Jin Okuma celebrated his return to from London to Tokyo with a Jack the Ripper themed exhibition in the Garter gallery of the Kitakore building, Koenji. You may recognise his work from various fashion editorials, the backs of the usual celebrities (read: Lady Gaga and various Korean pop-stars) and a bevy of street fashion stars, but this time he is clothing the ill-housed and ill-advised victims of Whitechapel. He has applied his armor-esque metal and plastic creations to the canonical five in such a manner that his clothes would have protected them from the manner in which they were killed, a sobering thought and one compounded by their faces being projected all around the Garter gallery space as you walk round (although we had to turn it off for the following pictures).
Aside from the protective aspect, there is also something aggressive about the sharp sharps of the precisely cut plastic, perhaps alluding to, as dear Morrissey puts it best, their faces being as mean as their lives have been.
Lest we forget that this is all for sale and not purely for the sake of art, prices come in at around 20000 yen for a good amount of the items, which is not all that bad considering that they are an outfit in themselves. I talked to Jin about what he wanted to work on next and he told me that he is shifting more towards interior design and lighting as that is where his true passion lies. So for now I advise you to enjoy his fashion work while you can, and if you want to see more you can find it in Garter in Kitakore and Dog, Harajuku amongst others.
The plastic is on the soft side and very light indeed, something that should make it relatively comfortable to wear, although I can only think of a handful of Tokyo fashionistas who can wear this off the rack.
The complexity of his layering and patterns is quite something to behold and I for one am looking forward to seeing what he turns his hand to next.
I am afraid I have no official site to send you to, but rest assured that we have our eye on this guy and we will keep you up to date here on Tokyo Telephone.
