Natural style

Credit: E. MATSUI

Ideas taken from science are proving to be fashionable.

Like the criss-cross pattern of a sunflower head and the spiral of a nautilus shell, Eri Matsui's best-selling wedding dress (above, far right) can be described using the Fibonacci mathematical sequence. The Japanese fashion designer used increasingly short layers of fabric in the skirt to form sections in a 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 35, ... pattern, culminating in 56 narrow tufts around the waist. “People recognize the beauty in the order, whether they are looking at the dress or wearing it,” says Matsui, who has devoted herself to finding universal forms to make women look beautiful.

Having experimented with images from knot theory, fractal models and Klein bottles, Matsui has more recently been scouring the world of biology for universal forms to use. Her November 2000 collection, for example, with the theme “Brain, Mind, Computer, and Fashion”, showcased dresses with colourful images of neurons and others whose thick folds approximate the brain's contours (above in lilac).

Best known in Japan for her somewhat unconventional wedding dresses, Matsui knows that these kinds of design are unlikely to become a common sight on the streets of Tokyo or in wedding halls. “But these designs help open up the imagination, and provide a basis for designing more practical clothing for everyday wear,” she says. Practical clothing based on universal forms does not have to be conventional, she insists.

For her last collection, entitled “A Changing Erotic Lifeless Object”, shown on 18 April, Matsui tailored several sets of clothes around cell division and differentiation. In one series, the first model emerged onto the catwalk totally enshrouded in an egg-shaped netting. The next, with netting billowing out above and below a tight waistline, was undergoing the first stage of cell division. The series continued with representations of multiple cell stages. Another series (above, left five images) began with straight horizontal lines representing a single cell that gradually curved, model by model, becoming increasingly individual and specialized. The series ended with a death stage, in which slits represented cell walls breaking apart.

Matsui hopes that her work will help us to realize what we are, and recognize the beauty within ourselves. “When people think about the brain or neurons, they think of them as something external, something that scientists tell us about, something to be looked at objectively — not as part of us,” she says. “On the other hand, clothes really are lifeless and external — but when we put them on we think of them as part of us.” Clothes that depict or represent these biological processes can allow us to experience directly what we are, she adds.

Eri Matsui's next show will be held in Tokyo in autumn.