Bronwyn Chiaki Goldschneider’s Ryuko is both a commemorative to the strength of her Japanese grandmother, an adopted child of modest means who nevertheless lived with fashionable elegance and splendor, and an exploratory melding of the designer’s own Western (stained glass) and Eastern (Nihonga) identity.
The loving intricacies of the garment’s portraiture beading and glass panel facets both required, and allowed, the designer to meditate on the complexities of family history and personhood.