The Tokyo Recycle Project

While he was well known for his role in the cult Japanese label 20471120, Masahiro Nakagawa also had a range of other endeavours throughout fashion and art as a whole. Whether it was meticulously designing and producing garments to help his goal of universal self-expression, or creating elaborate multi-modal exhibitions to narrate an issue he was passionate about, Masahiro was always pushing boundaries. One of his most notable contributions was the long-standing Tokyo Recycle Project.

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20471120 Yikes Runway Intro via YOURFASHIONARCHIVE

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Throughout his career, Nakagawa was quite outwardly against the participation in mass consumerism, yearly trend cycles, overproduction, and the increasing culture around incessant replacement of tangible goods. He, and many others, observed the obscene amount of material waste from disposal of garments and technology specifically, and understood the danger that this posed to the earth. With his area of expertise lying in artistic fields, he decided to tell a story through a range of visual, wearable, and readable pieces. We all know stories are best told in cartoon form, which takes us to the beginning of Masahiro’s plot.

While it is all well and good to tell a story, often many demographics are missed through the style of information presentation, vocabulary, and access. Although, the genius of Nakagawa’s plan was the way he was able to create a narrative to portray his issue to all demographics, with mediums for people at all levels to engage with. This ranged from child all the way through to pompous fashion purist. It all begins with his comic-book which prefaces the whole project – The Hyoma Recycle Story. It combines his playful character, Hyoma, with anime style illustrations, simple vocabulary, an obvious metaphor, and a good vs evil plot. It allowed for a very easy to consume form of the message to expose as many people as possible, ultimately introducing everyone to his and Lica’s Tokyo Recycle Project #1.

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The Hyoma Recycle Store Cover Art via The Powerhouse Museum

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The story poses Hyoma as a Tailor in Tokyo, who is knowingly ignorant to the guzzling monsters of consumerism. He is then exposed to the Re-Box, a powerful box which will help to recycle unnecessary goods into useful things to maintain memories and stop waste. He then uses this to defeat the guzzling monsters in Tokyo temporarily, but it closes with the message of more needing to be done. It shows readers the scale of the danger of overconsumption, and how recycling can be a beneficial way to help reduce waste and stop the monsters from taking over. It also introduced the readers to the process behind the first recycle project.

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The First Page of the Hyoma Recycle Story via Masahiro Nakagawa

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Project #1 worked with major figures within the fashion industry to help increase the exposure of the issue. They took the Re-Box from the story and realised it. Since the idea was born from an exchange between Hyoma and his mother in the story, it was themed to be the same way for the collection. A Re-Box with a note to his mother and some themed money was sent to a range of influential people and friends around the world, asking them to send an unwearable piece. Lica and Masahiro played the role of Hyoma as the tailor in this situation, organising, planning, and re-producing individual garments for each person’s box. They incorporated their original garment in an abstract form, making it wearable again. They then returned the box to the owner with a personalized note, and a list of garments which were used for their piece.

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How the Re-Box Worked for The Tokyo Recycle Project #1 via Masahiro Nakagawa

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While Lica and Masahiro were experts at producing a runway of epic proportions, in this instance they used the production process as part of their story telling by documenting it in film. They also hoped that those who received the pieces, being influential in the industry, would act as the runway through sharing their 1 of 1 garments. This was an example of the forward-thinking nature of the pair, as only recently has influencer exposure become common place in high fashion. Videos of Takashi Murakami and others receiving their piece and being in awe of the design showed the acclaim the collection received from within the industry. Furthermore, as the message was spread across the globe, a shared sentiment of positivity about the quality of, and message behind the collection was had, ultimately making the first recycle project a success.

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Takashi Murakami Receives his Garment via Masahiro Nakagawa

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Off the back of the first collection’s success, Lica and Masahiro would continue with Tokyo Design Projects, completing 17 of them in total, starting in 1999 with the first, and finishing in 2008. Throughout the collections they both continued to work with the community, while also targeting larger stakeholders in the issue. For example, #4 was targeted at UNIQLO, while #15 used pieces from people in the Sydney community, where the runway was eventually held. With global exposure to the project, it was obvious that their impact was massive, and their message had reached millions of people.

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Tokyo Recycle Project #15 Runway via Masahiro Nakagawa

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While mass consumerism in fashion is still a massive issue today, even more so than when The Tokyo Recycle Project began, the importance of the line shouldn’t be denounced. The story telling and insightfulness of it have yet to be replicated within fashion since its time, showing how forward-thinking Masahiro Nakagawa truly was. With the issue still as pressing as ever, and companies like Shein growing at insane rates, hopefully the Recycle Project can be surfaced during the current vintage resurgence and help to reiterate the harms of global overconsumption.