Sweet escape
Following his discovery on Instagram, designer Tomo Koizumi is seizing the spotlight to do what has always come naturally: entertain. Now his eye-popping creations land on our shores as part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial. By Jen Nurick.
how Tomo Koizumi, Zooming from his home base in Tokyo, describes the optical rush that takes hold once his delectable dresses come into view. Frothy gowns with frou-frou skirts that appear frosted together have become his signatures, each assembled from layer upon ruffled layer of Japanese polyester organza, cupcake-esque, in ombré rainbow hues. “I’m making pieces that I want to see or that people might want to see,” the 32-year-old explains of his luxury loofah-like creations that are also in tune with the current mood that calls for clothes that perk us up. “Fashion, I think for me, is entertainment.”
“EYE CANDY.” THAT’S
This philosophy squares neatly with Koizumi’s entrée into mainstream fashion. After working as a costume designer for nine years (and counting), the Japanese creative was discovered on Instagram by Katie Grand, stylist and long-time confidant of Marc Jacobs. She flew Koizumi to New York Fashion Week in February 2019 and with the help of a team whose combined fashion credentials are so established Koizumi refers to them only by their first names – “Katie [Grand], Pat [McGrath], Guido [Palau]” – staged a spectacle in Jacobs’s Madison Avenue store to unveil Koizumi’s autumn/winter ’19/’20 collection. Gwendoline Christie, Bella Hadid and Emily Ratajkowski all walked in the show.
“I really appreciate what she did for me,” Koizumi reflects on being taken under Grand’s wing. The show secured the designer a coveted spot in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s 2019 exhibition Camp: Notes on Fashion. A capsule collection with Emilio Pucci followed, and Koizumi became a finalist in the 2020 LVMH Prize. This month, a look from that New York Fashion Week debut collection will be on display in Melbourne, as part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial, which carries through to April 2021. “I want to do something for [Grand] but I think making something interesting is the way to give something back,” he says, pondering his next move aloud. But setting aside the future for a moment, Koizumi delves into his past, peeling away at instances, like the tiers on his dresses that birthed his flair for flamboyant design.
“I really liked crafting from when I was really young, like five,” he notes, recalling an early fascination with origami. “This was my first time realising the kind of joy of collecting colours, or colour matching, so I think that influenced me a lot.” Growing up in Japan’s countryside, he remembers dressing differently to his peers, thanks to his mother who bought his clothes exclusively from department stores in Tokyo.