27th Mar. 2014

 

Koguryo costume

 

Having opened my spaces and shops in Kyoto I acknowledged that Japanese were originally and traditionally wearing Kimono especially at an important occasion as did often my father and it was only a recent thing that we started to put on ties and suits.
As for me, since childhood I did not like Kimono nor western style wear. Especially I hated school uniform and at high school I rejected putting it on together with my class mates who agreed to my feeling against uniformity and finally our school authorized free wear. Each person was born as a unique person so I could not accept the system of uniform, as this looked like being in a jail.
Now that I started to create marbling wear that manifested the beauty of the vast universe and the birth of life from the unity of water, light and wind, I realized the great joy of being free by wearing one. It was extremely important and joyful to put on my marbling costume at the Legends of Koguryo Rediscovered concert as I freely improvised and narrated poems on the spot.
One day I watched a photo book of Koguryo’s mural paintings that showed me the traditional wear of ancient Koguryo’s people and I imitated their style to create my version with a marbling technique that I named Koguryo costume. The other day I studied about the history of Kimono and was surprised to find a painting of the emperor Shotokutaishi who was wearing the same costume as those painted in Koguryo’s mural paintings. I was glad to see the similarity between Japanese and Koguryo traditional wear. I felt like putting on my Koguryo’s costume and went out into the streets, however as this was a ceremonial one, I refrained from wearing one in daily life.
These days at a department store, I could not come across something that I felt like buying and many people seemed to feel in the same manner, while a majority of the general public were wearing a cloth that gave me a stereo type impression.
For the children in disaster hit areas I created T-shirts and presented them saying that each one was unique in the world like each person. Actually they loved them and enjoyed wearing one with vigor. This was a great hope for realizing truly peaceful world that allowed each person to fully develop one’s potentials and live a brilliantly shining life.
I would also express my internality and live a vigorous life for a marvelous future. Now that we were living in an era of great transformation, our life and culture, etc. should be renewed. With beautiful and pure heart I wish to keep on creating a new world.
Today also I put on my marbling Koguryo costume and gave a lecture and I remained peaceful at heart and felt truthful to my own nature. I would renew my life from now on.