XEROX SONIC YOUTH
HYSTERIC GLAMOUR
PHOTOGRAPHY BY LORENZO DAL BOSCO
INTERVIEW BY AKIO KUNISAWA
OUT NOW
ISSUE 43 FW23
KALEIDOSCOPE's Fall/Winter 2023 issue launches with a set of six covers. Featuring Sampha, Alex Katz, Harmony Korine, a report into the metamorphosis of denim, a photo reportage by Dexter Navy, and a limited-edition cover by Isa Genzken.
Also featured in this issue: London-based band Bar Italia (photography by Jessica Madavo and interview by Conor McTernan), the archives of Hysteric Glamour (photography by Lorenzo Dalbosco and interview by Akio Kunisawa), Japanese underground illustrator Yoshitaka Amano (words by Alex Shulan), Marseille-based artist Sara Sadik (photography by Nicolas Poillot and interview by Daria Miricola), a survey about Japan’s new hip-hop scene starring Tohji (photography by Taito Itateyama and words by Ashley Ogawa Clarke), Richard Prince’s new book “The Entertainers” (words by Brad Phillips), “New Art: London” (featuring Adam Farah-Saad, Lenard Giller, Charlie Osborne, R.I.P. Germain, and Olukemi Ljiadu photographed by Bolade Banjo and interviewed by Ben Broome).
MANIFESTO
KALEIDOSCOPE and GOAT are excited to announce that our annual arts and culture festival, MANIFESTO, will return to Paris from June 20 to June 22, coinciding with Men’s Fashion Week. Building on the success of the last two editions held at Espace Niemeyer, a landmark building designed by legendary Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the festival will again bring together visionary artists and creators from different areas of culture across three days of art, fashion, and sound.
FROM THE CURRENT ISSUE
ESCAPE TO MIAMI
The most southernly city in the US, Miami exists in the tropical recesses of the American imagination: land of celebrity, thunderstorms, Tony Montana, and Art Deco architecture. Here, we meet the latest generation of Miamians—committed radicals in the fields of art, fashion, and music, who are dreaming up new narratives for the city they call home.
NEW ART: LONDON
These five London-based emerging arts are making work against all odds—work that is difficult and costly to make, store, exhibit, move, and sell. Working across video, sound, installation, and sculpture, they march onwards, carving out their own niche—exhibiting in empty shop spaces one day and major institutions the next. For them, making is guided by urgency, and persistence is motivated by blind faith.
CAPSULE PLAZA
From 15–21 April 2024, Capsule Plaza returned for its second edition, taking over Spazio Maiocchi and extending to a new satellite venue: iconic Milanese destination 10 Corso Como. A hybrid between a fair and a collective exhibition, Capsule Plaza brings together designers and companies from various creative fields, bridging industry and culture with a bold and multisensory curation that spans interiors and architecture, beauty and technology, innovation and craft.
FELIX ART FAIR & DSMLA
On the occasion of the 2024 edition of Felix Art Fair, taking place February 28 to March 3 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, KALEIDOSCOPE has partnered with Dover Street Market Los Angeles to present a limited-edition zine. In celebration of the Oscar Tuazon installation, commissioned to host the DSM store inside the hotel's ballroom, KALEIDOSCOPE presents a free publication created in collaboration with the artist, available exclusively to Felix and DSMLA visitors.
SARA SADIK
KALEIDOSCOPE hosted a solo exhibition by Marseille-based artist Sara Sadik (b. 1994, Bordeaux), in November 2023 at Spazio Maiocchi in Milan, with the support of Slam Jam. Inspired by videogames, anime, science fiction, and French rap, Sara Sadik’s work explores the reality and fantasies of France’s Maghrebi youth, addressing issues of adolescence, masculinity, and social mythologies. Her work across video, performance, and installation often centers on male characters, using computer-generated scenarios to transform their condition of marginalization into something optimistic and poetic.
FROM THE SHOP
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Founded in Tokyo in 1984 by then 21-year-old Nobuhiko Kitamura, Hysteric Glamour has created idiosyncratic clothing deeply rooted in the new wave, punk, and glam music subcultures. Forty years later, it remains a cultural touchstone for a global underground, and is being picked up by a new generation, consumed by nostalgia for the recent past.
AKIO KUNISAWA
Can you tell me about your journey leading to the launch of Hysteric Glamour and your relationship with the rock cultures and subcultures that are emblematic of the brand?
NOBUHIKO KITAMURA
I decided to pursue a career in fashion almost entirely because of my love for music. I was madly obsessed with music as a teenager, especially the punk and new-wave bands from London and New York. I would listen to the radio, deciphering the English liner notes of records, swap records with friends, record them onto cassette tapes, and listen to them until they were worn out. I spent every day lost in my own fantasy world. Eventually, I learned about various photographers and graphic designers through their creative works related to music, for example The Velvet Underground record sleeve by Andy Warhol. I was so inspired by music that I used to look for T-shirts and leather jackets similar to the ones worn by my favorite artists in second hand stores.
Over time I became more and more determined to work with artists I admired, so I started to look for a career that would allow me to do that. One day, a friend who had attended beauty school told me that she was doing a shoot with musicians, and I thought that I could be in contact with art and music through design jobs, so I decided to go to a fashion college.
During my final year, I started working part-time for a brand called Ozone Community, where I was in charge of graphic and apparel design, and, after finishing my studies, I was invited to launch a new brand at Ozone, so I launched Hysteric Glamour in 1984.
I had an understanding of the flow of fashion show production, but I decided to reject the traditional methods of designing clothes—creating collections based on different themes every six months and presenting them on stage. Instead, I wanted to reflect the music I loved and the world of photography and art I had come to know through music.
So I wanted the store to feel less like a boutique and instead have the atmosphere of a vintage record or clothing shop. I wanted it to evoke a sense of treasure hunting, create something that young people from a completely different generation will find in a second-hand clothing shop and appreciate. That was my initial idea for creating clothing.
AK
Was there a particular musical work that was a turning point for you?
NK
I was shocked when I first heard Patti Smith’s song “Piss Factory” on the radio in junior high. It was poetry read with piano in the background. It had such a strong message. Until then, I had been listening to standard hard rock; after that, I became attracted to artists like Patti, The Velvet Underground, and Brian Eno, and others who evoke artistic and intellectual feelings.
AK
Were you ever interested in making music?
NK
There was a time when I wanted to be a musician, but I decided to be a listener. Because of that, I believe I have developed a different aspect of myself, particularly in terms of my aesthetic sense.
AK
Apart from music, what other cultures have you been influenced by?
NK
When I established the brand, movies also had a significant impact on me. My personal favorite is Richard Elfman’s Forbidden Zone (1980). This film has a completely independent and handmade feel; it’s very unique and unconventional, quite absurd and crude, but strangely endearing. I felt as if it represented my own view of the world.
AK
Despite being a fashion brand, since the 1990s, Hysteric Glamour has created numerous books of contemporary photography. Can you tell me why and how you started the crossover between fashion and art so early on?
NK
I believe that Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto, for example, are artists who innovate by expressing their unique perspectives. My style of expression, on the other hand, is more casual, closer to that of graphic design. So, when I was searching for something more creative that would allow me to participate in the field of art, I naturally began to explore photography books and contemporary art.
It was around 1987 that I started to focus specifically on photography. At the time, we were shooting the brand’s campaign visuals in North America, South America, Thailand, and the streets of Tokyo. I realized that the photographer has the ultimate influence on how the photos turn out, more so than the location and models.
One day, while helping a photographer friend move, I found a lot of self-published magazines such as Provoke in the back of a bookshelf and was in absolute awe. I found this more captivating than shooting some visuals, so I decided to create contemporary Japanese photography books. That’s how the publication hysteric started.
After publishing the third issue, when we were facing some difficulties continuing, I came across Daido Moriyama’s Light and Shadow and Farewell to Photography. I felt like I could hear the industrial noise thumping through the photographs. I was so astonished that I immediately decided to visit Moriyama-san.
With the intention of turning me down, Moriyama-san said, “I’ll do it if it’s a 400-page solo photo book,” but, when I told him I would accept his conditions, he agreed to shoot for the first time in a while. Then, over a period of two years, he took new photographs and the 1993 Daido hysteric no.4 came about.
Until then, the company had not really understood the publication. Daido hysteric no.4 received coverage in fashion magazines, photography magazines, newspapers, it completely sold out. We were outsiders in the photography world, but Moriyama-san accepted us with open arms. After that, Nobuyoshi Araki approached us, and we went on to create a series of photo books with other photographers, such as Saku Sawatari, Seiryū Inoue, Cindy Sherman, and so on.
Ten years later, when I randomly visited a vintage bookshop in New York, I saw the past hysteric photo books on display in
the window alongside Provoke. I realized that the value of contemporary Japanese photography had finally been recognized overseas, and that what we had been doing was worthwhile. After that, I decided that I wanted to be involved in contemporary
art as well, so I started running Rat Hole Gallery. When you put out feelers in a different direction from fashion, a chain reaction between people and culture can occur and bring new encounters. But really, what I do now is no different from what I was doing in junior high, immersed in exploring music.
AK
In recent years the Hysteric Glamour archive has become increasingly popular, especially outside Japan, and especially among a younger generation.
NK
I can understand it in Japan, because there are many Hysteric Glamour stores here, but we have never opened any stores abroad, and hardly did any promotion either, so it feels a little strange to see the younger generation collecting our clothes worldwide.
Even if you can’t afford new clothes, you can buy the archives. Or you can wear what your parents wore when they were young. You can even wear items you bought 20 years ago, and, if you take care of the items you buy now, your children might be able to wear them in 20 years. I have the impression that more and more people are becoming aware of such things and it is manifesting itself in a positive direction.
During COVID, I was often in contact with people of the younger generation in New York and Tokyo. Young people are interested in and are re-evaluating the history of Hysteric Glamour, and I’m happy to see that happening. Even in the past few months, I have received many messages from young people through social media, asking me to check their designs and drawings, or asking to collaborate because they make music. As I have grown older, I feel that it has become easier for me to communicate with this new generation who are as young as my own children and grandchildren. Recently, I was hospitalized, but, for some reason I’ve been very clear-headed since I got out of the hospital, and my brain feels closer to when I was 20 years old. My hands move well, so designing is no longer a struggle either. I’m about 40 years older than the new employees at the company, so we have a teacher-student-like relationship, but I feel like it’s more fun to create things with them.
AK
Have you consciously changed your aesthetic for the younger generation?
NK
The design hasn’t changed. The way we do it is the same as it has always been, all done by analog methods using Xerox and hand drawing. Young people today have grown up with smartphones and fast fashion, so perhaps it’s refreshing for them to feel the “warmth” of analog.
AK
What are the most important elements you look for when collaborating with artists and creators?
NK
Collaboration for me is connecting naturally with people I admire and creating something together. Just as I had imagined when I was a teenager, being able to create something together with artists and musicians is what makes me happiest.
If you take, as an example, the collaboration with Sonic Youth. It came about because a photographer asked us to work on the styling for a shoot for Sonic Youth. To my surprise, Kim Gordon knew about us. On the day of the shoot, I brought some clothes
as a gift for the members of Sonic Youth, and, after the shoot, they made a very grateful request for me to design a T-shirt for their next tour.
Then there was Patti Smith. When I found out that she was coming to Japan for Fuji Rock Festival, I really wanted to meet her, so I wrote a letter saying that I got into music when I listened to “Piss Factory” and that I make photo books. I also put a copy of Daido hysteric no.4 and a T-shirt I had created using a collage I made when crossing America with Patti in mind. Patti then said she wanted to meet me, and she let me photograph her in a Hysteric T-shirt.
Later that day, she contacted me saying, “I am going to do a poetry reading now, come,” so I flew over and found Patti standing in the middle of a sunflower field. Dragonflies were flying around as she started to read a poem. Finally, she said, “I met a boy today and we talked about a lot of things. This festival is peaceful and it feels really good. I dedicate this to that boy,” and then she played “Piss Factory.” It was absolutely touching.
After the performance, Patti called me and said, “I’ve been taking Polaroids lately, and I’m almost finished, so I’ll send them to you first. If you like them, I’d like you to make a book.” And so, Patty’s first Polaroid photo book, CROSS SECTION, was published by hysteric. This miraculous sequence of events would not have happened if I had only made clothes.
AK
I guess the pure, straightforward admiration, passion, expressiveness, and energy that you have always carried with you since your childhood have moved the hearts of the rock stars. The clothes made by you seem to possess something that evokes the resonance transcending countries, positions, music, art, and other genres of activities.
NK
Kurt Cobain wore a Sonic Youth T-shirt by Hysteric when he went to see William Burroughs and also wore it at his last gig. I also heard that Keith Haring was a Hysteric collector.
Then, unforgettably in 1986, I received a late-night call from a friend in New York, who said, “I went to a club wearing a Hysteric jumper and someone behind me said, ‘This drawing is interesting, who did it?’ so I turned around, and it was Andy Warhol.” I just knew I had to go see Andy immediately, so I sold my car—because I needed money—and flew to New York. I didn’t have any contacts, so I just kept going from one club to another. After a few days, I finally met someone who worked in Andy’s office, but I had to go back to Japan. The following month Andy passed away. It was such a shame, but I was really happy that Andy found it interesting.
What exactly is that resonates with people, I don’t know. Is it “love” for a common object, if I am to put into beautiful words? Just like when I listen to music and immerse myself in a deep feeling, I would be happy if my clothes could play a role like that for someone, even if just a little.
Inspired by a myriad of music and pop references, Hysteric Glamour is a fashion brand and publishing house founded in 1984 by Japanese designer Nobuhiko Kitamura (b. 1962). The brand rich history boasts collaborations to the likes of Sonic Youth, Patti Smith, Nobuyoshi Araki, and Cindy Sherman.
Akio Kunisawa is a Tokyo-based editor and writer.
PHOTOGRAPHY: LORENZO DALBOSCO
CREATIVE DIRECTION: ALESSIO ASCARI
PRODUCTION: TAKA ARAKAWA C/O BABYLON
IMAGE COURTESY OF HYSTERIC GLAMOUR
TRANSCRIPTION BY NAMI KUNISAWA TRANSLATION BY LISA TANIMURA