This is part 2 of the interview with Blabla Hospital Head Nurse, Akari, in which she shares some insights into her caring ways, what her patients need and the discovery of her healing powers.

Check out last week’s interview with Japanese fashion designer Akari.

Blabla Hospital – treating patients all over the world. Photo by K Steven.

Deanne: You describe your hand made designs as cures for fashion sickness. How and when did you discover your healing powers?

Akari: I started making Blablahopsital clothes when I moved to London. The reason why was to take my mind off the fact that I’d just moved to the other side of the planet. I knew nobody in London, so Blablahospital was a way to treat myself. I was the first patient, you could say!

I love to dress up; putting on clothes which suit my mood has always been a big thing. As I couldn’t find the clothes to suit my mood in London, I just made my own.

Once I’d treated myself, I knew I had a city full of other potential patients that I needed to cure. I became the nurse, London my hospital, my bedroom my operating theater and the people of London my patients.

What I found really strange were the patients – In Tokyo, I met people from Japan only. In London, it was people from all over the world. It gave me a real sense of freedom which I was able to bring back to me when I returned to Japan.

Blabla Hospital Head Nurse – creating remedies for all fashion sicknesses. Photo by K Steven.

Deanne: You have patients all over the world, your fashion is particularly popular in Tokyo and London. Do these cities need their own special cures?

Akari: Good question! It’s difficult to answer this clearly, because nowadays things are much more blurred between places than when I got on the plane to London.

As a really horrible generalization, I’d say that my London patients are more drawn to the designs which are strong and violent; lots of ECG stitches and bloody gauze. Tokyo patients seem more into the cuter designs, especially those which involve characters.

I think it was sometime about two years ago that I created a set of accessories called “Yatsu”. Yatsu can be roughly translated as “that thing” or (one of my favourite words) “thingamajig”, meaning they are just… nothing. As I was making these things, I felt very annoyed by them, so I created a story that introduced these annoying little things to the world. They became really popular over in Japan, but not so much overseas.

Blabla Hospital – fashionable elixirs come in all shapes and sizes.

Deanne: Are you a caring nurse in all areas of your life or just when it comes to curing the fashionably ill?

Akari: Haha. I guess the only way I can answer this is to say I care about what is important to me, and don’t care at all about what isn’t. I try not to be someone with different personalities for different situations. I refuse to change any aspect of myself to try and fit in.

Often people assume that I’m some kind of fetish queen or something. Of course, the love of hospitals doesn’t help this, but in actual fact as I said before, it’s actually the least fetishistic parts of the medical world which inspire me.

I’ve found that sometimes I need to care less about things, and sometimes I need to care more. I need to care more about sell-by dates on food. I just had some yoghurt, but it was a bit lumpy and now I feel sick…

Blabla Hospital Tees – for the fashionably unwell.

Ready to find your cure? Find it here:

Greece – PALOMA NEGRA
Switzerland – Black Griffin Fashion
Japan – Marui Shinjuku
Online – TokyoMade
Online – blablahospital