THE STORY 19 FALL WINTER

In the last 10 years of building Mame Kurogouchi collections, PVC bags have become one of the signature items. The story of the bags goes back to even before the brand's inception.

The designer Maiko Kurogouchi grew up surrounded by rich nature of Nagano. From the young age, her life was always accompanied by seasonal changes. In winter, as she spent her time staring at ice and icicles, she grew fascinated by transparency and fixated by the prism the sun light created by piercing through them.

One day Kurogouchi visited a hardware store to find a transparent vinyl sheet. She thought of cutting the sheet into pieces and glueing it together to create something that has a feel of glass. After many trials and errors, she was eventually able to make a soft and light bag that resembles glass and ice that used to fascinate her eyes in her childhood. The old memories are channeled into the present.

Multiplicity, personal experience and juxtaposition of the two elements. The dialogue between the past and present. Through this transparent sculpture with beautiful and delicate decoration, Kurogouchi expresses what she thinks of every woman's secret desire "I want you to see everything of me." This also represents a pillar of her design philosophy of “finding beauty in banality.”

PVC, a mundane material mostly used over table cloths or to cover menus at restaurants, metamorphosed into new forms and reinventing itself with new ways of expression and help from various collaborators. The flower-like sensitive details blossoming over the surface of the bag are given life by float-makers using an automated cutting machine. The original chains and studs that mimics icicles going straight down from the roof are entirely hand made and attached by artisans.

Kurogouchi's nostalgy for icy Nagano is thus frozen into the series of bags. Further story will be told, through those who would put their everyday life in this transparent bag.