Contradictions Are Ready To Scare At mukcyen

Philosophies coagulate the work of Japan-based designer Yuka Kimura. Her new womenswear line, called mukcyen (pronounced muh-koon), wants to start a clothes conversation with contemporary culture through seasonal paradoxes. In its second collection, mukcyen presents a fashion film steeped in a Chinese folkloric tale of fear and fascination. Demons writhing in suspended time are locked inside the mind of a person in real life. Themes involve transformation, enchantment and fear. Embodied in the seductive, ethereal form of six little monsters, extremes within the mukcyen world (and we do mean world) develop. You may think about birth and death, but also being awake and asleep. Little surprise that Lana Del Rey’s song ‘Salvatore’ is a favourite of Kimura’s, filled with its own sense of ethereal contradictions. Kimura identifies strongly with the ‘Salvatore’ summer of love, set in 21st century Italy, circa-1940.

Yuka Kimura was born in Japan. She graduated from the legendary Bunka Fashion College — as did Junya Watanabe, Jun Takahashi of Undercover, Kenzo Takada, NIGO of Kenzo, Shinpei Goto of MASU — then worked with Yohji Yamamoto, another Bunka graduate, for four years. She founded mukcyen in 2023. mukcyen favours nude colours since nude represents membranes on bodies in states of transition. Texture ripples from dobby weaves are blood and guts. Printed characters on rayon dresses are charged with flocking fabrications for purposeful disfigurement. mukcyen loves a stylish defect. Kimura’s corsetry articulates the human form while her sleeveless jackets disembowel it. These preferences are simple perversions of the real self mukcyen celebrates in paradoxical extremes. Fear and enchantment. Seductive and ethereal. Grotesque but beautiful. mukcyen is run by the same fashion company as another Japanese philosophical label, MASU by Shinpei Goto, who promotes destruction for new identities using love. Of mukcyen, Goto added ‘Yuka is creating a genre that hasn’t been defined yet.’ The same could be said of Shinpei. Both suggest there is more to fashion than just fashion.

Speaking with mukcyen’s Yuka Kimura was not easy, but satisfying. Like all good fashion conversations should be.

M-C Hill: The film has elements of virtual reality, but also somnambulism - a not quite asleep, not quite awake, dream-like state. May we please discuss the overarching concept?

Yuka Kimura: I was born in Japan and raised in China. The theme was picked out from Chinese literature called Guai. It's about haunted, little monsters. Painted skin. I had an image of having, like you said, the reality and the dream, separated by a thin membrane so they can move back and forth. It's not completely divided. I fantasized about that idea. To show how I can tell the story within my creation.

M-C Hill: Why film in China versus Japan?

YK: The story is a Chinese story, so I wanted to film it where that culture actually originated. The story is known more by the locals and not worldwide. That's why I wanted to have all the models and production team both in China and Chinese, because they would have more of an understanding of the story.

M-C Hill: If it's an intrinsically Chinese story, how do you communicate that broadly? This maybe ties into the mukcyen ethos, but let's see what you think.

YK: Since it is my second season with mukcyen, my idea of starting the brand was to actually show what I know and what the locals know, that is not in a broad perspective. I am in the process of broadening my ideas and thoughts to the world.

M-C Hill: Does a broader perspective mean there is no real center because of extreme opposites? Maybe contrasting elements at odds creates a new neutrality? In that neutrality, you can then define however you like.

YK: Was there a question to this?

M-C Hill: [Laughs] Is that philosophy freeing to you? You have process on the one hand and emergence on the other. When they come together, a new nothingness emerges to paint the canvas however you like. Does that remove pressure off context?

YK: I create in a really free sense. I want you to feel the freedom in my production. I guess, the extreme is not binding, it is bringing.

M-C Hill: The film is about the body being the point of arrival, but also the point of departure. Will this be a consistent foundation?

YK: I think the sequence will continue.

M-C Hill: What did you learn from working at Yohji Yamamoto and applying his philosophies in your own voice?

YK: I was mainly doing textile planning and graphic design at Yohji Yamamoto. This season, my works at Yohji are more apparent in the collection. The graphics are all made by me. Each one has meaning, adding more to the whole story.

M-C Hill: Your button work is distinctly Yohji. Yohji doesn't often explain his philosophies or concepts. His company line is ‘I am just a dressmaker.’ What we're seeing with you, Yuka-san, is not dressmaking but storytelling, yes?

YK: Yes. The button work you mentioned is all images. I imagined it from how the little monsters put on human skin to enter society. So that was the inspiration in all the covered buttons with fabric.

M-C Hill: Every part of the design process is underpinned with the concept, with the narrative.

YK: Like you said, I like to put an idea onto each garment. That was my focus from the beginning.

M-C Hill: As Yohji Yamamoto attaches meaning to his red and black colours, do you have a specific meaning for the color red? Your red is arresting. You gravitate to red button work versus the skin-coloured looks.

YK: I wanted to express my Japanese and Chinese roots. Plus the colour simply fascinates me.

M-C Hill: mukcyen represents a strong meaning for the nude colourway. When next to the red, it creates a sumptuous contrast. You wonder, what does that red all mean? Where is it going? What is it saying?

YK: Among the neutral colours, the pop of red is direct and powerful. It gives a powerful sense of the whole image.

M-C Hill: If the film had a soundtrack, who is the artist and why?

YK: You didn't hear the sound?

M-C Hill: Oh I heard the sound. But if you could have any artist create a score, who would the artist be and why?

YK: Lana Del Rey, especially on ‘Salvatore.’ First, I love her deep voice in this song. I feel non-realness is portrayed really well here, and links to this collection.

M-C Hill: Let's talk about the corset. Dueling concepts in your work meet in the middle. Could the corset represent your canvas to mutate your dueling philosophies?

YK: The corset is one of the most important items throughout my collections. It is a key item in my stylings. Do you know the sand object?

M-C Hill: The hourglass!

YK: Hourglass, yes. I don’t want to go extreme like that, but I am aiming for that dynamic idea. Like you said it is a canvas, but not the only true canvas. It is one thing that can describe the duality of my collections.

M-C Hill: Can you explain the illustrations in the film? Talk about the print story.

YK: There is a depiction of a woman figure. That figure is shown in graphics as my interpretation. I have six different faces for this whole collection. The main lady is mysterious, kind of alluring because those qualities are in the little monster story. I had to show those facial expressions. An expression for the lady who is maybe about to eat a human being.

M-C Hill: These ideas of transformation in your work symbolise the perversion, fear maybe, of transition from animal to human.

YK: Did you see this from an item or just the overall transformation of the animal to the human?

M-C Hill: Images of one lady possibly devouring someone, or changing into something. It's the fear and fascination in the process, right? We are all changing in life, that is fascinating, but can also quite terrifying. You mix beauty and horror altogether.

YK: You're asking about the fear?

M-C Hill: I wish I could ask direct questions, it's just not my way. So mukcyen values are a series of contradictions. Looking at those illustrations of two ladies, one is seductive, the other is scary. That seems to indicate what mukcyen is built on. A process of transformation, but also a fear in the transformation. Is that observation accurate or not?

YK: About the transformations, an important part in the film is that we can visibly see the transformation of the monsters as human beings. That is a process of humanity that is beautiful. Going back to your question about the perversion within the idea. The weirdness and a little bit of grotesque fascinates me. It is an important essence. Did I answer your question?

M-C Hill: You did. The ‘grotesque’ seemed to be ferocious in A/W 24 with shaggy fabrics, thicker weaves and pile knits. It was overtly grotesque. How did you go from fall's grotesque fabrics to spring’s grotesque of the mind?

YK: There's not so much a mind shift by showing grotesque on the inside. In the first collection, I wanted to send an impact by working with many shapes. For spring, I wanted to give more cultural context for the brand. What I had in mind to do was a natural process. The first was to impact the shape, the next was to work more with imagery.

M-C Hill: Your silhouettes don't restrict the body, they definitely complement the body in a tight way. What inspired these silhouettes and the overall design idea?

YK: I always loved body conscious, tight clothing. After Yohji, I saw the functionality and the space in his designs. So for my brand, I can go for a tighter silhouette. It's a preference in how I like the body-conscious. At the same time, I think it is most beautiful when the human shape or form can be seen through the clothing. So the tighter silhouette is not to cover, but to show.

M-C Hill: Are you into Azzedine Alaïa?

YK: [Bright smile] I love him. I can't lie. Yeah.

M-C Hill: Growing up he was inspired by nuns, their wimples and Silvana Mangano. That's how he arrived at his silhouette.

YK: I know.

M-C Hill: In a way, that's where this next question comes from — do you have an interesting childhood story which inspired your silhouette?

YK: I have childhood memories of looking at clothes. I was inspired by the women in medieval times with European dresses. The inside of dresses, with corsets thinning the waist.

M-C Hill: That intensely Victorian style of dressing is evident in your jackets. No exposed sleeve, but you can still see the floating chest piece inside. Even with your corset dresses, accessories and straps hanging down, there's maybe an 18th century, slight Rococo approach to design and what you do in your dressmaking.

YK: You’ve got it. Perfect.

M-C Hill: What are some of your favorite things in life?

YK: A big question.

M-C Hill: What would you say?

YK: Family is what's most important to my life. For music, I love heavy metal and the drum. What's yours?

M-C Hill: Candy, Hedi Slimane, Gus Van Sant, Gregg Araki, Takahiro Miyashita, Nicolas Ghesquière and boots

YK: Boots are essential. Do you need another answer besides family?