On the occasion of the launch of T.T's Women's Line, the exhibition IN THE BEGINNING WOMAN WAS TRULY THE SUN, presented in collaboration with T.T's long term creative collaborators OK-RM (Oliver Knight, Rory McGrath), is being held at Chokkan in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, through August 9th.
At the core of the exhibition is a concept OK-RM has named worldview. "At this milestone of the womenswear launch," Knight says, "it feels deeply meaningful for T.T to begin speaking about being whole." McGrath continues, "It is not about men and women as a Western binary, but about the masculine and feminine energies that exist within each of us." Resonating with the complementary sensibility nurtured by the philosophy of Yin and Yang and by Shinto beliefs, this perspective reframes the worldview of T.T as a single, integrated whole. By opening the heart, the emotions and the senses, it points toward an essence that leads toward deeper connection.
The book and film on view are structured around two dimensions, a Daily Reality rooted in everyday life, and an Imaginal Reality conjured by the imagination. Expression was dismantled into minute elements such as gesture, symbol and movement, while margins were left open to embrace chance and improvisation. To recover a sensibility diluted by contemporary technology, OK-RM confronts the question of what it means to be human. As Knight puts it, "What matters is to pause, slow down and recover the five senses." The work pursues the value of feeling, of taking time and of leaving room for margin, tracing a process in which the tactile experiences of daily life stir memory and imagination, leading toward a more creative realm.
The exhibition's title "In the beginning, woman was truly the sun," is drawn from the opening statement, written for Seito, Japan's first literary magazine for women, founded in 1911 by the thinker Raicho Hiratsuka. "Our hope," McGrath says, "is to support this perspective and to bring this idea back into the light."
Each collaborator did not simply carry out an assigned role. Working in close dialogue with one another, they gave shape to the making of the work itself. The poetic language drawn from Lila Matsumoto's collaborative research pushed the project's thinking outward and became the foundation of the concept. Practitioners across photography, film, sound, set, and lighting responded to one another closely, shaping an experimental mode of expression. Olya Oleinic's photography and co-direction of the film helped shape the production, afromerm's musical sketches expanding the world, Tom Chick's editing adding new layers to the narrative. These perspectives crossed and overlapped, expertise layering upon expertise, until it crystallized into a single work, irreducible to any one of its parts.
Published to accompany the exhibition, the book of the same title is presented in hardcover. Across its 116 pages, a selection of papers with contrasting textures is used throughout, designed so that the tactile and visual character shifts with every turn of the page. It is an experiential volume, one that awakens the sensation in the fingertips.
Alongside the book, the venue also offers a range of limited products created by OK-RM and T.T. T shirts, tote bags and newsboy bags featuring photography and text are among the items on offer, allowing visitors to carry the worldview of the exhibition into daily life.
Exhibition Information
IN THE BEGINNING WOMAN WAS TRULY THE SUN
Dates: August 1st to August 9th, 2026
Opening Hours: 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM
*On the final day (9th): 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Last admission is 30 minutes before closing.
Venue: Chokkan (1F, 3-3 Nihonbashi Kabutocho, Chuo Ward, Tokyo)
