What if fashion celebrated our ancestral lineage and the elders in our community? What if it created spontaneous energetic collaborations among strangers in sound, healing, performance, dialogue, and movement all over public spaces and in daily life?

From artist and writer, Yumi Sakugawa, and curator, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, FASHION FORECASTS presented an alternate futuristic reality where everyday fashion is spiritual, intersectional, intergenerational, collaborative, sustainable, and influenced by different Asian and Asian American histories, cultures, and traditions.

At the same time, it playfully challenged strictly held beauty standards around age, gender expression, cultural representation, and body shape.

Viewers were invited to wear the community cape, and see what happened when other people wore the cape with them, and to imagine wearing a living altar to ancestors with offerings of fruit and incense.

Viewers were also asked to consider the possibility that fashion could be more than mass-produced consumerism and could be an intentionally created vehicle for spiritual growth and communal connection that weaves together relationships among strangers across different communities in unexpected, imaginative ways.

Props and costumes by Robbie Monsod. 

About the artist

Yumi Sakugawa is an Ignatz Awards- nominated comic book artist and the author of I Think I Am in Friend-Love With You, Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe, There Is No Right Way to Meditate, and The Little Book of Life Hacks: How to Make Your Life Happier, Healthier, and More Beautiful. Her comics have appeared in The Believer, Bitch, The Best American NonRequired Reading 2014, The Rumpus, Folio, Fjords Review, and other publications. 

She has also exhibited multimedia installations at the Japanese American National Museum and the Smithsonian Arts & Industries Building. 

A graduate of the fine art program of University of California, Los Angeles, she lives in Los Angeles. 

Learn more about Yumi in our interview.

About the curator

The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center is a migratory museum that brings history, art, and culture to you through innovative community-centered experiences. Fashion Forecasts was seeded at one of SmithsonianAPA’s flagship projects, CrossLines: A Culture Lab on Intersectionality (2016) under the curation of Adriel Luis, Curator of Digital and Emerging Practice.