku and Kintsugi.

After her quest to find an artisan who can make her vision true, she eventually reached an artist who makes female dolls and medical models.

With the skills of an artist who has inherited an ancient technique of Hitogata, which translates to a human body model, and incorporate it into modern doll making, Kurogouchi's dream, buoyed by a traditional craft making, found its way to have lives as accessories.

These one of a kind pieces were made possible by using an old fragment of Yokoku pottery as a mold and through meticulous communications with the maker. It is a testament to Mame Kurogouchi's commitment to pursuing the marriage between traditions and banality with new ideas and skilled craftsmanship.