SHINY DREAMS
Shu Uemura x Takashi Murakami Six Hearts Princesses Christmas Collection who are held in high regard in both the east and west art worlds. His thought-provoking works have been seen in the venerable Halls of Mirrors of Versailles in France, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Gagosian Gallery in Hong Kong as well as on sold-out bags and garments via fashion collaborations with Comme des Garçons and Louis Vuitton. art that inspired the new collection Hanging on the walls in Kaikai Kiki Studio when I visited was a large installation of Murakami’s self-portrait standing on a globe, accompanied by his beloved “indigenous Japanese dog” Pom, with the ironic raised brows and pursed lips, replete in a riot of colours. There was also the cheerful SmileyFace Flowers, and the famed illustration of Six Hearts Princess, which is a much more recent, animation-driven foray for Murakami.
“Personally, I am interested in that time when women become aware of their sexuality,” he says of the animation that is inspired by the majokko (magical witch girls) culture in anime. “In my past work I have taken aspects of the otaku culture, which is generally favoured by men, but I started to think more about animation culture from the perspective of a girl. All Japanese girls are crazy for animated stories about magical girls who have special powers with which they help solve problems.”
BEAUTIFUL AVENGERS
When Shu Uemura approached Murakami with the idea of a collaboration, the artist first said no, flat-out. “I didn’t think I would be doing anything different from my fashion endeavours,” he says earnestly. “But the Shu Uemura team was very persistent.”
So persistent that they promised him free reign. It took two years before he finally gave in to their proposal. “Shu Uemura already had a partnership with Kaikai Kiki [previous Shu Uemura artist collaborations featured Kaikai Kiki’s very own artists, Ob and Aya Takano], so naturally, I decided to accept the offer. Most importantly, by then I had complete trust in them.”
Always challenging the norm, Murakami and the Shu Uemura team decided that there had to be a theme, and a unique one at that. “I wanted it to be exciting; to have a personality. I proposed a very different motif. I finally chose Six Hearts Princess because it is essentially a very dark tale. I see it as a form of desire for transformation to which many women can truly relate.”
TOTAL MAKEOVER
Murakami fans would have recognised the Pink Princess from the original animation series and waited in sweet anticipation of the collectors’ gems to get a hint of the Black Princess, a new character created exclusively for Shu Uemura. “They are designed to be the yin and yang of a woman. Black and pink illustrates very well the contrasting ideals. The Black Princess is more sensual, more mysterious. Her costume is absolutely gorgeous, and her features sharper.”
“There is a certain idea out there of what Japanese anime culture is like, and more often than not it is a flawed idea. Anime is yet to be interpreted directly into the world of fashion in foreign countries, and I strongly feel I have to go beyond this line in order to get to the next level because it is clear to me that the world has a strong inclination to find out more about the essence of the Japanese animation style and cosplay (costume play).”
What followed this train of thought was a goal to make the end-product of this collaboration really unique. “Pretty was not enough.” He was not happy with the results the first time he saw the sample packaging from Shu Uemura, and was frank about it. “It looked beautiful,” he says, “but ordinary.”
About this time came a whirlwind trip to Bangkok. “I saw Japanese-inspired setups everywhere, but it was a misconception of our culture. I went to a maid café, and everything was pitch perfect in all its clichés, including the maids’ pronunciations. Even though it was still a misconception, it was beautiful. I was really inspired by this pureness, this