The Japanese artist and priestess of polka dots tells us why her second fashion collaboration with the maison is a full circle moment
In another universe, one where Yayoi Kusama is not an artist with a prolific, seven-decade career and sell-out art shows around the world, the Japanese nonagenarian would have certainly been a fashion designer.
Her label, Kusama Fashion Company, would sell dresses covered in her signature polka dots or, even more daringly, holes that exposed their wearer’s breasts or buttocks. And today, when cut-out clothes are less of a shock than they would have been to the average, mink-coated Bloomingdale’s customer 60 years ago, Kusama would be a fashion star.
Read more: You’ve Heard of Yayoi Kusama—Here’s Why You Should Care
As it turned out, Kusama still became a fashion star—but her story played out differently. She debuted Kusama Fashion Company during her stint in New York in the late 1960s, and her radical designs even warranted their own “Kusama corner” at leading department stores in the city, but they proved too provocative.
“At that time, fashion and art were two completely different genres in general, but I have never made a distinction between them. I don’t think of them as separate, because that way I can explore new fields,” shares the artist, who shuttered Kusama Fashion Company when she moved back to Japan in 1973. Since 1977, she has been voluntarily living in a mental health facility in Tokyo, where she continues to work as an artist and even make her own clothes.
Like Kusama, Louis Vuitton has a history of connecting the dots between fashion and art. Between the 2000s and early 2010s, former Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs invited artists such as Stephen Sprouse, Takashi Murakami and Richard Prince to leave their mark on the maison’s bestselling monogram bags.
When the fashion designer approached Kusama for a collaboration, the two bonded over their shared attitudes towards creation, and how it informed their identities.
“I can’t imagine a life other than being an artist,” says Kusama. “For me, all mediums of expression are essentially the same and all are important. I always aim to be the avant-garde of all of them.”
Mirroring how her polka dots “obliterate” her sense of self, as Kusama often explains about her paintings and sculptures, her first Louis Vuitton collaboration in 2012 blotted out the boundaries between art and fashion. Bags, shoes, silk scarves and dresses were dotted, further expanding Kusama’s universe from beyond her imagination and into reality. And everyone wanted a piece of Kusama couture.
“During my last project [with Louis Vuitton], I received a great response from people all over the world. In this project as well, I would like to share my artistic philosophy and thoughts with everyone,” the artist tells us, referring to her second collaboration with Louis Vuitton, which was teased at the French maison’s Cruise 2023 fashion show.