Legendary ukiyo-e and mythological icons part of the collaboration between New Era and the Tokyo National Museum.

The Tokyo National Museum, located inside Ueno Park, houses Japan’s finest collection of cultural artwork, with 89 officially designated National Treasures and 650 Important Cultural Properties within its 120,000 catalogued pieces. Ordinarily, the museum frowns on people wearing its masterpiece-level works of art on their heads, but this month presents a rare exception.

As part of a creative partnership, U.S.-based New Era Cap Company, more commonly simply called New Era, has designed a series of caps based on some of the museum’s most famous paintings. Four grand masters of Japanese art history served as the inspirations, resulting in five hats (the reason for the one extra will be clear in a moment). Three of the caps feature artwork not just on the front of the hat, but on the underside of their brims too, like in the one that draws from 18th century painter Kitagawa Utamaro’s A Collection of Reigning Beauties.

Kitagawa’s specialty was ukiyo-e woodblock prints, but you can’t talk about this unique Japanese painting style without mentioning Katsushika Hokusai…and you can’t talk about Hokusai without mentioning The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the most famous painting not just in Hokusai’s Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji series, but in all of Japanese art.

▼ The under-visor artwork here makes it looks like the wave is about to crash down on you.

As mentioned above, the collaboration includes four artists, but five designs. That’s because Ogata Korin’s most iconic work, the folding screen depiction of wind god Fujin and thunder god Raijin, is split into two caps.

▼ Fierce Fujin’s name, written in kanji characters, appears on the back of his cap…

▼ …as does raging Raijin’s.

Finally, rounding out the lineup is New Era’s take on Kuniyoshi Utagawa’s Kingyozukushi, or “Full of Goldfish.”

▼ Cute goldfish on the front…

▼ …and the cat that very much wants to eat them underneath.

All of the caps are variants of New Era’s 59Fifty model, and priced at 7,150 yen (US$45) each. The entire collection goes on sale January 23 at New Era stores in Japan (with the exception of the New Era kiosk at Nagoya Station) and through the New Era online store here.

Source: PR Times via Japaaan
Top image: New Era
Insert images: PR Times
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