shashasha

Katsuya Kamo’s headpieces dazzled the fashion world whenever they appeared on the runways of Paris Fashion Week. This long-awaited book brings together his many collaborations with major fashion houses, photographed according to the wishes of the late hair and makeup artist.

The must-have publication features around 220 examples of Katsuya Kamo’s renowned work for fashion collections, spanning twenty-two years from JUNYA WATANABE COMME des GARÇONS in 1997 to UNDERCOVER, Chanel, mintdesigns, ANREALAGE, and right up to his final work before ill health brought his career to an untimely end in 2019.

Katsuya Kamo's headpieces seem almost like visualizations of the imaginary world that unfolds within the mind. To view them is to feel immediate mental release, perhaps because he opens the door to expansion that is so often closed in this inhospitable world. The paper and other plain materials he used make us realize that special things are not required for a person to change, while dressing up the human body in nonhuman animal parts―in bird feathers or in fur―prompts us to rethink how humans are connected to the activities of all living creatures in the world. His body of works, though simple in theme and without individual titles, embodied how it is expression rooted in the relationship with daily activity or with others that is the quintessence of creating, and that “noble and pure art” does not actually exist. (Here, I particularly refer to his hairstyling that entailed collaborations with fashion designers or his headpieces that worked in tandem with clothes.
― from Kanoko Tamura “An Imagination That Roamed Far and Wide”