San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Designer rose high in a fashion world long dominated by men
Hanae Mori, the couturier who emerged from the ruins of World War II on the wings of her signature butterfly to build a $500 million fashion house that popularized East-West styles and symbolized the rise of postwar Japan, died Aug. 11 at her home in Tokyo. She was 96.
Her office confirmed her death Thursday, without specifying a cause. It said she had fallen ill two days before her death.
From a dressmaking shop catering to the wives of American GIs in what had been a bombedout section of Tokyo, Hanae Mori, the daughter of a surgeon, climbed to global fame in a 50year career that brought fabulous wealth; the creation of 20 companies; palatial homes in Paris, New York and Tokyo; and remarkable standing for a woman in a male-dominated profession and society.
After decades of struggle to market her styles, she was admitted in 1977 to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the first Asian woman to join the Paris guild of the world’s top designers. She was in 1977 also the first Asian woman to join the ranks of Christian Dior, Chanel, Givenchy, Armani, Versace, Valentino and Karl Lagerfeld in Paris shows, where the competition and the stakes were as high as they get in fashion.
Her collection that year was a stunning array of gowns and other garments with her distinctive blend of Western-style designs in silk and chiffon, imprinted with Japanese blossoms, seascapes, calligraphy and her trademark butterfly. New York Times fashion critic Bernadine Morris declared that the industry had a new star in the making.
She was right. In succeeding years, Mori’s haute couture charmed the runways of Paris and New York and was hailed by the fashion press. In turn, as she became well known and as her exported ready-to-wear styles became widely available, she won the allegiance of millions of buyers around the world.
With her textile-executive husband, Ken Mori, as her business manager, Mori developed lines of evening gowns; daywear; business attire; men’s and children’s clothing; as well as collections of shoes, handbags, gloves and scarves. She later produced lacquerware, fragrances for women and men, and even home furnishings.
As Japan recovered from the destruction of wartime bombing and regained its economic footing with a rush of exuberance, women once confined to kitchens and limited to wearing traditional kimonos joined the workforce in droves, and they bought Mori’s jackets, slacks, sweaters and skirts. Many also learned new ways of dressing for evening, and for weddings and other formal occasions, with Mori creations.
And as Mori’s off-the-rack collections expanded to worldwide markets, her private client list grew to include Princess Grace of Monaco; Crown Princess Masako of Japan; Lady Bird Johnson; Nancy Reagan; Hillary Clinton; Sophia Loren; Renata Tebaldi, as well as the wives of national leaders in Europe and Asia; and society figures in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo.
By the 1990s, Mori was one of the most powerful business executives in Japan and the toast of Tokyo society. She was a charity fundraiser befriended by ambassadors, entertainment stars and corporate leaders whose wives had at least one Mori creation in their closets: daytime suits that sold for $9,000 and evening gowns that went for $26,000.
Mori’s global annual sales had reached a peak of about $500 million. In the mid-’90s, her sales began to steadily decline, dragged down by a long economic slump and changing tastes.
In 2002, Mori sold her readyto-wear retail outlets and licensed apparel businesses to an investment group composed of Rothschild of Britain and Mitsui of Japan. That year, Hanae Mori International filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan, with liabilities of $94 million. The Hanae Mori name survived on a few Tokyo boutiques and still lingers on her lines of fragrance.
In 1947, she married Ken Mori. They had two sons, Akira and Kei, who as adults helped run her businesses. Her husband died in 1996. Her survivors include both sons and eight grandchildren, two of whom, Hikari Mori and Izumi Mori, are well-known models.