Kosuke Tsumura (b.1959) is a Japanese fashion designer and artist particularly known for his Final Home label.

Early life

Kosuke Tsumura was born in 1959 in Saitama, Japan. In 1982 he won the Soen Prize, an award made by the leading Japanese fashion magazine ''Soen'' since 1956 to new young talent in the field of fashion design. Previous winners had included

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and

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, another former winner of the Soen Award, employed Tsumura the following year.

Career

Tsumura joined Miyake's business in 1983, and with the support of the Miyake Design Studio, launched his own-name label in 1994. Final Home became a popular label for young people in Japan, who appreciated its combination of simplicity, humour, and multi-functional design. His work focuses upon function, protection, recycling, and survival, such as

poncho A poncho (; qu, punchu; arn, pontro; "blanket", "woolen fabric") is an outer garment designed to keep the body warm. A rain poncho is made from a watertight material designed to keep the body dry from the rain. Ponchos have been used by the ...

es that double as bicycle covers. Tsumura's key design is the Final Home coat (also known as Homel or Survival Jacket), conceived as an essential piece should the wearer find themselves made homeless due to war, natural disaster or unemployment. The sheer nylon coat, a staple design for Tsumura since 1994, is made with multiple pockets throughout its construction which are designed to hold survival essentials such as medicine or food rations, or to be stuffed with newspaper for heat insulation, or

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to keep children distracted. By adjusting the levels of padding in various pockets, the garment can be made to fit various sizes. To test his concept, Tsumura wore the prototype to sleep rough in Centennial Park, New York for several nights. The Final Home coat has been exhibited in shows around the world, and examples are in museum and art gallery collections including the

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, New York;

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, Australia; the Kyoto Costume Institute,; and the ATOPOS collection, Athens. In 2020, Tsumura said that the Issey Miyake company still held the copyright to Final Home, hence why the brand was no longer in operation.

As artist

Due to the success of the Final Home label, Tsumura was able to become increasingly experimental as a designer and also pursue artistic endeavours outside the fashion industry. In 1992 he received second prize in the 21st exhibition of Japanese contemporary art in Tokyo's

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, and exhibited again there in 1999. He contributed to the

Venice Biennale of Architecture Venice Biennale of Architecture (in Italian Mostra di Architettura di Venezia) is an international exhibition of architecture from nations around the world, held in Venice, Italy, every other year. It was held on even years until 2018, but 202 ...

in 2000 and the

Shanghai Biennale The Shanghai Biennale is one of the highest-profile contemporary art events in Shanghai and the most established art biennale in China. It was initially held in the Shanghai Art Museum. From 2012 on, it has been hosted in Power Station of Art, the ...

in 2002.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tsumura, Kosuke Japanese fashion designers 1959 births Living people Japanese male artists People from Saitama Prefecture