Up to the Neck

Like Scarlett O’Hara making a ball-gown from old curtains, Toyko-born and Lisbon-based Mia Morikawa transforms left-over scraps of fabric into opulent and glamorous garments. For Marikawa’s Kapow Wow Objects, the Central St. Martins College of Art and Design graduate and former professional chef cherry-picks thrift-store finds and turns them into luscious neckwear inspired by Jacobian Ruffs, flowers, fruit and more exotic visions of unrestrained beauty. The lucky old clothes on which she bestows a second life around the neck of fans such as Roisin Murphy and Bjork, Morikawa are often eye-catching vintage prints. “I’m not that comfortable working with colors,” she says. “But vintage patterns really excite me, especially the geometric kind that are deceptively simple; yet looking at them one realizes how genius they really are.” Her own lush and elegant work is impressive even at first glance. The only question they provoke is where in the occasion worthy of wearing them.