THE GOLDEN YEAR 2009

Martin Ksohoh’s homage to Hokusai

Martin Ksohoh’s homage to the Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife by Hokusai also includes a super Limited Edition Gold Octopus jean. The Gold Octopus forms part of the 2009 Golden Year micro-collection of super Limited Edition jeans, strictly for the collector and fashion connoisseur.

The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife Tako to ama, Octopus and Shelldiver) is an erotic woodcut of the ukiyo-e genre made around 1820 by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. Perhaps the first instance of tentacle eroticism, it depicts a woman entwined sexually with a pair of octopuses, the smaller of which wraps one of its tentacles around the woman’s nipple and kisses her, while the larger one performs cunnilingus. Hokusai created The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife during the Edo period in when Shinto was making a resurgence; this influenced the piece’s animism and playful attitude towards sexuality. It is a celebrated example of shunga and has been reworked by a number of artists. Similar themes of human females having sexual intercourse with sea life have been displayed since the 17th century in Japanese netsuke, small carved sculptures only a few inches in height and often extremely elaborate.