Hanae Mori, Japanese designer who emerged from the ruins of World War II and built a $500 million fashion house, popularizing East-West style and symbolizing Japan’s rise The post-war version, passed away on August 11 at his home in Tokyo. She is 96 years old.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reported on her death on Thursday. NHK did not specify a cause of death but said she had fallen ill two days earlier.
From a tailor shop catering to the wives of American GIs in the bombed-out area of Tokyo, Hanae Mori (pronounced HA-na-eh MO-ree), the daughter of a surgeon , gained global fame in the 50-year career that brought incredible wealth; 20 companies; palatial houses in Paris, New York and Tokyo; and remarkable for a women dominated by men profession and society.
After decades of struggling to refine and market her style, in 1977 she was accepted into the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the first Asian woman to join the world’s top designers in the world. Paris. She is also the first Asian woman to join the ranks of Christian Dior, Chanel, Givenchy, Armani, Versace, Valentino and Karl Lagerfeld in shows in Paris, where competition and stakes are as high as theirs. obtained in the field of fashion.
Her collection that year was a stunning range of gowns and other garments with a distinctive blend of Western designs in silk and chiffon, imprinted with Japanese flowers, marine landscapes. , calligraphy and her trademark butterfly. The New York Times fashion critic Bernadine Morris claims that the industry has a new star.
“Paris still has its classics,” Mrs. Morris wrote in 1977“Chanel, who established his style in the 1920s and hasn’t changed much since, and Grès, who arrived a decade later. They were joined this time by Hanae Mori, who is likely to become a classic in time to come.”
She was right. In the following years, Mrs. Mori’s haute couture captivated the runways of Paris and New York and was hailed by the fashion press. In turn, as she became famous and as her export ready-to-wear style became widely available, she won the loyalty of millions of buyers around the world.
Her design is actually quite conservative. Not like her contemporary Japanese Issey Miyake, who passed away on August 5, and other avant-garde designers who used unique styles and fabrics, Mrs. Mori did not try to break Western fashion stereotypes. . Instead, by combining Western designs with Japanese touches, she challenged stereotypes and influenced a generation of designers from both cultures.
Her creations are not for women who want to get in the door, as one Vogue editor has put it. They are for the majority of women who are not looking for the limelight, only for the quiet pleasure of wearing outfits of delicate colors and patterns: silk evening gowns with obi belts; chiffon robes with purple-orange dew; and dresses and tops printed with rose petals, reeds, or clouds.
With her husband a textile industry executive, Ken Mori, as her business manager, Ms. Mori developed evening wear lines; clothes worn during the day; office wear; men’s and children’s clothing; and collections of shoes, bags, gloves and scarves. She later produced lacquerware, perfumery for women and men, and even home furniture.
As Japan recovered from the devastation of wartime bombs and regained its economic position at a prolific pace, women once confined to the kitchen and limited to wearing traditional kimonos joined the mass labor force. , and bought Mrs. Mori’s coat, shorts, sweater, and skirt. . Many also learn new ways of dressing for evenings, weddings and other formal occasions, with Mori’s creations.
And as Mrs. Mori’s low-cost collections expanded to markets around the world, her list of private clients grew to include Princess Grace of Monaco; Crown Prince Masako of Japan; Lady Bird Johnson; Nancy Reagan; Hillary Clinton; Sophia Loren; Renata Tebaldi; wives of national leaders in Europe and Asia; and social figures in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo.
“The name Hanae Mori has become synonymous with Japan in women’s clothing, as Toyota in cars, Sony in recorders and Nikon in cameras,” The Times reported from Tokyo in 1980 after a banner Mori year to reach $100 million in worldwide sales.
With popularity, contracts come. Having previously designed costumes for Japanese films and uniforms for Japan Air Lines flight attendants, she created the costumes for the opera “Madama Butterfly” at La Scala in Milan in 1985; for Rudolf Nureyev’s Paris Opera Ballet “Cinderella” in 1986 (and New York production in 1987), and for the opera “Elektra” at the 1996 Salzburg Music Festival.
In the 1990s, Ms. Mori was one of the most powerful corporate executives in Japan and the trust of Tokyo society. She is a charity fundraiser who is befriended by ambassadors, entertainers, and company leaders with wives who have at least one Mori piece in their wardrobe: daywear sold with $9,000 and the evening gown for $26,000.
Mori’s international headquarters, the Hanae Mori Building, is a glass and steel landmark in central Tokyo. She owns a nearby French restaurant, and villas in New York and Paris, where she hosts dinner parties for 250 guests. Her Tokyo home is a modern five-story mansion; like her office building, it was designed by Japanese architect Kenzo Tange.
Traveling the world in her own jet, dining with royalty and executives, Ms. Mori is often as famous as the stars she dresses and appears regularly on the news. Japan. Small and slim, with a heart-shaped smile, large round glasses and a soft voice, she is often interviewed by Western reporters, who say that she exudes quiet confidence and innate tenderness.
“For all her success, Mori is an approachable, quiet, courteous and restrained woman – the result of a conservative upbringing and crucial to her success. her work in Japan,” the Washington Post said in a 1990 profile. “In Tokyo’s male-dominated business culture, a woman who drives more openly would be shunned.”
Although no one knew at the time, Mori’s global annual sales peaked at around $500 million. In the mid-1990s, her sales began to decline, followed by a prolonged economic downturn and changing tastes that forced many high fashion designers, including Mrs. Mori, to quit. .
In 2002, Ms. Mori sold ready-to-wear retail stores and licensed apparel businesses to an investment group consisting of Rothschild of the UK and Mitsui of Japan. Later that year, Hanae Mori International filed for bankruptcy protection in Japan, with $94 million in debt. The name Hanae Mori existed on several stores in Tokyo and still exists today on her perfume lines.
Japan’s leading women’s fashion designer was born Hanae Fujii on January 8, 1926, in Muikaichi (now Yoshika), in Shimane Prefecture, southwestern Japan. She is the only daughter out of six children of a surgeon.
Hanae was 15 years old when the war in the Pacific Ocean began. Like many young Japanese women, she worked in a factory. When the war ended, she continued her studies at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and graduated in 1947 with a bachelor’s degree in literature.
In 1947, she married Mr. Mori. They have two sons, Akira and Kei, who as adults helped run her business. Her husband died in 1996.
Eager for her career, she learned to sew clothes and in 1951 opened a tailor shop in Shinjuku, a shopping mall in Tokyo. After a film producer discovered her work, she made costumes for hundreds of Japanese films in the 50s and 60s, including Yasujiro Ozu’s “Early Autumn” and “Farewell to the Summer Lights” ” by Yoshida. Movie stars become customers. She wrote columns for a fashion magazine and opened stores in Tokyo and other cities.
In 1960, she had a life-changing experience. Visiting Coco Chanel’s salon in Paris, she came up with an inspiring idea to try couture. Convinced that feminine beauty in Japan is based on the mystery of concealment, she decided to make clothes that embody the natural femininity of women – a revolutionary concept in a culture that culture that for centuries made women invisible.
Putting her idea into practice, her business flourished in Japan. In 1975, she ventured to New York with an invitation to make rice paper rolls for 300 VIPs of American fashion, including critics, designers and department store representatives, to the “East Meets” show. West” at a Park Avenue hotel. It was a great success.
“They are definitely works of art,” Mrs. Morris, fashion critic of the Times, wrote. “Landscapes, butterflies, fans and flowers are beautifully colored on silk and chiffon in the Japanese style.
“But there are solid signs that Hanae Mori, the Japanese designer, is going in the West,” she added. “The mix of Western design and Japanese prints is a blessing.”
Neiman Marcus, the Dallas department store, was the first to market its products in the US. Bergdorf Goodman, Bonwit Teller, Henri Bendel and Saks Fifth Avenue soon joined the party. Two years later, she rose to greatness in Paris, settling on the path of fashion dreams: Avenue Montaigne.
Mori designed the official uniform for the Japanese delegation to the Barcelona Games in 1992 and two years later the uniform for the Lillehammer Games.
Ms. Mori has received many honors and awards, especially the Legion of Honor, France’s highest award, presented to her in 1989 by President François Mitterrand. Her books include “Designing for Tomorrow” (1978), “A Glass Butterfly” (1984) and “Hanae Mori: 1960-1989” (1989).
After declaring bankruptcy, she continued to attend fashion shows until 2004, when she retired at the age of 78 and celebrated her graduation in Paris, calling it an homage to the union. East-West she pioneered.
“A round of applause greeted Hanae Mori as the audience rose to celebrate the great Japanese couturier maker’s final show in Paris,” The International Herald Tribune 2004 report. “Visibly overwhelmed, the designer is surrounded by models dressed in finely embroidered finale dresses with butterflies – the symbol of the house.”
Hikari Hida Contribution report from Tokyo.
