How to Work

"For as much as journalists remark on Kawakubo’s cryptic silences, it is actually language — or verbosity — that inhibits the creative process, shutting off the possibilities of imagination. Katsuya Kamo, a hairstylist who works on Watanabe’s shows, said as much when he told me, ”Western designers explain everything. ‘The clothes like this, the music and lighting like that.’ It gets complicated.” Watanabe, by contrast, says almost nothing, but that refusal, Kamo said, leaves the hairstylist room to exercise his own imagination. As he put it, ”The Western designers give me a tiny space to work in, but Junya” — Kamo spread his arms wide — ”is like this."