What if the age of mass consumption was only short-lived?

Regardless, or because of, any pessimistic or optimistic inclinations that might bring, Japanese designer Shin Murayama continues creating and broadening the impact of his creative vision. In the way of Martin Margiela, the Niigata-born designer challenges the norm by up-cycling clothes and fabrics into one-off items and thus acting against the glitter of conformist commercialism which threatens to drown out creativity. Following the philosophy of one being able to reach a future of serenity only through understanding and respecting the past, Murayama‘s creations speak of the marriage between traditional artisanal techniques acquired in Japan and the fascinations of Western influences.

From the Noh Theatre of the Muromachi era, to the boom of surgical masks in modern culture, masks have always played a predominant role in the Land of the Rising Sun. In a society where uniformity is welcomed, pretending to be somebody or something else gives a very peculiar freedom to people, pushing them to move forward. Be it the repurposing of a New-Era cap and the transformation of an existing emblem of repetition into a symbol of lost identity, or simple baseball equipment being brought back to life through his 2004 Yankee Extreme Cold Weather Face Mask Unissued, each of Murayama‘s creations is a true display of that freedom, executed with a purely nipponese know-how. 

Communicating through his masks, Murayama is a discrete actor and a comedian in disguise in more than one sense, expanding his creative energy onto the role he plays in a Brooklyn theatre since 2008. 

The editorial potraits its conscious yet revolutionary approach to design, featuring outfits designed in the present and made for the future.