Takahiro Ueno was in a grunge mood while designing his A/W 2012-2013 collection, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away”. These are some of Kurt Cobain’s parting words and, incidentally, a creative spirit I am sympathetic to. Ueno’s repurposed flea market t-shirts are combined with other, totally unrelated cues from the past to create something entirely unique. “When I worked on my collection, I thought about using book construction as garment construction. Then I came up with the idea of using Japanese bookbinding techniques and I used it as a main detail for my collection. I wanted to make something beautiful, strong and savage, so I researched 15th century Italian menswear and grunge.”

From Takahiro Ueno’s A/W 2012-2013 collection, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away”. Photo by Maria Ziegelböck.

Ueno’s strength lies in the details of this collection. To achieve a grunge feel the t-shirts were deconstructed and the fabric was, “bleached and over-dyed in 3 colors and patchworked roughly.” This is juxtaposed with luxurious historic fabrics such as brocade, lampas and damask, which seem particularly well-suited to shaping from bound pleats. “The basic system is, I make the pleats first and then bind them with thick thread for bookbinding. Sometimes the pleats are opened to make beautiful volumes.”

Photo by Maria Ziegelböck.

Ueno recently showcased the collection in Trieste as an ITS 2013 finalist in the categories of jewelry and fashion. He is now focused on researching materials for his graduate collection at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

At the moment, Seattle is going through an identity crisis. We are so eager to transform the cityscape that we’re knocking out our beautiful historic buildings in the name of density and committing acts of facadomy in the name of preservation. We are holding street corner vigils to mourn the “unofficial end of things the way they were”, none of us really knowing what that means, exactly, except that we are unsure of whether we are home or homesick. When the dust from all the wrecking settles, the only permanent structure around here might end up being nostalgia itself. I love the way Ueno takes what he needs from grunge and repurposes it into unique works. We, on the other hand, sit on a bench in Viretta Park, fumbling with our fairytales.

But hey! Grunge keeps the tourists coming!