Figure skater Yuzuru Hanyu and costume designer Satomi Ito opened a Tokyo exhibition this month to mark the release of their photo book "Couture on Ice," a project built around six costumes Ito designed purely for the camera, with no competition rules to satisfy. Hanyu wore the pieces for a private ice rink shoot captured by photographer Toru Yaguchi, who has spent years photographing the skater, with hair and makeup by Kazuki Kita. At a press preview ahead of the opening, Ito walked reporters through a process that let her build costumes out of fabrics no judge would ever allow on the ice.
A Rare Look At Costumes Built Only For The Camera
Four of the six costumes featured in the photo book are on physical display at the exhibition, alongside a large selection of photographs that never made it into the book, marked with stickers so visitors can tell them apart from the published shots. Tokyo Tower's observation deck is running a special behind the scenes video tied to the exhibition, and the venue, along with a lower floor pop up and the publisher Two Virgins' official e-commerce site, is selling related merchandise, including a making of video, a concept book, postcard sets and tote bags carrying the motif of the cherry blossom costume.
Freed From Competition Rules, Ito Chased Weight Over Practicality
Designing for competition or an ice show usually means designing under pressure, Ito told reporters, since a costume has to hold up to a client's expectations and function as a "costume built to win." This project ran the opposite way. Hanyu's only instruction, she said, was that she could design however she liked, and that freedom let her pursue pure visual effect instead of practicality for the first time.
That meant reaching for fabrics that have no place on a competitive rink: non stretch materials and heavier cuts that would normally restrict a skater's movement. The costume for a piece called "Energy" carries roughly five centimeters of pleating built into the pants, adding deliberate heft, while other costumes layer sheets of ultra thin silk organza to conjure the look of wind moving across fabric, all in service of a visual beauty competition costumes rarely get to chase.
The White Costume That Took Longest To Finish
Of the six pieces, a white costume demanded the most time on the workbench. Ito hand dyed the lace herself, then hand sewed small sequins over it one by one, a slow, meticulous process. The lace itself has an unlikely origin: Ito came across it at a fabric trade show, where it had been set aside to be thrown out, and bought it on the spot rather than let it go to waste. A cherry blossom costume went through its own round of trial and error, after an early version came out looking wrong and Ito reworked it midway through in a thinner material to get the effect she wanted.
Hanyu's Mastery Turned Heavy Fabric Into Motion
Ito had high praise for how Hanyu handled costumes on the ice that were never built to be skated in. Layered, non stretch fabric behaves unpredictably in motion, getting pulled and displaced with every turn, yet Hanyu skated through it with a stoic focus, she said, already familiar enough with how each costume moved to calculate his own choreography around it and deepen the performance rather than fight the fabric. One hakama style costume was worn directly over the pants with no inner layer, its sleeves attached with removable string ties, another small piece of engineering built into the design.
An Accidental Cherry Blossom Pattern Carved Into The Ice
One of the shoot's happiest accidents came from directly overhead. Yaguchi shot the cherry blossom costume from above, and the scratch marks Hanyu's blades had carved into the ice beneath him happened to resemble scattered petals, a detail neither he nor Ito had planned for and one she said exceeded what she had imagined the image could look like.
Ito's Next Act Starts With The Costume, Not The Choreography
Ito said the project also let her test a different creative order. Figure skating costumes are typically the last step in a chain that starts with music selection and choreography, but she said she wants her future work to run in reverse, starting from the costume and letting it inspire the movement and music that follow.
Ito also used the preview to look beyond the rink, saying she plans to carry her design work into fields outside figure skating and confirming she will hold a fashion show in Paris in early October. （Related： Who Is Japan's Most Beloved Actress? Fans Put Aragaki Yui at the Top ｜ Latest ）
