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Creating Clothes for a Motorcycle Yamaha Motor Newsletter (June 13, 2019 No. 72)
Since our founding, Yamaha Motor has placed high priority on design with its Monozukuri (creating products with an emphasis on craftsmanship and excellence), passed down engineering ideals to create motorcycles in tune with the rider and praised as having “Yamaha Handling,” and created several distinct worlds for its product brands.
Yamaha believes that motorcycles are more than simple tools for movement; they are vehicles that are closest to people. When others share this belief, such as in the realm of rider fashion, a variety of possible collaborations come to mind. In this issue, we introduce one standout collaboration by an up-and-coming Japanese designer where the rider and machine are truly seen as one.
A New Creation by Hideaki Shikama
In a collaboration with Hideaki Shikama, the fashion designer behind the Children of the Discordance brand, Yamaha Motor provided him with an SR500 and SR400—classic big Singles long loved by motorcyclists since their release in 1978—for use as motifs for these items entitled Over.
An SR400 wearing the items comprising Over
Shikama was inspired to create these items by Yamaha Motor’s Jin-Ki Kanno* development ideal and sought to express the joy rider–machine unity can bring and the love owners feel for their motorcycle as a faithful partner. The “clothing” he designed for the bike’s fuel tank, seat, fenders, tires and more can also be worn by the rider as a military-style backpack.
Over can also be worn by the rider.
In 2011, Shikama established his Children of the Discordance brand, creating numerous collections of uniquely creative designs like patchwork remakes of vintage trench coats. Such work won him high acclaim, including the TOKYO FASHION AWARD in 2017.
Over will be exhibited from June 20 to 25 at the Children of the Discordance New Collection Presentation at showroom.tokyo(5 Bis rue Froissart, 75003 Paris, France) during Paris Fashion Week Men’s.
http://www.childrenofthediscordance.com/lookbook/yamaha/
*Defined as the seductive exhilaration of being one with the machine that is shared as a baseline when quantifying and integrating it into a Yamaha’s performance.
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Comment from Hideaki Shikama
“I felt a strong affinity with Yamaha’s Monozukuri ideal that values how people feel and sense things more than numbers. Particularly, Yamaha believes that when a person and machine ‘become one’ and are able to ‘communicate’ that there’s a joy created from that relationship, and that’s something I found really special. I think that’s also how it should be for clothes and the people who wear them. “In creating Over, we used the same vintage coat patchwork and graffiti ideas and methods as our other collections. Creating everything involved a lot of trial and error, but I was impressed by the way everyone on the team had fun with the sewing, assembly, and the rest. For me personally, it was my first time working on an industrial product like this and I feel this project has really broadened our range of creative expression.” http://www.childrenofthediscordance.com/who-i-am/ |
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Message from the Editor The first time I met Shikama-san, I felt that his aspirations in the fashion industry were quite similar to Yamaha Motor’s with mobility. He started his own brand in the fashion world, which is already saturated with countless labels, and has his sights fixed on global recognition, much like Yamaha did in its earliest days as a company. It reminds me of something Takehiko Hasegawa (former Yamaha GP race team manager and the company’s fourth president) would often say: “The higher the aspirations, the quicker the path to take will open up.” Shikama-san and Yamaha both have high aspirations, so I think this collaboration is a great opportunity for both of us to open up our respective paths forward a little faster. Naoto Horie |
