Remembering John Galliano's A/W94 Japonisme Collection

Although John Galliano has had many extraordinary collections during his time in the industry, (his 2012 collection which was a tribute to the late Amy Winehouse will always go down as one of my all time favourites), his Autumn/Winter collection on March 5th, 1994 at São Schlumberger’s Hôtel Particulier was definitely an unforgettable contribution to the world of Ready to Wear. Obviously it is quite random for me to choose a collection which was in fact created over twenty years ago. However, it is one that has been recently credited and resurrected from the archives of Galliano by many fashion publications so I thought it would only be fair to give my own response to the spirited collection.

The collection represented a study of the 1920's model Kiki de Montparnasse in order to portray the essence of sex appeal and exotic eroticism that escapade around this period. Therefore, Galliano's collection included garments consisting of slinky slip dresses worn with stockings, 40s smoking jackets and micro-kimonos fastened by rose-embroidered obi belts. If we thought that was interesting enough to steal the hearts of many keen fashionistas, this was just one influence behind the designers work, as he also offered a combination of different aesthetics and cultures mixed within the 1994 show.

Arguably, his ultimate aim was to achieve a harmonious combination of romanticism and Japanese aesthetic throughout with Autumn/Winter Ready to Wear. This was because Galliano had always been inspired by the Japonisme, Chinoiserie and arts that had that permeated fashion at the beginning of the 20th century. Galliano’s collaborator, Amanda Harlech even suggested that the muse for this collection was an “oriental kittenish princess” to further this exclusive yet alluring Asian theme.

In terms of the designers who had inspired Galliano's vision for the collection, the creative had taken major influence from the likes of Paul Poiret and Madeleine Vionnet, who were two of the first European designers to experiment with the silhouette of the kimono and Japanese attires. (Poiret had already been known to have taken influence from the likes of Turkey and Russia to fulfil his global taste.)

However, Galliano's approach to the kimono was not exactly your typical traditional Japanese way of wearing the garment because he had teamed the oriental jacket up with stockings with seams up the legs, embroidered obi belts used as corsets over tailored smoking jackets which acted as mini dress for the night.

Therefore, the collection was the perfect combination of Japanese modernism mixed with 1920's  fashion to show a multi-cultural approach to fashion in the 90's just when minimalism was returning. However, this was also arguably a time when the 'zen' age was occurring therefore, fashion was also becoming a lot more experimental and challenging as designers were becoming more acquainted with taking inspiration from all different origins of the world and really expressing their creativity to pave the foundations of fashion for the 21st century.

Lets take a quick look!