Alaia/Kuramata : Lightness in Creation

Alaïa’s ethereal couture creations meet Kuramata’s graceful furniture designs in a poetic encounter underscored by a shared love of lightness

Fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa (1935–2017) was a fervent admirer of Shiro Kuramata (1934–91), even organizing an exhibition of his work at the Fondation Alaïa in 2005. Kuramata’s furniture designs are replete with both the fascinating history of Japanese decorative arts and the modern eagerness for Japanese structural simplicity akin to the dogma of "form follows function." Now, the Fondation Alaïa presents 23 of Kuramata’s works alongside 20 of Alaïa’s haute couture creations, creating a synthesis of forms and materials. The lurex knit of a simple gown responds to the knitted metal mesh of a chair, while the transparent acrylic of a shelf unit echoes the feather-light muslin of a runway-reader creation. Each imbued with a great sense of lightness, the pieces showcased here represent both artists’ shared interest in abstraction.