Deriving its name from the Egyptian rock-paper scissors game, Rochambeau was born in New York, in 2007 when creative director Michael Venker met Joshua Cooper and Laurence Chandler at his senior thesis show where he won the Golden Thimble award.Their 2009 a/w collection draws inspiration from Japanese architect Kuma Kengo.
Kuma Kengo 隈 研吾 was born 1954 in Kanagawa, Japan, graduating from the University of Tokyo in 1979 as an architect major. He continued his studies at Columbia University in New York from 1985 to 1986, and now he is a professor of system design engineering at Keio University in Tokyo.
Kuma’s lifetime goal is to “recover the tradition of Japanese buildings and reinterpret it for the 21st century.”
According to Kuma, every location is a product of nature and time, so architecture is merely a way to set nature within a frame so that we may experience it in a deeper, more intimate way. Drawing heavily on the Japanese tradition of transparency, Kuma utilizes natural light and natural materials to produce a new kind of transparency.
No wonder, in the 2009 a/w collection, Rochambeau employs Kuma’s approach to frame the natural beauty of the male silhouette with a minimalist but modern take on menswear!
Photo upper right by Wiiii Copyright GFDL on Wikipedia.
Slide show 2009 a/w collection Copyright Rochambeau.
