Wear and Tear

Jun

Takahashi is in the sprawling concrete basement of his ultra-modern Tokyo headquarters, standing near several upside-down depictions of The Last Supper, a three-dimensional photograph of a naked woman, some vintage Vivienne Westwood shirts and a large Sex Pistols poster. His tiny figure—at 1.65 meters and 52 kilos, Takahashi looks like a Japanese Johnny Rotten—appears contorted with pain. Takahashi, the 33-year-old founder of fashion house Under Cover, is shaking his head, tugging on his "Nagasaki Nightmare" T shirt and bitching about the spate of anxiety dreams he's been suffering lately. In one, he's at an unveiling of his offbeat outfits when the models mutate into dogs. In another, his latest collection of hand-sewn jeans and vests entitled "Scab" morphs into a Uniqlo horror of unadventurous banality. In yet another dream he's watching someone's head, probably his own, melt. "It's been like this for months," Takahashi moans.

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Our pop psychology interpretation? His anxiety stems from growing pains. Ten years ago, Under Cover consisted of a single store the size of a one-car garage in the backstreets of Tokyo's trendy Harajuku area. Today, it's a fashion empire stretching from Hokkaido to Kyushu. Takahashi has won just about every fashion award Japan can offer (last year he captured the prestigious Mainichi prize normally reserved for establishment figures like Issey Miyake and Junya Watanabe). Across the country, his fans faithfully line up outside his 31 boutiques, eager for the opportunity to buy a $2,500 dress or a $30 pair of socks. But to maintain his momentum, Takahashi must branch out into upscale markets overseas. His grand plan: by early next year, Takahashi plans to sell his creations in 16 cities, including Paris, Rome, New York, London, Berlin, Madrid, and Hong Kong. If consumers take to him, his reputation as Japan's next designer genius will be cemented. But failure will suggest he's just another local hero whose work couldn't transcend its parochial appeal. Through it all, he's struggling to sustain the punk/anarchist/anti-war/anti-mass media/manic image that makes him the icon of every angst-ridden teenager and 20-something in the chrysanthemum kingdom. "Life is beauty," says Takahashi with a smile that vacillates between gangster-like snicker and angelic beam. "But it's pain as well."

That's how it is with his designs too. In his latest line, launched at the Paris pret-a-porter collections last month, Takahashi takes the very Japanese idea of "deconstructed clothing"—garments torn apart and put back together in novel ways—and infuses it with a sense of violence. Jackets and pants are ripped to shreds, then stitched with loose red thread left dangling in a manner that suggests blood. Shirtsleeves are amputated and re-attached the way a wound would be sutured. The aesthetic nexus between beauty and pain obsesses Takahashi, and the collection is as viciously elegant as a pinned butterfly. "The essence of Takahashi's creations is maniacal," says Kazz Yamamuro, executive producer of Fashion Television Japan, "and very cutting edge." Takahashi's detractors disagree. They insist he's more of a fashion DJ, sampling patterns and designs from others and mixing them up to create his own street style instead of developing a unique vision. "Takahashi doesn't think about originality," carps fashion critic Takeji Hirakawa, "only about copying."

Five years ago that may have been true. But with age and experience, Takahashi's work is growing beyond simple expressions of rage and becoming more sophisticated and nuanced. His vision of fashion and his life has stretched beyond the limits of his Harajuku haunts and even beyond Tokyo itself. Extending his collection overseas has challenged him to adapt his designs for larger, more affluent audiences. "Now I am more of a designer than a DJ," says Takahashi. "I'm looking more to myself for inspiration."