Japanese Street Fashion: Top-Down Flow? Socioeconomic Effects?

Written by Krystal

Monday, 17 March 2008 00:00

So this blogger was informed that there would be some sort Japan media event at the infamous UCLA, more specifically that there would be something about Japanese street fashion. That's my department! Naturally I attended to see what it was about. I was to find that it was not what I expected at all...

Admittedly I arrived a bit late due to my slightly getting lost both as I drove AND as I wandered around campus trying to find the building in which this rendezvous was to happen. UCLA is a huge campus and Sunset Blvd. practically wraps around it like a roller coaster (no joke!), but I managed to find where to park and began my search with printed map in hand. I had visited UCLA before but this was my first time seeing this particular part of the campus and I have to say that it was very beautiful. There were many trees and stretches of grass and many interesting statues. But I wasn’t there for that! I wandered and wandered…where on earth was the Public Policy Building??!! Nothing matched on the map! What do I do?? Turns out that the building I had suspected of being the one, but purposely ignored due to the confusing naming, was the one. Apparently UCLA likes to trick people. No offense to UCLA students and alumni, of course.

Anyhow, I popped into the building, hopped into the elevator, and dropped into the room...of professors?? I saw a room full of chairs and a couple couches with scholarly looking folk as well as graduate students. Was I in the wrong room??? Glancing around for an available seat, I was pointed in a general direction of them and planted myself down and pulled out my pen and notebook. They had already started and I missed the beginning! ….or did I? Listening in, they were discussing Japanese emigrants to New York with aspirations of becoming a famous artist. I hadn’t missed it after all! In a little bit the discussion was over and a short break was to commence before two speakers were going to do their bit on Japanese street fashion.

After the break was over I claimed a comfortable seat right in front of the podium and had my pen and paper at the ready. First up was Professor Kawamura from the Fashion Institution of Technology New York. New York??? I had no idea these people were coming from all over the country just to have these discussions about Japanese media! I was among the authors of many well known books on Japan like Japanimerica and Bad Girls of Japan! I suddenly felt even smaller than I was already feeling. Professor Kawamura began with a background on herself and her research on Japanese street fashion. She initially targeted a broader spectrum which included styles such as ganguro and yamanba and mamba and such, but due to those styles’ constantly changing nature and downfall of popularity, she changed her focus to Lolita which is undoubtedly a much more long lasting trend. Not to mention it’s easier to speak to Lolita. Girls that are into ganguro are known to hang out in the Tokyo district of Shibuya, but Shibuya has become less safe over the years with guys trying to pick up young girls and make them into pornographic models or prostitutes which causes them to be more wary of talking to strangers. Lolita on the other hand are famous for spending their Sundays in Harajuku. They all perch themselves on the Jingubashi bridge, otherwise commonly and mistakenly known as the Harajuku bridge, and basically just chat and hang out. They love the attention they get from tourists and photographers and pose accordingly, they being the fashion Lolita. A distinction that Professor Kawamura made, which I found amazing she was able to find in her research since not even many of those who are into the Lolita fashion are aware, is that there are two types of Lolita: fashion Lolita and lifestyle Lolita. In regards to her whole presentation in general I was impressed at how well Professor Kawamura did her research, having given basic descriptions of the main subgenres of Lolita and such. Of course it helps to speak Japanese and be able to read the “Gothic & Lolita Bible” and speak to Japanese Lolita. This applies to many other areas of Japanese media and pop culture as well, but there are many things lost in translation about Lolita and henceforth produce epidemics of misconceptions. Many of us more experienced Lolita find ourselves cringing and some of us even feel the need, and this is putting it lightly, to demean those who we may call n00bs. Some of us try to give constructive criticism and unfortunately more often than not comes off the wrong way and is taken as an insult. The rest of us just politely turn the other cheek. But with the advent of the new American version of TokyoPop’s “Gothic & Lolita Bible,” perhaps this may change. But I digress. Professor Kawamura then went on to explain that in her paper she goes into the detail about the demographics and other socioeconomic factors that may contribute to the young women being drawn to such a different and attention drawing fashion.

The second speaker, a lanky W. David Marx (writer and founder/chief editor of http://www.neojapanism.com) came up to the podium with a quite humorous introduction of which I admittedly can’t exactly remember aside the fact that it was funny. Yes, you can laugh at me. Now, the focus of his talk was the effects of magazines, specifically Japanese fashion magazines, on people’s wardrobes. He declared that the effects were a top-down flow. To put it simply for those who don’t know what a top-down flow is, the magazines, like “Zipper” and “nonno,” basically decide what girls are to wear the next season. One very good example he used was color tights. The August 2007 issue of “Zipper” magazine did a whole spread on color tights but when you looked at the streets, everyone was still wearing simple black tights. However, September and October revealed young women all over the place in color tights! Personally I was highly amused by this. I had seen comments by people saying how magazines control what people wear and vaguely agreed, but to see empirical data just really gave me a kick. In addition to that were general observations on the differences between American magazines and Japanese magazines, such as Japanese magazines being more like shopping guides and how they have what’s called ‘advertorials’ which are basically advertisements with content written by the magazine writers but are extremely difficult to distinguish from regular advertisements because of their layouts. By the close of his talk, I was highly convinced that magazines do indeed control what most Japanese women wear. A very interesting open discussion was held right afterward before we were let out for lunch.

Despite the fact that this whole shindig was nothing what I expected it to be, I enjoyed myself by listening to what the academics had to say on the things I’ve made part of my lifestyle. Not to mention you’re reading the words of a potential research subject for Professor Kawamura! You may find me in a published work someday!

Comment here!

Krystal

Jrock Revolution

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