青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

In 1961 Hanae Mori proposed the term “Vital Type” to describe vivacious women who embraced work and life with equal passion. She herself embodied that ideal throughout her seven decades on the front lines of the fashion industry, from the opening of her first boutique in Shinjuku in 1951 to her passing at the age of ninety-six.

This volume commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Mori’s birth surveys the full range of her oeuvre, including the movie costume designs that helped propel her to success and her collections for the Paris fashion weeks as the first Asian full member of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. Mori and her brand were ever one step ahead of their times in many aspects—the cultivation of global markets through focus on Japanese aesthetics and artisanship; the utilization of media strategies leveraging print, video, and spatial platforms—and the roughly 500 works and archival materials in the book amply illuminate their trailblazing thinking and practice.

Chapter 1. Hanae Mori in Japan
Through the 1950s, Mori emerged as the leading new model of a woman who was at once “an artist, a working professional, a wife, and a mother.” The chapter also examines her work with movie costume design, which paved the way for her later success.

Chapter 2. Hanae Mori in America
Mori’s New York debut collection in 1965 drew prominently on Japanese aesthetics and textiles. The pages here trace how the show’s success won her access to luxury department stores and to elite society in the United States, spurring her meteoric rise.

Chapter 3. A Base for Fashion Information
The focus in this chapter is on Mori’s innovative efforts to develop new outlets for fashion-related content, including the magazine Fashion News from Hanae Mori, the television show Fashion tsushin, and the flagship Hanae Mori Building in Tokyo’s Omotesando district.

Chapter 4. Hanae Mori in France
In 1977, Mori became the first Asian to be admitted to the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture. This chapter showcases the sublime display of materials and virtuosity in every one of her Paris collections, from her 1977 debut to her farewell show in 2004.

Chapter 5. Hanae Mori and Artists
A wealth of photos and text offers insight into Mori’s creative collaboration with photographer Ikko Narahara, graphic designer Ikko Tanaka, actors Mariko Okada and Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, artist and graphic designer Tadanori Yokoo, model Hiroko Matsumoto, and singer Shinobu Sato.

Hanae Mori was born in 1926 in Shimane Prefecture. The countless memorable designs she created throughout a lifetime devoted to fashion included the official wear for the Japanese delegations to the 1992 Barcelona and 1994 Lillehammer Olympics, flight attendant uniforms for Japan Airlines, and costumes for the opera. She received the Japanese Order of Culture in 1996, was named an Officier of the French Légion d’honneur in 2002, and was elevated to Junior Third Court Rank following her death in 2022 at the age of ninety-six.