Style arena fruit shift
Jun. 12th, 2005 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusMost of the clothes snapped on the streets of Japan by people like Style Arena, FRUiTS and Shift are still cream, denim, black and beige. But flashes of colour appear here and there, and this might portend various things depending on who you listen to and the kind of story you're inclined to believe.
Chromatic Economist: Capitalism is by no means an exact science. We economists have to deal with volatile stuff like "consumer confidence", and of course investors pore over tea leaves, bird gizzards, quarterly figures... anything that'll help them get in early on a trend. So why not colour? In the 60s "hemline economists" said you could tell if the economy was heading for boom or bust by the length of women's skirts. So I'll stick my neck out here, show a bit of leg, and say that bland + beige = bust, bright + bold = boom.
Chromatic Geographer: Ha ha ha, "creative accountancy"! You're just reading the evidence according to your own agenda! This is all about geography. Study the latest style photos from Japan and you'll see a clear geographic trend: the brightest colours are
currently to be seen in Sapporo (look at that lovely orange scarf!), then things get more subdued as we travel to Tokyo and all points south and west. Clearly, colour is arriving from the north and spreading towards the south. Now, the question is, how do we explain this? Do we use plate tectonics or adopt a human geography approach and test whether there might be some nomadic population movement going on, something related to transhumance, perhaps? After all, the last major style trend in Japan, ganguro, was due to a massive influx of yamamba, tanned mountain hags descending on the cities en masse, abandoning their animal herds in the high pasture...
Fashion Chromaticist: Honestly, what rubbish! You know nothing about style! We're talking about fashion, so use a fashion analyst, right? That's hardly rocket science, is it? (Rocket Scientist tries to butt in, but is bundled into test capsule and locked in.) Instead of seeing fashion as a mere index of money or migration, see it in terms of its own internal narratives: stories about colours, styles, revivals. Look at these photos. The colours you see are quite limited. There's mustard yellow, aquamarine in light and dark shades, violet and purple (really just different weights of the same colour), some red. The story in Japanese fashion over the last five years or so has been a reaction against the lurid manga styles of the 90s (with their violent synthetic pinks and oranges, electric blues and greens, all high-contrast and jarring). There's been an emphasis on texture rather than colour, with layers of beige, cream, fatigued and frayed denim, blacks and whites. Or else there's been a kind of linear op art energy generated by striped items and bright accessories. The 90s allusions to the funky 70s have mostly been replaced by 00s allusions to the formalist, frilly-yet-macho 80s, so we've seen fatigued, greyed-out versions of the Madonna / Cyndi Lauper look. This was mostly expressed without colour, but when colour was allowed, it's usually been some aquamarine or magenta item. Those are deliberately cold and acid colours which sit well with the aggression of a striped wristband, a skull belt, a black and white scribbly T shirt with a vaguely metallic motif. Green and purple are complementary colours, so they work well together. What's changed recently is that they've been joined by mustard yellow, and even some warm colours like red and orange, colours we haven't really seen on Japanese streets since the 90s. The mustard crept through in striped patterns at first, then, as if gaining in confidence, got more bold and blocky, covering entire garments.
Symbolic Interactionist: That's all very well, but you're not really explaining why this has happened. As a Symbolic Interactionist (here's my business card, curious to meet you) I want first of all to know the meanings of the colours in the minds of the people actually wearing them. Let's interview the subjects, seeking their explanations. Well, it seems we can't speak to the people in the photographs... but a Symbolic Interactionist is always prepared. I have a control group here. Hisae and Yukiko, what do these colours mean?
Hisae: The sailor look is coming back. That girl's yellow stripey skirt is sailor look, it's having some influence. If the Slow Life movement goes on I don't think colour is going to become popular, though, people will stick to plain grey, black and white. Japanese people love black because they have black hair, and black suits them.
Yukiko: There's two different types of girl, one loves to spend money on clothes and cares how she looks, the other prefers to spend more money on her life, buying flowers, passing time having fun and being fulfilled. When you look at magazines, some just show the new look, the others focus on life. Non-fashion-conscious girls prefer to use natural fabrics like cotton and hemp, sometimes stitching and customising their skirts, and they like to use earth colours and neutral tones. Aquamarine bluey-green has been a colour keyword recently, but it's only used for accents: an accessory, a shirt collar seen under other, more neutral-toned garments...
Animal Behaviourist: (Breaking in rudely) But you haven't explained the red! Our studies show that women dress very differently depending where they're at in the menstrual cycle...
Chromatic Economist: Capitalism is by no means an exact science. We economists have to deal with volatile stuff like "consumer confidence", and of course investors pore over tea leaves, bird gizzards, quarterly figures... anything that'll help them get in early on a trend. So why not colour? In the 60s "hemline economists" said you could tell if the economy was heading for boom or bust by the length of women's skirts. So I'll stick my neck out here, show a bit of leg, and say that bland + beige = bust, bright + bold = boom.
Chromatic Geographer: Ha ha ha, "creative accountancy"! You're just reading the evidence according to your own agenda! This is all about geography. Study the latest style photos from Japan and you'll see a clear geographic trend: the brightest colours are
currently to be seen in Sapporo (look at that lovely orange scarf!), then things get more subdued as we travel to Tokyo and all points south and west. Clearly, colour is arriving from the north and spreading towards the south. Now, the question is, how do we explain this? Do we use plate tectonics or adopt a human geography approach and test whether there might be some nomadic population movement going on, something related to transhumance, perhaps? After all, the last major style trend in Japan, ganguro, was due to a massive influx of yamamba, tanned mountain hags descending on the cities en masse, abandoning their animal herds in the high pasture...Fashion Chromaticist: Honestly, what rubbish! You know nothing about style! We're talking about fashion, so use a fashion analyst, right? That's hardly rocket science, is it? (Rocket Scientist tries to butt in, but is bundled into test capsule and locked in.) Instead of seeing fashion as a mere index of money or migration, see it in terms of its own internal narratives: stories about colours, styles, revivals. Look at these photos. The colours you see are quite limited. There's mustard yellow, aquamarine in light and dark shades, violet and purple (really just different weights of the same colour), some red. The story in Japanese fashion over the last five years or so has been a reaction against the lurid manga styles of the 90s (with their violent synthetic pinks and oranges, electric blues and greens, all high-contrast and jarring). There's been an emphasis on texture rather than colour, with layers of beige, cream, fatigued and frayed denim, blacks and whites. Or else there's been a kind of linear op art energy generated by striped items and bright accessories. The 90s allusions to the funky 70s have mostly been replaced by 00s allusions to the formalist, frilly-yet-macho 80s, so we've seen fatigued, greyed-out versions of the Madonna / Cyndi Lauper look. This was mostly expressed without colour, but when colour was allowed, it's usually been some aquamarine or magenta item. Those are deliberately cold and acid colours which sit well with the aggression of a striped wristband, a skull belt, a black and white scribbly T shirt with a vaguely metallic motif. Green and purple are complementary colours, so they work well together. What's changed recently is that they've been joined by mustard yellow, and even some warm colours like red and orange, colours we haven't really seen on Japanese streets since the 90s. The mustard crept through in striped patterns at first, then, as if gaining in confidence, got more bold and blocky, covering entire garments.
Symbolic Interactionist: That's all very well, but you're not really explaining why this has happened. As a Symbolic Interactionist (here's my business card, curious to meet you) I want first of all to know the meanings of the colours in the minds of the people actually wearing them. Let's interview the subjects, seeking their explanations. Well, it seems we can't speak to the people in the photographs... but a Symbolic Interactionist is always prepared. I have a control group here. Hisae and Yukiko, what do these colours mean?Hisae: The sailor look is coming back. That girl's yellow stripey skirt is sailor look, it's having some influence. If the Slow Life movement goes on I don't think colour is going to become popular, though, people will stick to plain grey, black and white. Japanese people love black because they have black hair, and black suits them.
Yukiko: There's two different types of girl, one loves to spend money on clothes and cares how she looks, the other prefers to spend more money on her life, buying flowers, passing time having fun and being fulfilled. When you look at magazines, some just show the new look, the others focus on life. Non-fashion-conscious girls prefer to use natural fabrics like cotton and hemp, sometimes stitching and customising their skirts, and they like to use earth colours and neutral tones. Aquamarine bluey-green has been a colour keyword recently, but it's only used for accents: an accessory, a shirt collar seen under other, more neutral-toned garments...
Animal Behaviourist: (Breaking in rudely) But you haven't explained the red! Our studies show that women dress very differently depending where they're at in the menstrual cycle...
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 10:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 03:51 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 10:42 am (UTC)Back home where I live it's kinda much the same issue: Black, grey or white. Of course there are some who don't follow that and show some more interesting styles. Though except for me I have only seen 3-4 others who dress colorful.
It's a bit sad...
Hm, does the shifting politics of the world affect the trends or is it just an up and down spiral?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 10:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 10:57 am (UTC)But some time ago I saw an article in a newspaper about people who have killed or beat up persons that where, or looked homosexuals. But when looking at the photos of the victims I couldn't think of him as a homosexual. Not that I take a person for a homosexual when he's wearing make-up. I was wearing make up once, but a little to much, I was hit in the face by someone who thought it was the result of being a person who goes out and fight at night.
Some that is seen as homosexual by most men is to care about your look. Another thing to relate to being colorful. Since dressing colorful you care very much on what you put on your body and then some people might take you for being a homosexual.
I remember when I met a few americans at a camp last summer and they said one night how many metrosexuals there where in sweden. Ha, sweden, the country of the metrosexuals!
(The correction function when previewing suggest me to write "heterosexuals/heterosexual's" instead of "metrosexuals").
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 11:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 11:13 am (UTC)I remember an ad for a homepage for Christian extremists that where against homosexuals. The person who did that site even goes to church where the priest is against homosexuals and female priests. I've been there and the church is even located near a school. The priest would go out every morning and encourage the pupils to come and hear him preach.
I have a friend who is very much christian, I know a polish catholic and several of my friends don't want to "look like homosexuals". Though they say they don't care about their look.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-15 01:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 10:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 11:37 am (UTC)(that's yellow and purple)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 11:46 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 11:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 01:14 pm (UTC)Directly from paris. Some street Fashion.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 05:58 pm (UTC)japan's been boring me for the past couple years. greygreybrownblack meh.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 08:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 09:31 pm (UTC)I'm looking at YOU : holland, italy and switzerland! (and possibly all those crazy eastern european countries)
paris is boring like how tokyo is boring though. once you go outside tokyo, things get interesting in different ways.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 04:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 05:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 05:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 05:25 pm (UTC)(This might be the moment to mention that "Fotolog", the Thames and Hudson book I was writing texts for last month, won't now appear until 2006.)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 05:36 pm (UTC)Actually I wondered if you had any further thoughts on that in the wake of the Osaka derailment; perhaps more than anything those ultra-efficient train drivers etc. are driven by fear...??
Thanks
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 06:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-12 08:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 05:44 am (UTC)I seem to remember someone writing that one should never index one's own books. Was it Kurt Vonnegut who wrote that?
It would be better to find a suitable volunteer willing to organize Click Opera. I'm not volunteering by the way, just throwing the suggestion out on the table.
To continue the brainstorming, how about a Click Opera Wiki?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 02:25 pm (UTC)http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/110144.html
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-14 02:24 pm (UTC)Talking about appearances ...
Date: 2005-06-13 01:17 am (UTC)Re: Talking about appearances ...
Date: 2005-06-13 06:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 03:51 am (UTC)That being said, Osaka people dress like they're in a circus, Tokyo people dress like they're living on a spaceship and Nagoya people dress like they don't care about how they look. That's a rule of thumb some Japanese dude told me once in Umeda.
TERMIAL!
Date: 2005-06-13 04:14 am (UTC)Marxy
Re: TERMIAL!
Date: 2005-06-13 05:46 am (UTC)You forgot to prefix your post: Pessimist:. ;-)
Re: TERMIAL!
Date: 2005-06-13 07:54 am (UTC)Marxy
Re: TERMIAL!
Date: 2005-06-13 06:46 pm (UTC)Luncheon Vouchers?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-13 12:28 pm (UTC)-n.d.kent
technopop.info
hi i saw you today
Date: 2005-06-20 07:28 pm (UTC)i was searching for myself at google, and found myself at your site.
i met you at colette...
i moved to london. what do you do? are you a jearnalist?
fumiko imano
imanofumiko@yahoo.co.jp