whenever i see Stefani with her girls i think how stupid western people are, or maybe how blind? visually insensitive? It's just the same with any 100,50 years old operetta's pics, another madame butterfly adaptation, 'japanese style' apartments etc- the more authentic they think they are the more weird and western it looks ...

Except for the Pix on Salon I haven't seen the look at all. It did seem like the reporter was missing the point entirely (and maybe getting overly-involved with her own obsessions about discrimination agaist Asian-american women); I agree that the "harajuku look" doesn't seem to be about expressing individuality or rebellion in most cases. It seems funny that when Japanese adopt American fashion we revel in its appropriated depthlessness, but when it is the other way around we get all uppitty - like, I lived in Japan and I know what's up - those American harajuku girls ain't legit - I'm from the old school - Original Poseurs... It is a kind of paradox tho... Is the copy trying to be deeper than the original here? Don't think we should expect great depths from Ms. Stefani?
Yeah, and I wonder about the tradition of "dropping out" of society in ancient Taoism that "mmm" was talking about before. It is fascinating, but does it have an impact on contemporary culture? I've talked to random Japanese about this and it doesn't seem to be common knowledge or even an indirect influence on any thoughts that are at the front of anyone's mind. Maybe for authors and monks, but for your average teenager? Whereas when I was a teenager I was aware of and admired "serious" western historical examples of this type of behavior as well as "shallower" stone temple pilot types... And if, as momus said earlier, society encompasses all the modes of cultural expression and all the people in one culture, and there really is no way to "drop out," then I just have to say - what a total bummer...

We're back to the blind men and the elephant again. Everyone wants the Harajuku girls to be about the stuff on their personal agenda... and that includes Marxy saying the look has "no content". Marxy has a "no content agenda" the same way the Salon writer has an "individuality and self-expression" agenda. I think MiHi Ahn has a very valid point when she says that Western takes on Japanese style so often get it wrong -- Tarantino is a legitimate target for that criticism, although I'd like to have seen Sofia Coppola in there too. I think she cooks the books a bit in her depiction of what Stefani is doing, though: in fact, Stefani is wrong about the Harajuku girls in exactly the same way MiHi Ahn is: Stefani's lyrics in fact promote the very line Ahn is pedalling -- that pomo shopping and style-play is empowerment and self-expression. As for the geisha-like submissiveness, the bowing to Stefani, the girls' lack of individuality, that's just the Western distinction between the star and the chorus line. The West loves hierarchies, it engineers these class divisions continuously, even -- especially -- in pop videos.

Ahn does end the article by giving Hellen Van Meene (somewhat backhanded) credit for admitting quite openly that she's structuring her photographs of Tokyo girls, setting them up, making a fiction. I think that credit should be more approving than it is. That's all any of us are doing when we project our own personal agendas onto Harajuku girls. Personally, I began with the "individual creativity" sort of projection (late 90s) but I now see the Harajuku thing as something much more strange and interesting. I think it's a combination of:

* Japanese children are very indulged, even "spoilt", by their parents. They feel like little princesses, and dress like them.

* There's a tradition of finery, kimonos, expression of social wealth, celebration of youth, fertility, etc. Last time I was in Harajuku I did something I'd never done, I went to the Meiji shrine next door. There was a wedding going on, and the bride's finery really didn't seem so differently presented from the fashion going on nearby. Except that these days that street fashion is pretty diluted, muted, greyed and beiged out.

* Pure consumer jouissance, an expression of social values, a product of Japan's unique low anomie urban environments, an expression of a national preference for aestheticism.

* I'm not sure I see much Bourdieu-style social distinction going on, cultural capital accumulation, etc. I think Bourdieu's analysis doesn't really travel well to Japan. I do think Harajuku is more about sewing machine skills and tender-minded love of prettiness than it is about flaunting and reinforcing class distinctions.

But anyway, those are my projections too. What I do rather like is that while Stefani is making faux-Harajuku girls dance to her own tunes, Towa Tei has got the real Kylie Minogue singing in Japanese on his new album. Who needs actors' guild puppets when you can get the real... puppets? Who needs complaints when you can take the stereotyping country's stars and stereotype them yourself, make them dance to your tunes?

momus has a point that I think he doesn't really follow all the way. Where marxy is judging on the "no content" axis, the author is concerned with "expression". The thing is that the entirety of the present american obsession is judging uncritically on dozens of axes that just don't apply so well to the reality of Japan... or more importantly the ongoing debate here.

Momus does something similar when, as marxy points out, he showers japan with praise for "embracing" (sounds willfull, maybe "winding up" fits better) post-modernism. We all have our internal agendas... but the western fashion media would spin forced sex-labor into something futuristic, post modern and hip if the managed to look close enough at japan to see it (unlikely). The uncritical nature of the current J-love wave reveals the whole praise-party as exoticism.

I don't think on the other hand, you could so readily dismiss the marxyist critique as xenophobic.

So I have to be critical, otherwise I'm an orientalist? And if I start saying that Japan is 'content-less' and 'in terminal decline', that would be less orientalist, thus better? Come off it!

Let's imagine some Japanese who live in New York looking at American society. If they praise it, they're being patronising, according to your argument, Nate. If they say that just about everything they see is misguided and a sign of 'terminal decline', we can't call them xenophobic? Really?

sorry about that. I think you (momus) have much more informed love of japan, and didn't mean to lump you in with the current media explosion.

It's the uncritical love of all things J that I'm saying is ultimately empty. Like the bhangra and bollywood trend of a couple of years ago, there's no soul or thought to the admiration. And most importantly no attempt to understand rather than simply contrast.

That could hardly apply less to you personally.
(I actually have an overwhelmingly positive reaction to this place. Though the world the two of you describe and debate is as far away from Aomori as it is from Berlin or New York.)

Well, I'm holding the trunk and Marxy's holding the tail. And I'm saying the trunk is a precious silk hanging, whereas Marxy is telling us the tail is a shed snakeskin.

Today in Tokyo it's 24 degrees centigrade and sunny. Hence nobody here. On Wednesday, though, expect hot blog action: Tokyo is forecast to be 13 degrees and rainy.

nate: I'd say that mr. momus is waving the flag of Nippon Banzai Orientalism, it is just that he's been doing it for longer than the current press fad. Not to discount the months he's spent here over the years, just that his agenda is just as transparent as that of any other writer who'se bread and butter depends on selling the same old story to their readers.

porandojin: you got it right. The best tricks are the old ones because they always work.

mr momus: you are on the money about spoiled children. An interesting thing about the suburban rich kids who come down to Harajuku/Urahara: they behave there in ways completely different from how they behave in thier own neighborhoods. They treat the area as a sort of theme park where most of the rules dont apply. The basics of cleaning up after one's self, not leaving a trail of garbage behind as one walks, not urinating on other people's houses dont seem to apply when they come there. I lived in Jingumae 4chome from 97 to 2003. I cant count the number of kids I had to chase off for peeing on my building, painting graffitti or leaving their old ¥40,000 sneakers on my stairs in favor of their new ¥50,000 pair. Moving out of that area was the best thing I did in this country.

Stefani is making inroads to the upper echelons of the J-pop scene. I just mixed the A-side of Hitomi's next single (entitled, um...er, "Japanese Girl") and the man from AVEX gave me Gwen's album and said the first track was their "image song". Make what you will of that!

The B-side was done by a J-producer/engineer and is a re-hash of "I'm your Venus", of which Bananarama did a version many moons ago (I actually tape-op'ed on that session by strange co-incidence) and it has a CM tie-up and is on the telly now so I'm told.

Hitomi (be still my beating heart) didn't come to the studio alas and me digikame went unused :-(

the man from AVEX gave me Gwen's album and said the first track was their "image song". Make what you will of that!

I make of that one mirror pointing at another mirror! All terribly... okay, I won't say it!

your self restraint is appretiated

Marxy has a "no content agenda" the same way the Salon writer has an "individuality and self-expression" agenda

When I first came to Tokyo in 1998, the level of fashion diffusion really floored me, and I liked the Harajuku and Ura-Harajuku looks tremendously for a long time. I did indeed project a kind of "subjective creativity" onto the adopters. Only when I started my research on Ura-Harajuku in 2000 and talked to Japanese magazine editors and brand managers and media critics did I start to develop a more nuanced understanding of the scene's dynamic. The Japanese themselves were often less kind: Nigo often complained that the kids won't buy the red version of a shirt featured in a magazine unless they specifically show the red version. There is absolutely an authoritarian side to the Japanese fashion world, at least with the "consumer lifestyle" looks.

Japanese children are very indulged, even "spoilt", by their parents

Yes, but the magazines are the ones taking the parental guidance role. Parents are just condoning it.

Pure consumer jouissance, an expression of social values, a product of Japan's unique low anomie urban environments, an expression of a national preference for aestheticism.

And also a byproduct of the Japanese consumer market's development. Take a look at an 1980 issue of Olive - it's pretty boring. What you're describing is all post-bubble fashion and it didn't exist as a mass phenomena until the 90s.

. I think Bourdieu's analysis doesn't really travel well to Japan.

Depends on how narrow you define his analysis. The Japanese middle-classes are equally guilty of "the myth of good taste" as any other post-industrial society, but subcultural Japanese fashion also provides an escape from the class structure. I think pre-90s fashion and the fashion of today are both very conspicious wealth-based, but there was a point when it was taste over wealth. Bourdieu makes the case that they're both ways of hiding economic priviledge.

I do think Harajuku is more about sewing machine skills

I don't know where you're getting this idea from. You can copy Cutie directly and end up looking perfect. Or even those Lolita-Goth girls don't need to make their own costumes. If girls are self-producing, the market authorities have lost the war. They just want you buying the charisma brands from the charisma ten-in and put it all together as written in the flow chart on page 10.

Though the world the two of you describe and debate is as far away from Aomori as it is from Berlin or New York.

That's a good point, but we should also remember that the fashion system's real targets are the kids from out-of-town who have little self-confidence in their local styles. Harajuku is very much Disneyland for young country kids, and with Ura-Harajuku, the Gunma-kenners took the town over.

I would assume there is a real class issue with fashion in cities outside of Tokyo. Not everyone can travel into the big city, wait in line for 2 hours to buy some Silas, and come home, especially now that the inaka is totally dependent upon direct government funding.

Bah. this far out of the big city, and there's not even expensive or up to date stuff to buy. Though we do have potentially the world's most pathetic Bathing Ape shop... Clerks are like the maytag repairman.

I guess maybe that's the real lynchpin in Nigo's empire. Even Aomori doesn't think bape's hip anymore.

nate said: I guess maybe that's the real lynchpin in Nigo's empire. Even Aomori doesn't think bape's hip anymore.

and i say: oh, snap! how the mighty have fallen...we have to get an inside man/woman/simian in the bape empire and really get the lowdown on the financial bottom line. are they in the red?

at this point, with all of the talk tending to focus on 'urahara' as some kind of summum bonum of the japanese fashion world (in terms of gross profit, i'm sure this argument is sustained, in terms of aesthetics, this is open to debate), i really would like to bring up the fact that there are at least half a dozen different fashion 'nexuses' in the tokyo metro area, some of which are diametrically opposed to the 'urahara' scene. take for example the whole 'chuo-sen' culture thing, which categorically rejects the lifestyles and fashions of 'urahara'.

i really would like to bring up the fact that there are at least half a dozen different fashion 'nexuses' in the tokyo metro area, some of which are diametrically opposed to the 'urahara' scene.

Oh, I think UraHara has been over for a while. If Tokyo had a fashion center, it's more Omotesando's massive luxury brands. LV and Gucci rule the school.

"Ruling the school" is so not the model for Tokyo fashion. Go here

http://www.style-arena.jp/english/street/daikanyama/index.htm

and click through the districts menu at the top right. The styles in Shibuya, Ginza, Daikanyama, Harajuku and Omotesando are all different.

First of all, those looks are edited to give each neighborhood a distinctive "look" (we talked about this in reference to Tokyo Graffiti: http://www.pliink.com/mt/marxy/archives/000245.html), but more than that, these are pictures of the "most stylish," not the most average examples.

No matter where you go these days, the "o-nee-kei" (big sister) look is proportionally larger than everything else. I mean, Ginza and Shibuya are totally overrun with LV and Gucci and not a single person on that site is clutching a logo-patterned bag.

There is no big music style, there is no big fashion, there is no "little black dress". Stop pretending there is a single cultural tendency, whether it be "decline" or "conformity"! It's lazy sociology and it's simply not accurate. We no longer live in the age of over-arching grand narratives. Modernism is over; however, the good news is that the eclecticism and diversity of today's culture means that you, Marxy, can exist as a music artist! So you can fall back on pop when your sociology career fails to take off due to your stubborn insistence on seeing conspiracy theories and "big pictures" in a diverse and fragmented and contradictory world!

so momus is positing that britney spears doesn't exist? (or didn't 4 or 5 years ago?) There are dominant trends, as there always have been, and the presence of subcultures does not negate the dominant trends.
There is a big fashion, and there always has been. The big designer highly conspicuous consumption kei is the dominant force throughout japan now. There are plenty of people up to other things, but their presence is only a distraction that will ultimately be assimilated...

If you want to argue that somehow cultural dominance and ubiquity isn't the mark of fashion, then you have little other space to retreat into but authenticity.

I don't follow that logic at all, Nate. Why must we consider the "plenty of people up to other things" a "distraction"? And why must pluralism align with authenticity? Surely the more different facets there are to culture, the harder a time any one style will have in establishing its "closure credentials" (and authenticity is a closed system, not an open one).

You know, Marxy's suspicion of the street fashion website I linked is just too easy a dismissal. If you showed me those photos, I could probably guess which area we were in. They are all very different, and they accord with my understanding of the different dress norms in those different areas. What looks like a tremendously dominant style is an eccentric aberration a couple of blocks (or towns) away.

My only suggestion is that there is quite clearly a (un)fashionable majority that stands proudly behind their $1300 bags. In it's ubiquity, it is the norm for fashion, and is the "big fashion" you doubted the existence of.

Of course the minor fashions may well exist peacefully alongside, but if you want to say that they actually have equal footing in the social conciousness, then they have to have some extraordinary quality that trumps consumer choice. The only thing I can imagine that can hold that spot is "cool" which is code for authentic as definied by whatever subset... and if anything reaches that level of cool that it can somehow eclipse the dominant force, the dominant force will swallow it whole (or be toppled by it).

Stop pretending there is a single cultural tendency, whether it be "decline" or "conformity"!

Sometimes I imagine you read what I write... but instead you go back to your over-arching anti-Marxy meta-narrative.

As I wrote about a week ago, what's interesting about the world right now is that as much as things are fragmenting towards the edges, the middle plurality still is treated as the authoritative style. There's more Louis Vuitton than ever in Japan, even though the subcutlural looks have fractured to a point of no return. Our media is set up only to write about the world in terms of meta-narratives, and therefore, they push relatively large trends into megatrends. This will be corrected soon, but currently we live in a age of mass media and fragmented consumers.

If you showed me those photos, I could probably guess which area we were in.

I think these styles were actually less stereotypical than I would have imagined. Ginza and Daikanyama and Shibuya are much different in real life. These editors took out all the really gaudy girls.

My only suggestion is that there is quite clearly a (un)fashionable majority that stands proudly behind their $1300 bags.

And these girls will probably hold on to this look for a long time. Pluralism is very scary for a lot of people, and they're always going to run towards the middle.

That's not to say that I think tokyo is less pluralistic than anywhere else... nor that the pluralism is fake. Only that there sure as hell is a dominant fashion, that being megadesigners.

Out in the sticks the dominant phenomenon is magnified because of a lack of discerning hipsters. It's uniqlo, muji or the big money brands out here... ranked from least to most desirable.

We no longer live in the age of over-arching grand narratives. Modernism is over...

I dispute this particular over-arching grand narrative. For a start, postmodernism has been around as long as modernism (Tristam Shandy, recycling of old architectural styles, blending high/low art forms etc etc etc), and equally, modernism is still very much with us (the science meta-narrative just for starters). The two have always existed in symbiosis, in fact what would postmodernism be without modernism? It would simply become the new modernism, just as yesterday's irony becomes today's earnestness, just as Warholian critiques of authenticity become today's authentic objects of artistic and monetary worth...

nick said: modernism is over; however, the good news is that the eclecticism and diversity of today's culture means that you, Marxy, can exist as a music artist! So you can fall back on pop when your sociology career fails to take off?

and i say: why does nick make it sounds like being able to be in a country that engenders musical egalitarianism (btw, japan doesn't do this) and being socio-economically/politically critical of that very system are mutually exclusive modes of being? sorry nick, did i miss something, or did you?
and i'd also like to say just for the record that i for one have a lot of confidence that david will be a 'success' in BOTH of his areas of activity, since they seem to be pretty synergetic at this point.
best,
r.

hello

im doing a textile project based on the harajuku girls designs so it would help if you could send me some pictures or information on them plz thanks
love gina
xxx

why do u diss gwen and her harajuku girls?she can do what she likes and get a lot of money for it and they werent forced to be a dancer for one of the worlds most amazing Aand inspiring women. harajuku would me an amazin place to live they are individual !ur gay and jealous of gwen and you are to scared to wear what u want so you have to take the mess out of them . gwen can do what she likes destinys child filmed a video in the jungle were they using the shipwrecke d look were they ruining the jungle look-err no so leave gwen alone. ps check out my website plz,

whoa! either there is a master satirist around here, or google just paid off big time.

I'm with miss manga, "!ur gay"

miss manga your website is b.a.n.a.n.a.s !