Jum Nakao: Paper Fashion Art

Art and fashion, costume design and animation - Brazilian Jum Nakao is versatile and playful: Either turning his “A costura do invisivel” fashion show into a happening, where his most delicate paper dresses get torn apart. Or making his whole line a tribute to acclaimed animation filmmakers the Brothers Quay… Now, for the launch of a new egg-shaped mini washing machine called Eggo he created an installation with flying paper bird and nests. PingMag went by this friendly and forthcoming fashion designer of Japanese descent in his studio in Sao Paulo.

Written by Aroldo Cardoso Jr.

Let’s start with your latest installation for the Eggo, an egg-shaped mini washing machine…

The paper nest for the Eggo, by Jum.

Eggo was made by Brazilian Brastemp, and they invited me to do the launching concept: I imagined to showcase it by bringing to it a significance of birth. A strong symbol would be a baby-delivering stork. For that, I used more than a thousand sheets of white vegetable paper for the stork and the nests. It was carried through with puppet designer Naná Lavander, she did “Castelo Rá Tim Bum” [a popular Brazilian TV show], fashion designer Agustina Comas and Ana, a designer who worked with me for a long time at the POP agency. We materialised a flying, mechanised stork with an egg in its beak, and put some eggs on the ground. Then, we had to make it possible for the bird to move, the gears, the construction technique… which took two months to make. Also, we asked artist Paulo Beto to recreate the sounds of an ultrasound prenatal exam which sounds kind of watery and at the same time windy.

Made of paper: Jum’s fashion line A costura do invisivel…

… from 2004, meaning ’sewing the invisible.’

The paper fashion line…

… was to be torn apart during the show.

So, the stork is an animal of low weight, flying in the air… Did you search for a certain lightness?

All of my works, for example the paper-made “A costura do invisivel” fashion line , have a playful relationship with the spectator. This lightness is necessary to get a distance from reality and a connection with the invisible, with people’s imagination, to let them see it from a different perspective - a less realistic one. These works lack concreteness and a clearly defined form, which would not allow the spectator’s personal interpretation. I see them more as an interface, so whoever looks at them participates and is able to find its own meanings.

Then in the “Revolver” exhibition, these puppets with tiny paper dresses were attacked by mice…

… until all were destroyed - while being projected on a huge wall. Some film footage here.

Right. So it’s about avoiding concreteness to give room to interpretation…

It is that term used by Calvin: The precise use of the vague which allows the reading of a more playful universe. Maybe, playful is the word. Even though, people get heavy with both as time passes. See for example the Revolver exhibition I did this year with Julio Dojcsar and Kiko Araújo at Museu Oscar Niemeyer in Curitiba [‘revolver’ in Portuguese means ‘to play with’ or ‘to mess with it and put it in some other way’]: Its playful element disarms people a bit and conducts them to a much broader experimentation that is less restrictive, less formatted. It’s an experiment, where the playful element is only a catalyst.

For the opera, Jum created dresses made of straps…

… like straight-jackets.

Revolver was made after your fashion show in 2004…

Setting for the animated short film Hoje é dia de Maria…

Yes. Together with cinema director Kiko Araújo and urban intervention and scenography artist Julio Dojcsar, we proposed an installation based on that fashion show. We wanted to create something that dialogued with the architectural space that Oscar Niemeyer built. If you look at it, it is a huge space surrounded by a ceiling and a concave-convex floor, and almost a football field in the middle. So, in the corridor that gives access to the steps going up to this field, we already used an element of “lightness” we earlier talked about. It was with a phrase written on the main wall: O rato roeu a roupa do rei de Roma, which roughly translates into “the rat bit the king of Rome’s clothes”. That, within this context, already created some doubt, forming something in people’s imagination.

After this, there was another sentence: O rei está nu, for ‘the king is naked,’ which would already establish a counterpoint with that first phrase.
And, below, there is a rat almost two metres high that we elected as icon for this exhibition - the rat is very much connected to a plague, to a viral communication that propagates in an uncontrolled way. It would in some way corrupt the natural order. Then, when going up the stairs, each floor has a stage of the process of the fashion show: In the beginning, you see the end where the models have all their clothes torn apart. And on the last floor, there’s one of the model with impeccable clothes - from deconstruction to semi-construction and back to the intact clothes.

Also from the 03/04 fashion catalogue…

… that was called Brothers Quay.

Okay. So there were different levels with models in several stages and photographs of the puppet replicas, and projections of the puppets with the clothes…

In the intermediary floor, we have a photo exhibition of the clothes by Sandra Bordin, with manual interferences, like scratches, to document the deterioration of these images. On the next floor, we have a documentation of the clothes in human scale. Then, on the main floor, the salon, we have four-meter-high projections of the puppet replicas that are actually 30 centimetres in height. Finally, there is one more floor where the whole process of crafting the clothes is documented by another photographer, Alexandre Perroca, showing all the complexity of the work step-by-step.

From the catwalk: The Brothers Quay fashion line…

… inspired by the eponymous animation filmmakers.

What was the thing with the rats destroying the clothes?

This is in the huge salon, the field: On one side you have the miniature paper models of the puppets in a glass cabinet, and on the other side you can see their filmed projections on one wall - with real rats running around these miniature paper models, devouring the clothes, tearing them apart and destroying everything.

And I think that all your other works have several levels or stages of reflection… Sorry we can’t go into that deeper for today. Thank you, Jum Nakao.

20 Comments

1. These are very creative costumes, inspiring! Not so terribly new, I think I’ve seen this before somewhere…but nevertheless they’re magical!

   Posted by: Amir on December 3rd, 2007 at 11:00 pm

2. The designs are quite inspiring. The above comment not so much.

   Posted by: jonny r. on December 4th, 2007 at 8:14 am

3. ha! deleted the above mentioned SPAM comment…

   Posted by: Verena on December 4th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

4. paper fashion is eco friendly?

   Posted by: keanu on December 4th, 2007 at 6:22 pm

5. Eco frindly!?

   You don’t get the idea…

   Posted by: Maria Angelica on December 4th, 2007 at 9:53 pm

6. i doubt these are meant to be mass produced, so eco friendly or not it’s not really an issue.

   the aesthetic here is beautifully realised nonetheless.

   Posted by: well on December 5th, 2007 at 9:09 am

7. [...] בלוג: כל הdesign הזהעיצוב זה די הרבה, אבל לא הכל.צפיה בעמוד הפוסט: כל הגולשיםהוספת תגובה: כל הגולשים נייר ללבוש אותו0תגיות: נייר/ אנימציה/ אופנה0 תגובות יום רביעי, 5/12/07, 09:21 הצטרכתי להרחיק לבלוג יפני אהוב עלי, pingmag, ולמצוא כתבה על מעצב ברזילאי: [...]

   Posted by: נייר ללבוש אותו on December 5th, 2007 at 4:21 pm

8. I think the designs are incredible, the head pieces are rather like Weibe Simms, what a lovely surprise to see such sculptural work… where can I see them for real?

   Posted by: ANNA ANTONIADES on December 17th, 2007 at 11:30 am

9. Jum created the paper dresses to be torn apart in a fashion show. He made a book, called “A Costura do Invisivel” (”The Sewing of the Invisible”), where we can see pics taken before and during the show.

   Posted by: Aroldo on December 19th, 2007 at 10:34 am

10. [...] Via [...]

    Posted by: Jum Nakao:Inspiraciòn en papel | Mundochica | Moda, decoracion y sexo on December 24th, 2007 at 11:29 pm

11. [...] FabSugar: [...]

    Posted by: Blog Miss Net » Jum Nakao: Paper Fashion Art on December 29th, 2007 at 2:13 pm

12. [...] interview here on PingMag.jp touches upon the meaning behind the rats that were used in the ‘Revolver’ exhibition - [...]

    Posted by: Paper Play « Podblack Blog on January 7th, 2008 at 5:23 am

13. The idea of using paper and the application is absolutely gorgeous. I love it…All the very best!!!!

    Posted by: nimita on January 14th, 2008 at 4:28 am

14. [...] are brilliant. Go here to see more or here to get a more in-depth picture of Nakao’s breadth of [...]

    Posted by: Arctic Oak » Blog Archive » Jum Nakao’s Paper Dresses on January 28th, 2008 at 9:09 am

15. [...] This has a great collection of pics of paper clothes.  They arn’t new, but they include pictures I’ve never seen http://pingmag.jp/2007/12/03/jum-nakao-paper-fashion-art/ [...]

    Posted by: Links and Pic of Old Tessellation « Student Flotsam and Origami Jetsam on August 25th, 2008 at 1:42 am

16. thanks for such useful links etc etc :)

    Posted by: katherine white on January 8th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

17. [...] more as an interface, so whoever looks at them participates and is able to find its own meanings. (…)” Ob es nötig gewesen wäre, die Papierkleider zu zerreißen um die Partizipation des [...]

    Posted by: Jum Nakao - Papier Couture » Beitrag » whats wrong with the zoo on August 20th, 2009 at 6:38 am

18. [...] more as an interface, so whoever looks at them participates and is able to find its own meanings(…)” If it was really necessary to demolish the paper gowns to get the audiences participation [...]

    Posted by: Jum Nakao - Paper Couture » Post » whats wrong with the zoo on August 20th, 2009 at 6:44 am

19. [...] esquecer o histórico desfile de 2004, quando Jum Nakao desafiou os conceitos da moda e usou o poder de mídia do São Paulo Fashion Week pra propagar sua [...]

    Posted by: Papier couture « Márcia Travessoni – Moda Fashion – Continuação do titulo on September 30th, 2009 at 9:33 pm

20. [...] our presentation; but with better skills and supplies I think it could have been really cool! Check this out. I grew up around three women who could really sew. My grandma has made porcelain dolls for as long [...]

    Posted by: DIY Fashion Design 101 — Sadie Fox on October 18th, 2009 at 9:59 am

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