SO-EN 2021 09
Ahead of the "STORY" DVD/Bluray release in a few days, I translated the issue of so-en where Massu talked about the "STORY" costumes. As always, the set list is included in the translation, so if you'd prefer not to see the set list before watching, please come back again when you're ready!
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Opening message for the issue (which Massu was cover of T^T):
When costumes become one with the performances, they begin to convey certain messages, and become irreplaceable items that live on forever as memories of a particular era within people. On top of helping to draw out the charm of the artists wearing them, costumes also create identities and world views. More than just mere objects of creativity, they have the ability to take us into a fantasy world. How are these costumes created? This issue opens with NEWS’ Masuda Takahisa, as he looks back on the costumes after just having completed their 4-parter tour.
MFBB vol. 20 Costume Special
NEWS LIVE TOUR 2020 STORY
NEWS’ 4-part concert series started in 2017. The final chapter, “STORY”, was forced to be postponed, then cancelled, due to COVID-19. Last May, they completed the tour finale and reached the moment when they finished the 4-part concert series. “STORY” was also the tour when Massu hit the 10th year since he started making costumes, making it the culmination of NEWS’ and Massu’s work. What kind of thoughts did Massu put into each of these costumes? We present you the full set of costumes, along with commentary from Massu.
Opening costumes, the culmination of 10 years’ work
The time has come for me to make costumes that create impact in the most direct manner. From the time when I started creating costumes for the 4-parter, I came up with the idea of making “red x swarovski” costumes for “S”. It took a lot of resolution to make these red opening costumes. Red, the strongest colour on stage and the colour of champions, decorated with 38,000 swarovski crystals per jacket. Finally at our destination after the various encounters, NEWS now stands proudly decked in red.
Collaboration with CVTVLIST using the tour hoodie
Using the “STORY” tour hoodie as a base, we incorporated lots of the techniques CVTVLIST is good at - dyeing, distressing, and embroidery. These demonstrate the potential of using tour hoodies as costumes. This was the first time I tried using denim since “QUARTETTO”, and dyeing the denim gave it a lot more depth.
To illustrate how the journey hasn’t been all smooth-sailing, we distressed these blue jackets
We started out by making really smart looking jackets, then distressed them on purpose to make them look worn out, then slowly balanced the look out by adding iron-on patches and so on. These are really not dirtied/damaged, but treated. They’re the set of costumes that we did the most trial-and-error on.
When the three tours (dots) come together (to form a line): remake coat made up of triangles
These are made by cutting up the tshirts and hoodies from the past 3 tours, “NEVERLAND”, “EPCOTIA”, “WORLDISTA” and “EPCOTIA -ENCORE-”, into triangles, and putting them together. The condensation of “STORY” into one costume. It’s only when the tour got postponed and we had time that we decided that we should make these. This is the only set of costumes that got added on later.
The full costumes from the “STORY” tour by Masuda Takahisa
NEWS’ 4-part concert series has been completed. It was probably in 2019 when I started thinking about the overall concept of the costumes. Because I conceptualised them on the premise of making costumes for 4 people, I’m showing all of them here.
“STORY” had the concept of being a “real” tour where we are present and living in the here and now, after having travelled through NEVERLAND = the place where dreams come true, EPCOTIA = space travel, WORLDISTA = the gaming world. When we were done with all the concerts, I felt this special feeling of happiness that I’ve never felt before. Back then, we created the concerts with the thought of wanting to treasure the work we presented to people, as well as the feelings the audience had, right there and then. But because the concerts got delayed and cancelled due to COVID-19, we lost that “instant”. To be honest, it might have been better to change the costumes and the direction of the concerts a little. But because we wanted to respect the version of NEWS and ourselves 2 years ago, we decided to just make very minor brush ups to the concert, and let that instant that we’ve kept frozen thaw as it was.
The changes to the costumes came during the 4-parter medley at the later part of the concert. We’d originally intended to just style the tour tee etc. and wear them for this part of the performance, but because we had time (due to the postponement), people suggested making an additional set. So we had the “remake coat” made. I feel a sense of destiny towards these remake coats, ones that were created by cutting up the tour tees and hoodies from “NEVERLAND”, “EPCOTIA”, “WORLDISTA” and “EPCOTIA -ENCORE-”. To wear all the 3 stories from the previous tours together at one go. We made the patchwork using triangles to symbolise how the 3 dots are now joined to become one line. When we made the coat out of the merchandise created so far, the colours came together really beautifully, and it felt like everything fell into place just in the way the final outcome was meant to be.
If I were to pick one set out of the costumes for this tour, it’d be the opening set. From the time we began the NEVERLAND project, I knew that I wanted to make costumes with Swarovski for S. We had several meetings before we managed to turn it into reality. In the end, we decided to use denim for the base so it can support the weight of about 38,000 crystals. To match the colour of the fabric, we used crystals of two different reds, and black. I knew from the experience so far that red, black and gold glittery costumes stand out at concerts and look cool. I also knew that they would look very dynamic. I wanted to purposely use non-shiny fabrics such as denim to make flashy costumes, so that the audience could have an additional joy of realising, “Oh so this is how it was made!” when the camera closes up on the costumes. Is this being contrarian? Maybe it’s because I knew we would be able to create these even without going for the safe options? Right from the early days, I’ve tried not to make sparkly red/black/gold costumes. Because I knew they’d be powerful costumes, I wanted to keep them as our very last card to play. That’s why I decided at the start of the 4-parter that I would make red sparkly costumes for the final S. I believed that the version of NEWS 4 years later would be able to pull them off. We had a certain level of confidence in ourselves, and I wanted to believe that we would be ready to step up to the next stage.
For the “STORY” tour, we had fans send in their versions of “STORY”. We received them in both text and visual forms. We used the handwritten “STORY”s in the concert, and printed them on walls etc., but I also decided to make them into original fabrics and use them in the costumes for the Jrs. The fabric is super cute! As it’s got the emotions of so many people printed on it, it’s really powerful. I love the fabric very much, because it’s got so much gathered onto it.
Although we’ve finished the 4-part concert series and closed a chapter, there's still plenty that I want to do for costumes. There’re so many designers I want to collaborate with, and so many things I can do and want to try doing. I believe my love for fashion would not lose out to anyone! (laugh) In order to continue making NEWS look good, and making people feel like becoming even more fashionable when they see NEWS, I hope to be able to become someone who can be a bridge between NEWS and fashion. I’ll also set my eyes on taking the next step upwards!
Johnny’s Jr.
“Because the support of the Jrs played a major role in the tour, I wanted them to wear costumes made from this fabric. I was so excited when they appeared in these costumes! They’ve also had to go through a lot to get to where they are today. I made knee guards for them out of the hope that they will never get injured. Cute, right?”
1. Opening
“In the song ‘STORY’, there’s this line that goes ‘koko ni tadoritsuita NEWS’ (NEWS has made their way here). When I heard that, I thought we could enter the venue and walk our way slowly up the stage. And while we were walking, I wanted the audience to be able to see different views depending on where they were seated, and wanted the costumes to catch light in many different ways. The Swarovski we have on the fringes are in strip form. We pasted the crystals on before cutting them, and used slightly different colours for each member. The denim we used was white denim that we dyed red. Everything that I wanted to do managed to come into form through this set of costumes. In order to have the current NEWS shine the brightest, this was the only set of glittery costumes. The rest of the costumes were all purposely damaged by distressing the fabrics, or leaving threads running, so as to discreetly convey the message that a lot has happened before we managed to reach here.”
Set list: STORY / SUPERSTAR / Top Gun / SEVEN / “Ikiro” / Perfect Love / U R not alone
2. CVTVLIST
The feelings that the designers from CVTVLIST have towards fashion is amazing. I found it really interesting, and thought new things would be created if we worked with them, so I asked them to create costumes for us. We also got them to help us with the styling, and they suggested that we wear denim jackets outside. From my end, I requested to have the fabric really worn out and dyed. The set of denim costumes we made for “QUARTETTO” was made as a challenge to see how shiny concert costumes can be, and we added a lot of decorations to the denim. I really liked those too! Because denim absorbs light, you can’t really tell it’s denim from far, and the best parts to these costumes kind of get drowned out when they’re on stage. Some people may think that these costumes may look better if they were made using fabrics other than denim, but just as how it was for the denim ones from “QUARTETTO”, this set of denim ones grew to become costumes with a lot of depth after heavy processing and dyeing, and changed the way people look at denim! They also changed the impression people have of wearing denim for concerts.”
Set list: Chankapana / Kimi no kotoba ni emi wo
3. Beige
“The beige set was designed to match the style each member usually likes. I looked at what they usually wear, as well as the costumes they’ve worn so far and made the costumes as close to a real depiction of the members as possible. Just because they were concert costumes, it didn’t mean they had to be flashy. I tried my best to find the right balance so that the costumes look like personal clothes, and also for people to find the styling of the costumes cute. Even though all the fabrics were of the same colour, we had beautiful glossy ones to those that are chinos looking, so it was surprising how much we had to play with. My favourite is Shige’s set, where he wears this oversized trench coat on top of his jacket. I thought it’s really cool and he’d definitely look good in it.”
Set list: STAY WITH ME / Nando demo / Silent Love / Love Story
Johnny’s Jr.
“Just like how we used to be like them, we thought it’d be nice if there could be moments when somebody could come across them and be interested in them. We created the choreography with this intention; that’s also why I used beige for everyone. So we’ll all look like we belong to the same group!”
4. Blue
At the beginning, I wanted to make smart, collarless blue suit jackets for us that were simple with no embellishments, but after we made and wore them, they looked really boring…… I did some reflection on how the image of something I wanted to wear turned out to be so weak. From there, we decided to put them through distressing and added embellishments. I had the members try this on several times, and we realised the dressier the original fabric was, the less obvious the distressing would be, so we distressed the fabrics even more. Once you distressed it past a certain level, they start to look tasteful, but if you overdid it, they just look really worn out. So we had to do a lot of testing to see what worked best for costumes. The pants were made in just the right pastel colours, inspired by a photo I saw of the “Seven Magic Mountains”, Ugo Rondinone’s installation in Nevada in the United States.
Set list: Dragonism / Yoruyo Odore / FIGHTERS.COM / Esu / 4+FAN / Kibou~Yell~
Johnny’s Jr.
“As we were in blue and pastels, we dressed them in completely white, styled in a way that suits each of them individually. I had really wanted to make original sets for all of them though.”
5. Tour tee and hoodie
For the past three tours, I made colourful items so that they would be easy to remember, but for this tour, it’s the complete opposite. I made the most direct things, in a design that was more like what people would usually wear, than that of concert merchandise. Something that would still look cute, even if they got worn out or torn. In addition, I made sure to create the tour tee and hoodie in a way that would make them usable as concert costumes. In this way, there would be meaning behind the tour merchandise that the audience buys when they attend the concert, as they’d then be able to remember, “This was for this particular concert!”
Set list: Clover
6. Remake coat
We took apart the tour tees and hoodies from the past three tours, made them into triangular shapes and used them as fabrics to make this remake coat. We actually cut triangles of different sizes out of colourful origami paper, got the staff to paste them together, looked at the patchwork from a distance, decided to add 1cm on each length, then tested the new measurements out again. We went through the process several times before we reached the perfect size - you can tell the shape from far, and the meaning to it when you come close. I cut and pasted the tshirts in a way I like and have been doing a lot recently, by layering a lot on the base fabric. Then balance it out by not covering everything nicely.
Set list: NEVERLAND / EPCOTIA / WORLDISTA / STORY / NEW STORY
Johnny’s Jr.
They each wore a costume from what I’ve made for the 4-parter. We watched them while they were dancing during the 4-parter medley, and it was such a nice scene. It was emotional, touching, and also happy.
Tour-T & Parka
“The classic gray hoodie. “NEW STORY” is like the culmination of “STORY”, and I felt like we made a really great piece of clothing.”
“I told Shige what I wanted to have as text at the back of the Tshirt, and he completed this Tshirt by summarising everything very nicely.”
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Credits to karemirp89 @ weibo for the scans!
- - -
Opening message for the issue (which Massu was cover of T^T):
When costumes become one with the performances, they begin to convey certain messages, and become irreplaceable items that live on forever as memories of a particular era within people. On top of helping to draw out the charm of the artists wearing them, costumes also create identities and world views. More than just mere objects of creativity, they have the ability to take us into a fantasy world. How are these costumes created? This issue opens with NEWS’ Masuda Takahisa, as he looks back on the costumes after just having completed their 4-parter tour.
MFBB vol. 20 Costume Special
NEWS LIVE TOUR 2020 STORY
NEWS’ 4-part concert series started in 2017. The final chapter, “STORY”, was forced to be postponed, then cancelled, due to COVID-19. Last May, they completed the tour finale and reached the moment when they finished the 4-part concert series. “STORY” was also the tour when Massu hit the 10th year since he started making costumes, making it the culmination of NEWS’ and Massu’s work. What kind of thoughts did Massu put into each of these costumes? We present you the full set of costumes, along with commentary from Massu.
Opening costumes, the culmination of 10 years’ work
The time has come for me to make costumes that create impact in the most direct manner. From the time when I started creating costumes for the 4-parter, I came up with the idea of making “red x swarovski” costumes for “S”. It took a lot of resolution to make these red opening costumes. Red, the strongest colour on stage and the colour of champions, decorated with 38,000 swarovski crystals per jacket. Finally at our destination after the various encounters, NEWS now stands proudly decked in red.
Collaboration with CVTVLIST using the tour hoodie
Using the “STORY” tour hoodie as a base, we incorporated lots of the techniques CVTVLIST is good at - dyeing, distressing, and embroidery. These demonstrate the potential of using tour hoodies as costumes. This was the first time I tried using denim since “QUARTETTO”, and dyeing the denim gave it a lot more depth.
To illustrate how the journey hasn’t been all smooth-sailing, we distressed these blue jackets
We started out by making really smart looking jackets, then distressed them on purpose to make them look worn out, then slowly balanced the look out by adding iron-on patches and so on. These are really not dirtied/damaged, but treated. They’re the set of costumes that we did the most trial-and-error on.
When the three tours (dots) come together (to form a line): remake coat made up of triangles
These are made by cutting up the tshirts and hoodies from the past 3 tours, “NEVERLAND”, “EPCOTIA”, “WORLDISTA” and “EPCOTIA -ENCORE-”, into triangles, and putting them together. The condensation of “STORY” into one costume. It’s only when the tour got postponed and we had time that we decided that we should make these. This is the only set of costumes that got added on later.
The full costumes from the “STORY” tour by Masuda Takahisa
NEWS’ 4-part concert series has been completed. It was probably in 2019 when I started thinking about the overall concept of the costumes. Because I conceptualised them on the premise of making costumes for 4 people, I’m showing all of them here.
“STORY” had the concept of being a “real” tour where we are present and living in the here and now, after having travelled through NEVERLAND = the place where dreams come true, EPCOTIA = space travel, WORLDISTA = the gaming world. When we were done with all the concerts, I felt this special feeling of happiness that I’ve never felt before. Back then, we created the concerts with the thought of wanting to treasure the work we presented to people, as well as the feelings the audience had, right there and then. But because the concerts got delayed and cancelled due to COVID-19, we lost that “instant”. To be honest, it might have been better to change the costumes and the direction of the concerts a little. But because we wanted to respect the version of NEWS and ourselves 2 years ago, we decided to just make very minor brush ups to the concert, and let that instant that we’ve kept frozen thaw as it was.
The changes to the costumes came during the 4-parter medley at the later part of the concert. We’d originally intended to just style the tour tee etc. and wear them for this part of the performance, but because we had time (due to the postponement), people suggested making an additional set. So we had the “remake coat” made. I feel a sense of destiny towards these remake coats, ones that were created by cutting up the tour tees and hoodies from “NEVERLAND”, “EPCOTIA”, “WORLDISTA” and “EPCOTIA -ENCORE-”. To wear all the 3 stories from the previous tours together at one go. We made the patchwork using triangles to symbolise how the 3 dots are now joined to become one line. When we made the coat out of the merchandise created so far, the colours came together really beautifully, and it felt like everything fell into place just in the way the final outcome was meant to be.
If I were to pick one set out of the costumes for this tour, it’d be the opening set. From the time we began the NEVERLAND project, I knew that I wanted to make costumes with Swarovski for S. We had several meetings before we managed to turn it into reality. In the end, we decided to use denim for the base so it can support the weight of about 38,000 crystals. To match the colour of the fabric, we used crystals of two different reds, and black. I knew from the experience so far that red, black and gold glittery costumes stand out at concerts and look cool. I also knew that they would look very dynamic. I wanted to purposely use non-shiny fabrics such as denim to make flashy costumes, so that the audience could have an additional joy of realising, “Oh so this is how it was made!” when the camera closes up on the costumes. Is this being contrarian? Maybe it’s because I knew we would be able to create these even without going for the safe options? Right from the early days, I’ve tried not to make sparkly red/black/gold costumes. Because I knew they’d be powerful costumes, I wanted to keep them as our very last card to play. That’s why I decided at the start of the 4-parter that I would make red sparkly costumes for the final S. I believed that the version of NEWS 4 years later would be able to pull them off. We had a certain level of confidence in ourselves, and I wanted to believe that we would be ready to step up to the next stage.
For the “STORY” tour, we had fans send in their versions of “STORY”. We received them in both text and visual forms. We used the handwritten “STORY”s in the concert, and printed them on walls etc., but I also decided to make them into original fabrics and use them in the costumes for the Jrs. The fabric is super cute! As it’s got the emotions of so many people printed on it, it’s really powerful. I love the fabric very much, because it’s got so much gathered onto it.
Although we’ve finished the 4-part concert series and closed a chapter, there's still plenty that I want to do for costumes. There’re so many designers I want to collaborate with, and so many things I can do and want to try doing. I believe my love for fashion would not lose out to anyone! (laugh) In order to continue making NEWS look good, and making people feel like becoming even more fashionable when they see NEWS, I hope to be able to become someone who can be a bridge between NEWS and fashion. I’ll also set my eyes on taking the next step upwards!
Johnny’s Jr.
“Because the support of the Jrs played a major role in the tour, I wanted them to wear costumes made from this fabric. I was so excited when they appeared in these costumes! They’ve also had to go through a lot to get to where they are today. I made knee guards for them out of the hope that they will never get injured. Cute, right?”
1. Opening
“In the song ‘STORY’, there’s this line that goes ‘koko ni tadoritsuita NEWS’ (NEWS has made their way here). When I heard that, I thought we could enter the venue and walk our way slowly up the stage. And while we were walking, I wanted the audience to be able to see different views depending on where they were seated, and wanted the costumes to catch light in many different ways. The Swarovski we have on the fringes are in strip form. We pasted the crystals on before cutting them, and used slightly different colours for each member. The denim we used was white denim that we dyed red. Everything that I wanted to do managed to come into form through this set of costumes. In order to have the current NEWS shine the brightest, this was the only set of glittery costumes. The rest of the costumes were all purposely damaged by distressing the fabrics, or leaving threads running, so as to discreetly convey the message that a lot has happened before we managed to reach here.”
Set list: STORY / SUPERSTAR / Top Gun / SEVEN / “Ikiro” / Perfect Love / U R not alone
2. CVTVLIST
The feelings that the designers from CVTVLIST have towards fashion is amazing. I found it really interesting, and thought new things would be created if we worked with them, so I asked them to create costumes for us. We also got them to help us with the styling, and they suggested that we wear denim jackets outside. From my end, I requested to have the fabric really worn out and dyed. The set of denim costumes we made for “QUARTETTO” was made as a challenge to see how shiny concert costumes can be, and we added a lot of decorations to the denim. I really liked those too! Because denim absorbs light, you can’t really tell it’s denim from far, and the best parts to these costumes kind of get drowned out when they’re on stage. Some people may think that these costumes may look better if they were made using fabrics other than denim, but just as how it was for the denim ones from “QUARTETTO”, this set of denim ones grew to become costumes with a lot of depth after heavy processing and dyeing, and changed the way people look at denim! They also changed the impression people have of wearing denim for concerts.”
Set list: Chankapana / Kimi no kotoba ni emi wo
3. Beige
“The beige set was designed to match the style each member usually likes. I looked at what they usually wear, as well as the costumes they’ve worn so far and made the costumes as close to a real depiction of the members as possible. Just because they were concert costumes, it didn’t mean they had to be flashy. I tried my best to find the right balance so that the costumes look like personal clothes, and also for people to find the styling of the costumes cute. Even though all the fabrics were of the same colour, we had beautiful glossy ones to those that are chinos looking, so it was surprising how much we had to play with. My favourite is Shige’s set, where he wears this oversized trench coat on top of his jacket. I thought it’s really cool and he’d definitely look good in it.”
Set list: STAY WITH ME / Nando demo / Silent Love / Love Story
Johnny’s Jr.
“Just like how we used to be like them, we thought it’d be nice if there could be moments when somebody could come across them and be interested in them. We created the choreography with this intention; that’s also why I used beige for everyone. So we’ll all look like we belong to the same group!”
4. Blue
At the beginning, I wanted to make smart, collarless blue suit jackets for us that were simple with no embellishments, but after we made and wore them, they looked really boring…… I did some reflection on how the image of something I wanted to wear turned out to be so weak. From there, we decided to put them through distressing and added embellishments. I had the members try this on several times, and we realised the dressier the original fabric was, the less obvious the distressing would be, so we distressed the fabrics even more. Once you distressed it past a certain level, they start to look tasteful, but if you overdid it, they just look really worn out. So we had to do a lot of testing to see what worked best for costumes. The pants were made in just the right pastel colours, inspired by a photo I saw of the “Seven Magic Mountains”, Ugo Rondinone’s installation in Nevada in the United States.
Set list: Dragonism / Yoruyo Odore / FIGHTERS.COM / Esu / 4+FAN / Kibou~Yell~
Johnny’s Jr.
“As we were in blue and pastels, we dressed them in completely white, styled in a way that suits each of them individually. I had really wanted to make original sets for all of them though.”
5. Tour tee and hoodie
For the past three tours, I made colourful items so that they would be easy to remember, but for this tour, it’s the complete opposite. I made the most direct things, in a design that was more like what people would usually wear, than that of concert merchandise. Something that would still look cute, even if they got worn out or torn. In addition, I made sure to create the tour tee and hoodie in a way that would make them usable as concert costumes. In this way, there would be meaning behind the tour merchandise that the audience buys when they attend the concert, as they’d then be able to remember, “This was for this particular concert!”
Set list: Clover
6. Remake coat
We took apart the tour tees and hoodies from the past three tours, made them into triangular shapes and used them as fabrics to make this remake coat. We actually cut triangles of different sizes out of colourful origami paper, got the staff to paste them together, looked at the patchwork from a distance, decided to add 1cm on each length, then tested the new measurements out again. We went through the process several times before we reached the perfect size - you can tell the shape from far, and the meaning to it when you come close. I cut and pasted the tshirts in a way I like and have been doing a lot recently, by layering a lot on the base fabric. Then balance it out by not covering everything nicely.
Set list: NEVERLAND / EPCOTIA / WORLDISTA / STORY / NEW STORY
Johnny’s Jr.
They each wore a costume from what I’ve made for the 4-parter. We watched them while they were dancing during the 4-parter medley, and it was such a nice scene. It was emotional, touching, and also happy.
Tour-T & Parka
“The classic gray hoodie. “NEW STORY” is like the culmination of “STORY”, and I felt like we made a really great piece of clothing.”
“I told Shige what I wanted to have as text at the back of the Tshirt, and he completed this Tshirt by summarising everything very nicely.”
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Credits to karemirp89 @ weibo for the scans!