Popping prints, eye-melting hues and sharp cutting that retains a distinctly feminine tone are all design characteristics expected of Japanese innovator Rira Sugawara’s label, Dans La Vie. Showcasing for the very first time at London Fashion Week in February 2011, this designer is fresh on the scene, brimming with creativity and a noticeable desire to construct beauty from chaos. Compiling an interesting aesthetic that unites pop-art type prints with glossy textiles and engaging shapes, Sugawara’s line gives an insight into her art history background. Q+A UK chatted with Sugawara to unfold the life and inspiration of the woman behind the youthquake style prints.

Drawing on her education in the History of Art at Waseda University, Sugawara injects her designs with an informed touch. Fascinated with Andy Warhol, she comments that while studying she “loved wearing pop art”, a theme that was prevalent in her autumn/winter 2012 collection showcased at London Fashion Week this past Febuaury. The daughter of an artist, Sugawara was influenced to study art from an early age. Becoming vehemently absorbed by her studies, to the point that her love of art began influencing the way she dressed, she chose to then “go forward into print design” in order to nurture her new found love of patterns and pop culture. This then led to work at a French atelier and the flowering of her label, Dans La Vie.

Though print has become increasingly popular with designers in the last ten years, but Sugawara has been able to retain a sense of originality. “My prints are inspired and created through my own intellectual, emotional and real experiences” says the designer, explaining that simple scenes in city streets that she passes, going about her daily routine, can cause the flickering of an image and the subsequent melange of motifs on fabric. Dans La Vie translates to, ‘In life’. Influenced by the infamous sayings of Coco Chanel, Sugawara tells us “I value daily inspiration,” and affirms that fashion is indeed in every aspect of our lives.

Well travelled, it is no surprise that this designer’s eclectic collections are a mesh of international inspiration. Taking us through places she has seen, Sugawara details the direct correlation between her designs and influential cities she visited. From Paris, she takes “inspiration from various elements that coexist in the daily life and in the streets”, and from Milan, her “artisan techniques”. The people of London prove to be worthy muses, while subculture and street fashion in Tokyo has provoked her raw and edgier approach to design. Add to the above a dash of New York City style luxury, et voila, the DNA of Dans La Vie is revealed.

Noticeable in her collections is the unification of unlikely elements. Tulle meets print while glossy textures collide with sheer fabrics. Sugawara is a fan of Comme des Garcons’ Rei Kawakubo, a designer who also utilises and combines contrasting materials in a similar way. “I love her refined and definitive judgement”, says Sugawara, revealing another of her many creative influences alongside Prada, Balenciaga, Christopher Bailey and Vivienne Westwood. Her ‘Clash Beauty’ spring/summer 2012 collection  perfectly captures the essence of the Dans La Vie label, but rather surprisingly, the influence Sugawara cites for the collision of Madonna motifs, asphalt streets, buildings and floral prints is the devastating earthquake that hit Japan earlier this year.

Creating a beautiful and eye catching collection is no easy feat for any designer, but Sugawara has managed to transform the “pains, sorrows and fears” of the Japanese in the aftermath of the earthquake into stunning garments that are both feminine and fierce. Explaining that the word “Recover” reverberated in her during the events following the disaster, Sugawara has quite literally recovered the effects of a tragedy and sewn them together to form a vision of informed artistry, a tapestry of experiences, a Dans La Vie dress. A devout optimist, she wants to become a designer “who can share pleasure with people world-wide”.

The images we are shown on a daily basis are that of a world in turmoil, but this designer takes the dark cloud, prints it on a voluminous skirt and spins a garment from the silver lining. We await September’s London Fashion Week with baited breath.