We’ve speculated before on the spread of kawaii as an aesthetic sensibility. Others are thinking about it too.
The second annual Japan Fashion Week wraps up soon; the event was created to rival similar pow-wows in Milan, New York, London and Paris. A few interesting tidbits have slipped out of the (minimal) coverage.
Suzy Menkes, who is the Fashion Editor for the International Herald Tribune, attended Japan Fashion Week, which is a pretty big deal for those in the fashion world. She said:
The definition of creative fashion is simple, Menkes said.
“(It’s) inventing something that people never knew they wanted until they saw it.”
Trousers for women. Issey Miyake’s wind coat. Prada’s nylon backpack. Stretchy pantyhose, even zippers. People take these items for granted, but their impact has been enormous, Menkes said.
What does Japan have to offer the world that it did not know it wanted or needed? Well, for one thing, there’s the whole kawaii aesthetic.
Jean-Marie Bouissou, a research director at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques in Paris, who attended a panel with Menkes had this to say:
Bouissou agreed that Japan has it right–on everything from manga and kawaii (cute) to food and fashion. In his view, Japan’s success in the international market stems from a sense of contrast and balance. The country’s cultural icons, he said, embody force and fragility, masculinity and femininity.
Sushi, which took the United States and Europe by storm beginning in the 1980s, attests to this balance, Bouissou said. It’s exotic but proper, ecological in its rawness, yet artificial in its meticulous arrangement. This absence of absolutes, he said, is what makes it so enticing.
The same goes for the concept of kawaii. Why is manga so popular, even though it often belittles women? Because it’s cute, Bouissou said.
The Japanese themselves know that aspects of their culture have spread into the global pop-culture stream. It’s going to be interesting to see if they are able to find a way to serve up manga and anime inspired clothing.
It is not simple to absorb current influences, according to Naoki Takizawa, who shows in Paris as a designer for Issey Miyake. Takizawa is convinced that Manga is the country’s most powerful cultural source, but he does not think it easy to embrace.
“It is very complicated. Manga has always been something hidden,” he says, referring to parental and societal disapproval.
Takizawa has used Manga-inspired images on the inside, following a traditional Japanese aesthetic, as seen in kimono linings. He has also worked with Takashi Murakami, whose unsettling flat-plane art pops up in many prints.
So, it is not just Gwen Stefani who has noticed the power of kawaii clothing. We’ll see how far Japan is able to take its fashion.
« Collapse story
A 52-year-old Kanegawa Prefecture high school teacher has been fired for sending more than 900 e-mail messages to a 16-year-old student over a six-month period.
According to officials, half the messages expressed the teacher’s affection for the girl, telling her he loved her.
The messages came to light when the girl’s mother reported them to the school where the teacher worked. After that, the teacher sent a letter to the girl suggesting that they die together.
We reported on the Aneha building design scandal right when it broke. Since then it has taken so many twists and turns that you could probably devote a full-time blog to it.
Now we get word that the number of condominiums that were built using Aneha designs that are not up to required earthquake resistance specs has reached 98. These buildings are in danger of being seriously damaged in the event of a strong earthquake.
Many of the defective buildings are known to have been built by the bankrupt Kimura Construction Co. and designed by its subsidiary Heisei Sekkei design office. The bankrupt Huser Ltd. of Tokyo developed and sold many defective condos while a Tokyo-based consulting firm for hotel construction and operations, General Consultant Management, has been involved in building and managing those budget hotels.
That’s 98 buildings by a single architect. You’ve got to wonder show many other buildings there are out there that they don’t know about.
Money may not grow on trees, but trees can now grow in money.
The Fukushima Branch of the Bank of Japan has developed a way to process used 10,000-yen notes into a material that is then formed into flowerpots. Each pot contains the equivalent of two million yen worth of notes.
The used bills are dissolved in water and then the water is evaporated. The pots are very environmentally friendly, because the process eliminates the need for pollution-generating incineration, and because the pots are biodegradable.
Though there are some who would have us believe that Japan is populated by robots whose minds have been thoroughly numbed by years of indoctrination with textbooks that whitewash the nation’s past, a recent government survey here suggests otherwise.
Nearly four-fifths of respondents to the survey agreed that Japan must improve relations with China.
Asked what specific problems were contributing to deteriorating relations with Beijing, nearly 59 percent of respondents raised differences over interpretations of wartime history, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to a war shrine critics say glorifies Japan’s militaristic past.
Respondents also cited disputes over natural resources and China’s growing military spending as thorns in the troubled relationship.
Approximately 40 percent of the respondents said there is no problem with Japan’s security. Of these, 70 percent credited the nation’s mutual security treaty with the U.S., while 55 percent gave the credit to Japan’s constitution, which outlaws the use of force in settling international disputes.
In celebration of Ultraman’s 40th birthday, a news conference was held on March 28th. The highlight of the conference was not just to show off the latest incarnation of Ultraman, Ultraman Mebius, but to reunite the entire Ultraman family.
I was amazed to see a photo of all the different Ultramen. I’ve always been interested in Ultraman and henshin in general (Super Sentai & Kamen Rider) so I decided to figure out the photo. After some low-level research, I attempted to pick out who each Ultraman pictured was. In the photo there are 13, I numbered them from left to right starting from the top row.
- Ultraman Zearth
- Ultraman Powered
- Ultraman Zoffy
- Ultraman Legend
- Ultraman Neos
- UltraSeven 21
- Ultraman Astra
- Mother of Ultra
- Father of Ultra
- Ultrawoman Yullian
- UltraSeven
- Ultraman Mebius
- Ultraman
——————————-
I like Ultraman but I am not 100% sure of my list, if you know that any are incorrect, please let me know.
Submitted by Shay, who blogs at Spark Plugged about pretty much any aspect of Asian pop entertainment, plus technology, news, and more.
Thanks for posting this, lifted my day.
