Venus as a boy

[imomus]

Japanese magazines are a little luxury I allow myself (with the excuse that they're for my girlfriend, bien sur) when visiting Paris. They simply don't exist in Berlin.

An optimistic Hisae asked me to bring back a copy of obscure Little More mag Mayonaka, but that clearly wasn't going to happen -- Junkudu in Paris isn't Kinokuniy-ahhhhhhh in New York, and even they might not have such an indie publication.



But Hisae also alerted me to the fact that fashion mag So-En features on its cover this month my idol Aoi Yu -- whose hairline, you might recall, is as beautiful as the snowline.



The really nice thing about this shoot is that So-En this month is a Men's Special, but the editors have, with delicious perversity, decided to dress Aoi Yu as a man in order to model various tweedy, golfish ensembles. And so we get "Venus as a boy", in a series of tres gamine pictures (captured here rather shabbily with my crappy Camson camera).



Here, for me, Aoi Yu pulls off the androgynous look very successfully; part Tintin, part Charlotte Gainsbourg. There are precedents, of course, in Japanese culture, including the dashing travesty heroes of the Takarazuka revue, who are really heroines. It's also interesting to see (here and in other Japanese fashion mags) early 90s short, spikey geometric hairstyles returning.

Nevertheless, in the image with the stripey braces that unmistakable snowline hairline peeks out, eiderdown-soft, from the chink in Yu's boyish side-parting.

Comments

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Reading this while I have Thomas Mann's Death in Venice on my desk is weirding me out a bit.

'scuse me, I have to reapply my foundation...

[(Anonymous)]

They're all sold out of Mayonaka here in WC1. :(

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

hmmm, another clear benefit for having a close personal relationship with the fairer of the fair, the inside tip on the Japanese fashion mags.
I'll check to see if they have mayonaka at kinokuniya. And So-en...

When they are good they are so good... but when they lean towards boring trendy its disappointing.
Guy fashion (japanese) is always a mixed bag in the mags. Mens fashion in general in Japan is so different then America.

also, it is so much fun to see their take on the american girl... such an odd mix of both correct and fantasy.

[(Anonymous)]

This is your feminine ideal? She looks about twelve years old.

[silkytooth.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

the styling on the middle right is a bit sakamoto!

[pulled-up.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I love it!!!

[(Anonymous)]

Hatoyama's wife, Miyuki was also a member of Takarazuka. I also like how she's into "spiritual food" (read: macrobiotics) and claims to have ridden a ufo to venus. but here in california that's pretty normal stuff, though.

another CA connection is that Hatoyama went to Stanford and met Miyuki while she was working in a restaurant in SF. It warms the heart...

[constructionism.livejournal.com]

It looks very introverted and academic. I think I went through a phase like this in the late eighties, but eventually you get sick of not having lots of color in your wardrobe.

Is this some kind of joke?

[ur-javert.livejournal.com]

these look like exactly the kind of clothes I would expect Momus to wear...

[wingedwhale.livejournal.com]

She sometimes has this Jun Togawa thing going on with her obvious cuteness and beauty but also in the way she could be my neighbor. Good choice, Momus.

[tifannypark.livejournal.com]

really....so japanese guys were not so used to the usual western styles of mens suits (http://www.megasuits.com), apparels or say, western fashion? are they still bound by the old japanese culture and tradition?

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

i have no idea what youre talking about... are you joking or actually being serious?

I think everyone in japan to a certain extant is 'bound' by old culture and tradition, just as Americans to certain extant are bound by our puritant traditions, either by rebelling against or following.

but I dont think I was refering to any of that with my post.