27/08/2026
There have been far too many sad goodbyes this week, but this one really got me. 🥲
I first encountered Yayoi Kusama’s work while living in Japan in the late 90s, but seeing Mirrored Years at the MCA in Sydney in 2009 completely slapped me in the face.
Until then, I think I’d always slightly belittled my own visual instincts as too simple, too graphic, too much colour, too much repetition. Kusama gave me permission to see those instincts differently. She made me think: maybe I can actually be …an… artist…..?
My very first Doodad and Fandango design was ‘Yayoi’s Tears’: black-and-white cartoon eyes that I repeated throughout my first collection and used as a logo for over a decade. She inspired so many of my favourite designs and I saw her work whenever I had the chance in a bunch of different cities. I dressed as a Kusama pumpkin for Halloween in 2018. In 2024, I attended the National Gallery of Victoria Gala for the opening of Yayoi Kusama. It was an art fashion dream event come true, dressed in the fabulous Miki Miki another true artist with absolutely no interest in the beige confines of fashion trends. Naturally, I made myself a little Yayoi bag charm for the occasion.
And I’ve only just realised something rather perfectly poignant: that little Yayoi portrait became the last accessory design I ever sold commercially as Doodad and Fandango.
….Yayoi at the beginning. Yayoi at the end. 🥹
A fascinating, complicated, occasionally questionable human being, and an artist whose absolute commitment to her own visual language gave me the confidence to find mine.
Thank you, Yayoi. For the dots, the colour, the repetition, the pumpkins, and the permission. 🟠❤️🔵💛🟢
Sayonara, Yayoi Kusama.
