Hisui: Hiroko Ito.

I've blogged Hisui before (here and here) but now there's this top which is pretty damn ingenious if you ask me. You can wear it a few different ways, depending on how you snap it up-- line up the snaps to wear as a lean tunic--



open at the waist--



or off-snapped in a gathered zig-zag.

images: nuan.gr.jp

The designer is Hiroko Ito. She graduated from FIT and went on to design for Comme des Garcons before starting Hisui. She incorporates a lot of knits in her AW08/09 collection which is in exaggeration- twisted, braided, draped, layered. i note a penchant for long, long, sleeves & while this is the most obvious of examples--



--check out the snap-top above & some of the sleeves below. (None of my clothes have long sleeves, but I wish they did.)

images source: 00s-s.com

I should have put exaggeration in quotes, because Hisui is really not so exaggerated for Japan. Japanese fashion has lots of layers & a bloomery quality about it that, in comparison to a lot of what's out there, seems exaggerated. Exaggerated or not, the thing I most admire about the Japanese designers is that they're sort of out there in comparison to everyone else. They go--

out there.

Hisui
Designer: Hiroko Ito
Japan