Last week my friend Astrid and I  went on a trip to Tokyo and in this post I like to share some of the places we liked a lot….

.

Muji

In the morning, after having breakfast is a French pastry shop in the Mitsukoshimae Subway Station (a lot of great coffee shops, restaurants and shops are under ground in subways stations!), we went to the large Muji store nearby Tokyo Station.

Muji was originally known as “Mujirushi ryohin”, a Japanese expression that means ” quality product without brand”. The value of a “Muji ” product in fact is the selection of materials, the care of its production. From simplicity of the project to the packaging. In Muji you won’t find products with excessive price, but just simple products of great quality at affordable prices. Muji has opened shops in many capitals like London and Paris. 

It’s also a place where you can rent bicycles, although you have to get there at 10, when the shop opens, because there’s only a little number of bikes for rent. It is a bit adventuruous to cycle through Tokyo, it’s not always clear where you’re supposed to ride your bike. Sometimes you find bike lanes, but other times you have to choose between the sidewalk and the main road. Still it’s an exciting way to explore the city!

.

MannenYa

MannenYa (Mannen-ya ) , is a small but unique warehouse for Japan’s construction workers in Tokyo. It’s nearby Tokyo City Hall, where you can go up to the 48th floor to get a few of the city. Outside MannenYa you’ll see many pairs of colorful overalls, exotically but practically designed workman’s pants and shirts hanging while packed inside is an assortment of various workwears.

The items of MannenYa are not exactly high fashion but basic blue-collar gears. However, that’s exactly what draws the likes of fashion designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Walter Van Beirendonck 
Nishi Shinjuku 3-8-1,Shinjuku, Tokyo 160-0023, Japan

 .

Tokyu Hands

In Tokyo you find many, many shops and stores, but one I’d like to mention specially is Tokyu Hands. The stores often take up a number of floors in large department stores or stand alone stores in their own right. Tokyu Hands opened its first store in Shibuya in 1976 and was originally a DIY and hobby shop, hence the “two hands” symbol and green color of its trade mark. The main flagship store is in Shibuya with other large stores in Ikebukuro and Shinjuku.

.

Shimokitazawa / Shimokita

It used to be in Harajuku, but now is Shimokitazawa, commonly called “Shimokita” on the western side of Tokyo where  the young and trendy individuals spent their time in the many small theater halls, live houses, bars and secondhand clothes and record shops. With its many narrow alleys that are inaccessible to vehicles, you are given a real sense of adventure while exploring the town on foot.

The secondhand clothes shops and shops offering items from the 70s and old animation-themed toys are quite popular. The number of large-scale shops in the area has been increasing, but the nicest features of this area are the many shops expressing the ingenuity of their young owners, such as those combining a cafe and a record shop or an outlet for small handmade items.

Shimokito is also a great place to watch Tokyo’s trendies and Harajuku girls stroll by!

.

Naka-Megura / Daikan-Yama

 Just west of Shibuya which is popular with young people, the area connecting Shibuya, Jiyugaoka and Futako-tamagawa is known as the “Triangle Area.” On one side of this triangle you’ll find Naka Megura / Daikan Yama, an area which doesn’t just have shops stocking fashionable sweatshirts , but also cafes where you can try hot chocolate fondue made by French trained chefs. 

On of those places is Le Cordon Bleu. The College of Culinary Arts is housed in this building, where you find a great restaurant / cafe on the ground-floor, with a large que in front of the counter. French food and the classic French way of dressing is a trend in Tokyo at the moment. Lots of French bakeries all around town and the subway stations and many girls wearing the striped ‘sailor’ shirt and a petite beige trench coat.

 .

Mori Art Museum / Art & Design Store

One of my favorite places for great finds is the Art & Design shop of the Mori Art Museum at Roppongi Hills.

Entering the Museum building you first pass the sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, Maman Spider. You have a great view from the Mori Museum Tokyo City View. On the 3rd floor in the store you’ll find beautiful items, books and dvd’s by f.i. Comme Des Garçons and Yayoi Kusama. This time also a lot of Andy Warhol memorabilia and tableware and little vases which could be straight out of a Fred Flintstone cupboard.

.

Good Design Shop by Comme Des Garçons

My only disappointment was the stock in the Good Design Shop by Comme Des Garçons. Two years ago I visited the shop for the first time and loved it instantly. I bought a great ‘soccer’ scarve and saw lots of other great finds by CDG, like bags in black& white, cardigans, rain coats & jackets, wool patchwork hats & gloves and plaids. I expected to find some new items this time, but the stock stayed the same. For CDG devotees it’s a place you have to visit for sure! You can find the shop on Omotosando.

.

And if you like antique and flea markets, tokyo also has some which are worth visiting!!!

check the link:   http://www.japanspecialist.co.uk/travel-tips/antique-and-flea-markets/

..

When you’re resting after a day of shopping in Tokyo, try to watch the documentary Jiro Dreams of Sushi or the movie Lost in Translation.  

Born Maria Theodora Mathilde de Doelder (1938-1977) in a province in the south of the Netherlands called Zeeland, she became famous as Mathilde Willink. Young Mathilde was an intelligent girl, who graduated cum laude from high school, after which she moved to Amsterdam to attend art school.

Mathilde had always been a shy and timid girl, but this changed in her new hometown. She adopted an exuberant lifestyle and at twenty-one she met the much older, well-known painter Carel Willink. Mathilde quit art school to become a stewardess at KLM Airlines. Two years she and Carel married and they lived a very comfortable lifestyle.

In 1972 Mathilde started wearing clothes designed by Fong Leng, an artist who had started making extravagant garments with names as exotic as the clothes itself, like Chinese roof garden, Wuthering Heights and Bird of Paradise. Carel made special ‘almost permanent’ make-up for her which she could wear day-and-night. A ‘star’ was born.

Designer Fong Leng & Mathilde Willink
 .

.

Studio Fong Leng

In 1971 Fong Leng opened ‘ Studio Fong Leng’ in the P.C. Hooftstraat  in Amsterdam, where extravagant clothes were sold. From day one Mathilde Willink was a devoted fan. She wore the fabulous creations at society parties, at media gatherings and became a known phenomenon in the streets scenes of Amsterdam. (I saw her only ones and I remember like it was yesterday! A beautiful woman who dared to be different…. I had been ‘different’ in the town I was born in and I knew how strong and determined  you had to be, to dress abundant.)

Mathilde’s excentric looks were important building the reputation, national and international, for ‘Studio Fong Leng’. Fong Leng and Mathilde Willink names were synonymous and still are.

In a five-year period Mathilde bought 37 creations by Fong Leng, which could be priced up to € 11.345,- each.

Fong Leng in one of her own designs

.

Mathilde Willink was a living art object, an original and a unique person, who dared to be different.

After Carel and Mathilde divorced, her life drifted into chaos and ended with the unsolved mystery her death. It’s still unclear if she was killed or committed suicide. On her tombstone  just one word: Mathilde

“I live in a fairy-tale world made of illusions and extravagance. If people don’t notice you, it’s no use living.”

 ..

..

.

.

Viktor & Rolf  s/s collection 2003 

Decades after Mathilde  Willink died, she was the inspiration for the S/S 2003 catwalk collection by Viktor & Rolf . The vivid show was based on the shows Fong Leng used to present: dancing outrageous models on ‘rocking’ music, party time backstage and on the catwalk.

International press didn’t know about Mathilde and wrote about ‘dresses out of the heyday of Zandra Rhodes and Bill Gibb‘ and ‘homage to vintage Chanel’.

  (Music at the V&R show by Eddy De Clercq)

.

.

.

The “One (or Two) of a Kind” Collection for Men is a unique series of handmade clothes.  Only one or two items of the same fabric and/or colour are available within the collection, which contains trousers, shirts, jackets and coats.

The collection is inspired by the clothes worn in the 20’s to 40’s of the last century, but with a nowadays touch. Almost every item is made in wool, cotton, linen or viscose, pure or blends. Some of the fabrics are woven with very fine metal to secure a creased look.

All fabrics are pre-washed and after finishing an item, washed again. Some clothes get an extra treatment. All shirts, jackets, coats and most of the trousers are finished by visible hand stitching.

The online shop regularly gets new supplies!

.

The Critic

by Weegee

Originally titled The Fashionable People, this photograph is not the  journalistic coup it appears to be, but rather a setup planned in advance by the  photographer, Arthur H. Fellig, nicknamed Weegee.

On opening night at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1943 — the 60th  anniversary of the company and thus its Diamond Jubilee — Weegee sent an  assistant to Sammy’s Bar in the Bowery to pick up the drunken woman shown at  right. Weegee positioned himself for the picture as the woman encountered Mrs.  George Washington Kavanaugh and Lady Decies, two well-known art patrons often  featured in New York society pages. The setup is typical of the photographer,  who was enamored with stark juxtapositions of rich and poor, young and old, dead  and living.

The original photograph which was cropped later.

The picture, bearing the title The Fashionable People, was first published in Life magazine on December 03, 1943. It was renamed The  Critic in Weegee’s book The Naked City (1945).

.

.

Yves Saint-Lauren Outside Church Where Dior’s Funeral Was Held

by Loomis Dean, 1957

A young man with the weight of the world on his shoulders

.

.

Dovima with Elephants

by Richard Avedon, 1955

Richard Avedon, selfportrait

Mainbocher Corset

by Horst P. Horst, 1939

Lucile Brokaw on Long Island Beach' by Martin Munkácsi, 1933

Portrait of Horst P. Horst, by Cecil Beaton
.

Resting on a Girder by Charles C. Ebbets/ unknown
.

.

Jean Patchett’s features, delightful as they were, were not responsible for making her the most sought after, the busiest, and the most successful photographic model in New York in the 40’s & 50’s. Jean was a highly paid models because of a blemish. She had a mole next to her right eye which she darkened with an eyebrow pencil to make it more prominent. For the mole became her trademark. Manufacturers of every product from toothpaste to fashions, and jewelry to luxury cars insisted on having the girl with the mole in their advertisements. The same happened to Cindy Crawford in the 90’s.

“Photographers used to retouch the pictures they made of me very carefully, to remove the mole,” Jean said. “It used to make me angry, so out of defiance, I began to darken it with eyebrow pencil. Then one photographer left it alone and the
advertising people started asking for me. That’s how it all began.”

.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Jean Patchett’s pictures are encyclopedic.

.

In 1951 Jean married boyfriend/fiancé Louis Auer, a Yale-educated banker, whom she had met in 1948. She didn’t stop working, what married women did mostly in those days, but she refused to work before 10 am or after 4:30 pm because she liked to cook meals for herself and her husband. She worked 3 ½ days a week.

Jean Patchett & Louis Auer
.

Jean is seen in eighteen of Vogue’s 20 issues in 1953 and constantly in the advertisements (for Bergdorf Goodman, Henri Bendel, Hattie Carnegie, and Revlon, among others). The next year she appears on the cover of Popular Photography magazine alongside “The Four Most Expensive Models in the World!”—Dovima, Evelyn Tripp, and Barbara Mullen.

In 1960 she retires to raise son Bart and daughter Amy. After they left home, Jean occasionally modelled again.

Jean Patchett dies from emphysema at 75, in 2002. In her New York Times obituary, she is remembered by Irving Penn as “a young American goddess in Paris couture.”

.

The story behind a famous photograph

For the April 1, 1950 issue of Vogue, Jean travelled to Cuba. She met Ernest Hemingway, sat with him, and talked for hours. During their time, Hemingway kept her wine glass full. In proper etiquette, Patchett could not refuse her host. By the end of their interview, Jean reported: I could barely walk and had a headache the next day. No need to be precious, dear.

They met at his Cuban ranch and the shot was captured by fashion photographer Clifford Coffin. At Hemingway’s feet lays his beloved Black Dog and his hand rests on Ecstacy, one of his eleven cats. Jean sits, reserved, holding Boise. Hemingway elected to go shirtless and shoeless for the interview and photo shoot and Jean commented that Mr. Hemingway smelled bad.

We’re guessing Hemingway was enjoying a daiquiri, a favorite of Papa’s (his rumored go-to, the mojito, was not his drink of choice according to Philip Greene’s recent book). The tension between the two is palpable and Hemingway appears completely in control of his domain. Although Hemingway is iconic in many realms, this shot captures the essence of summer—craft cocktails, casual conversation, international models, slow days, Cuban ranches.

.

The Television Braodcast

Jean was featured on CBS Television on Edward R. Murrow’s show Person to Person on January 28, 1955. In Mr. Murrow’s introduction he said: “Jean Patchett has been the most sought after model for nearly seven years now.”  Jean and husband Louis Auer V were broadcast live from their home in the relaxed style of Mr. Murrow’s TV journalism.

.

.

.