Tam O'Kamakura

[imomus]

"He came back from Japan looking different, somehow..." I suppose I've always been fascinated by watching someone -- a pop star who's moved up to the international level of success, or a friend who's moved to another country -- being visibly changed by the encounter. It might be someone British and working class who becomes a musician and starts traveling the world, and presently you notice exotic influences rubbing off on them in the way they dress, and the sound of their music. John Lydon discovers Jamaica!

But it's not as simple as that. In most industrialised places you travel to these days, clothes and music have a flattened, globalised feel. A Gap or Uniqlo or Muji t-shirt looks pretty much the same in Tokyo or New York; it's probably made in China, wherever you buy it. (I'm talking about travel within Europe, the Americas, Asia; India, Indonesia and Africa are different in that they still have mainstream regional dress styles, which makes them very interesting. By the same token, though, they don't consume Western pop music, which makes it harder for a Western musician to travel there.)

In this kind of global system, the sort of national identity you could consume by buying clothes on your travels is available only as a quirky niche product for tourists and internal tourists. You encounter a post-national nationalism (a coquettish nationalism primped for the age of globalism) in certain shops. In fact, they're specifically the kind of shops I buy my clothes in, which is why I've ended up looking like some sort of weird parody of a Japanese person from a former age.

The jacket I'm wearing in the photo above comes from Kamawanu, which is a little shop in trad Japanese style up a side street in Daikanyama. Visits to Cosmic Wonder and United Bamboo have left me unimpressed; both these designers seem to have made steps towards the Gap-Uniqlo mainstream by making subtle, clever or conceptual versions of global American-collegiate clothes. Kamawanu, with its rows of gorgeous tenuguis, excites me because its references are entirely Japanese. Here I can indulge my fascination with kabuki, arcane Japanese uniforms, pilgrims and monks, otherness and particularity.

Kamawanu is at the conservative end of the spectrum; their patterns, though gorgeous, are hardly innovative. For a splash of modernity with your tradition, try Sou Sou on Omote Sando. Originally from Kyoto (the mothership for trad-inspired Japanese design), Sou Sou does a great line in bold and flashy tabi shoes and socks. In the photo above I'm let down by my plastic crocs; a pair of Sou Sou tabi trainers is clearly in order.



At the Koenji-quirky end of things, the home-stitched clothes made by Trio4 are great. Trio4 are the Shiroto No Ran group led by Hikaru Yamashita who made a gaffer tape-handy JR employee called Mr Sato into a folk hero.



Their clothes similarly elevate everyday Japan, using stitched motifs (handmade combini logos, cigarette packet motifs, funny faces) to give a local specificity to the generic products churned out by the global clothes mills.



I've also been impressed by Theatre Products, an ambitious and original clothing company with a store in LaForet called Stripe ("Stripe, symbol for eternity... Stripe is continuous and never ending!"). For gm ten gallery's September culture event in the Nasu countryside, Spectacle in the Farm, Theatre Products put on a fashion show in which models pulled (sometimes reluctant) farm animals about. Sure, the herded sheep and paraded alpacas might have brought Marie Antoinette to mind rather than anything specifically Japanese, but there was also something very Terayama, very Art Theatre Guild, about it (as there is about Theatre Products' logo).

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Do you want flavours to go global, or one global flavour to go everywhere? Globalisation is clearly a sword with two edges; it has the flattening, monocultural capacity to make everywhere on earth look like exactly the same place, but also the amazing capacity to spread far and wide gloriously odd specificities it took cultures centuries to arrive at. Through tourism and other forms of cultural exchange, globalisation can also make local cultures think more clearly about the value of their own specific differences (actually seeing them as "differences" rather than "errors" is already a huge step).

But there's a paradoxical universalism in this "globalism of flavour"; I actually feel weirdly Scottish dressed in my "Japanese" gear. I feel like Tam O' Shanter having visions on the road to Kamakura.

Momus performs a 45-minute live set tonight at gm ten gallery, Azabu-Juban, at 2100. Entry is 1000 yen (includes free drink).

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hey, Mr. Momus

I really love the way hijab and burqas look. Being neither female or Muslim, I don't suppose I'm entitled to wear this sort of garb, but I want to!

Approaching my peers with this notion has brought about mostly distaste. I appreciate your love of cross-cultural dress (the new crossdress?!), and you give me courage, but any tips/ quick lines to run on someone who discourages me?

Yours Ashley Andel

[imomus.livejournal.com]

There's always Maurice Sendak's response to parents who cluck and tutt about the influence of his Wild Things: "Go to hell!"

[(Anonymous)]

Especially now that it's cold, I'm almost jealous of burka wearing people. I have started to wear a muslim neckscarf to keep my head warm, however. And that works even if you're male and from a non-prophet organisation, Ashley! Sometimes, it's the small things you have to be happy about.

[(Anonymous)]

wtf is a muslim neckscarf? i thought those black and white ones were much more regional than religious.

marco polo (shirt)

[(Anonymous)]

i think i remember reading that when MP got back to venice after being in the "far east" for all those years, people said he looked like some asian hermit, robes and beard and all that. plus they didnt believe the xanadu shit he told them he saw anyway...

Re: marco polo (shirt)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

http://imomus.livejournal.com/441572.html

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

I want want those sou sou trainers!

I wish Click Opera could have stayed around long enough for you to visit South America. I would love to read your take on it. Especially Peru :)

[count-vronsky.livejournal.com]

tengu (http://boundless.uoregon.edu/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/Bestof&CISOPTR=148&CISOBOX=1&REC=10)

Off-topic wankery

[(Anonymous)]

Bromus, I turned fifteen yesterday and would appreciate more than anything else some belated birthday wishes and manly(???) advice. I browse Click Opera almost everyday and it provides a sense of escapism almost (ha, not even joking) from this boring, typical British town. Thought I might as well comment on something before you finish with Click Opera.

Re: Off-topic wankery

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Happy birthday, and my advice would be that if you get being gauche over with now, you'll be a slick mf at 30.

Re: Off-topic wankery

[(Anonymous)]

Doesn't help, what with me being pretty fly B)
It's the thought that counts though.

all cultures have niche retail. not just japan.

[(Anonymous)]

momus suggests that only japan has independent clothes retail. the rest of us are forced to wear gap and uniqlo!?

i dont think momus make a good japanese. he fake like american yuppie at a joke party. pet shop boys in pointed hats

robert downey-junior make cheap sherlock holmes. he wrong as victorian gentlemen. momus better sherlock .

culture should stay where it is macrobiotic and at home, and therefore more beatiful. those clothes wear designed for a climate and a face and a body shape. outisde that they turn a joke. like bourgeoise europeans mocking jews in 1930s.

Re: all cultures have niche retail. not just japan.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Affecting "native" pidgen in 2009 -- way worse than blackface!

Re: all cultures have niche retail. not just japan.

[thedr9wningman.livejournal.com]

All cultures do have value, but Japan has been particularly ingenious in its ability to hold on to culture and globalise at the same time. Usually, it seems to be a swap, a loss of identity to American or European values. Japan, though, has retained Japanese-ness while adopting many Western values.

Re: all cultures have niche retail. not just japan.

[(Anonymous)]

this old chestnut has petrified long ago; the perimeters are far less delineated -- see homi k. bhaba et al.

The double-edged sword of globalism

[thedr9wningman.livejournal.com]

This is a tough one for me because there are two distinct values being tugged at.

On one hand, traditionalism and conservatism, which I tend to not value very much. Those who try to hold on to traditional values (rather than just espouse them naturally) seem like they're forcing something... like they're fighting a Zeitgeist and putting up a dike against the rising tides. To the progressive in me, that seems both pointless and hopeless.

And as far as conserving my identity, I'm at a point where I'm trying to divest myself of one happily... mingling with Zen and spirituality to find a super-identity—one that transcends traditionalism and culture.

On the other hand, coming from the progressive angle yet again, valuing the differences and different cultures seems to have a stronger pull to me. I am someone who finds America's primary value in that it incorporates other cultures into it (and then subsumes them, but that's a different story). Urban areas (just about anywhere, really) are magnets for international food, dress, and culture. And for me, the food is really what turns me on. I eat 'American' food (food devoid of any perceived culture on my part, although there is some inherent tradition in a simple sandwich, I will admit) about once a week and tend toward Thai, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese food choices. I derive great joy out of other people retaining identity.

So, a super-national/global Gap-ism disturbs me. And maybe because it is the beiging or the Americanising of everything else. America, despite its inward individualism (the assumption that we're all unique on the inside) is incredibly conformist especially in conservative circles. The progressives are even conservative in outward appearance unless they are young or 'hard-core', and at that point, anything goes. Having the 'safe', globalised dress disturbs me; it feels like it is washing out cultures and identities--which is exactly what I'm supposedly doing on my own.

The contradiction is ridiculously dualistic. And I can't reconcile it.

Similarly, I feel this push/pull with the arguments of global capitalism. There is a lot of pressure to be laissez-faire economically in American, mostly because America has the unfair advantage both militarily and with respect to the artificial demand for its currency. So, of course the powers-that-be want more. But I see it destroying us and others.

Industrialised societies fall prey to new kinds of disease; on the other hand, basic needs aren't met in many undeveloped nations (generally due to the difference in crop production (linear progression of food vs. exponential human growth). For some, keeping to those traditions has value (me included), but industrialisation and globalisation feels a bit like a Pandora's Box to me as well: we trade being subject to nature for the ills of subjecting nature. Where traditional societies have sustainability (or at least embedded population controls) and a timelessness to them, industrial societies are subject to desire, the seven sins, and different quality of life issues (like depression, obesity, diabetes, oh my!). We go from running out of deer to eat to polluting our water and air and giving ourselves (and everything else who could live long enough) cancer.

And I have major issues with the global capitalists judging other societies' values or methods because in practice, it seems like they're focusing a barrel at them to explicitly eradicate the others' traditions. They create the tide that needs the dike I mentioned earlier.

Re: The double-edged sword of globalism, part 2

[thedr9wningman.livejournal.com]

Both traditional and industrialised societies are rat races, they're just different kinds of rat races. And I can see your reverence for Japanese culture because the Japanese have industrialised, but held on to their traditions almost effortlessly. And from a global standpoint, they were welcoming of capitalism after a lot of prodding and resistance, and once they did it, they made it work better than almost anyone else. Now, they have de facto protection of their markets due to culture, though, since the Japanese don't buy just on price like Americans or Chinese do, they buy on quality and value. That is not an inherent capitalist value; if it were, maybe it would be a better system.

I guess, in summary, I value traditions, although I lack many myself given my antitraditionalism and my lack of traditional values due to being an American. Personally, I don't try to hold on to them, but I can see the values of conserving culture via a giving-in manner. Strict, French-language-only methodologies will not work (and this is why English is the nouveau lingua franca. An acceptance of the rising tide and creation of your new, underwater society while still holding on to who you are as a culture I suppose seems to be the middle path to me.

Re: The double-edged sword of globalism, part 2

[(Anonymous)]

Momus seems to say "Buy Pepsi as the alternative to Coke" - behave like a conservative member of the world's second biggest economy - as an antidote to the first: Americanisation. But is that radical enough? And is the beige-ing of Gap any better or worse than the black/blue/white-ing of Muji?

I think I draw the line more by class than geography. Dressing as a conservative foreigner (Madonna in English riding tweeds, Bjork dressed as a geisha) might be a way to look "different" for the home audience but faked conservatism can just pave the way for real conservatism (in Madonna's case she did become a stuffy English land-owner), sometimes with added virtiol and righteousness. Also it helps push "Englishness" even further up the social hierarchy, further into the country.

Ultimately clothes are a game. Most clothes are tolerated in the west - it's very multicultural. Capitalism will sell anything. If Momus was learning Scottish Gaelic, and giving up writing in English, then he'd have a political point about "difference" -it's the Gap of language!

Re: The double-edged sword of globalism, part 2

[thedr9wningman.livejournal.com]

But at the same time, Scots Gaelic, like with clothing or anything else, has limited scope. It would essentially be useless except to the few who speak it, and we wouldn't even be having this discourse.

I see both sides (as I had sort of mentioned). Standards vs. oddities. One can interface with a lot more people with a true, global lingua franca for example. And as long as that doesn't subsume and bowl over local dialects, we're 'safe' in not eradicating culture and multiculturalism.

With the game of clothing, you may have a point. Clothing is not culture, but rather a reflection of culture. It is an indicator species of the reach of certain cultures. But there is, I suppose, some lingering White Guilt/post-Colonialism at play here by the British. The British are post-Colonial, and arguably America is at its tipping point, but there's got to be some ounce of shame for the Brits to see the monster that they created... Because Britain's younger son is just as tyrannical and militaristic as its father. It was supposedly breaking away from Britain due to colonialism and to shy away from militarism, and look what happened...

Of course, one may be able to blame other forces, as I tend to. Democracy's inability to effect accountability and the rapacious appetite of capitalism...

[(Anonymous)]

this is where nick is at his most middle-class, affected and snobbish -- judging other people by their clothes, for god's sake. it's as provincial and petty as you can get; it's rather like those on the (further) right denigrating working class garb and "dirty" hippies.

Petrified Chestnuts with Special Fried Life! China and India "wreck Copenhagen"

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/22/copenhagen-climate-change-mark-lynas

"This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is .. not a priority."

American "cultural imperialism" had a flavour. Chinese dominance is based on producing anything, for anyone, at a quarter the price (except for the Earth!

And they don't care if we die.

A burnt, cold stone, spinning in space.

A mathematical improbability. Life on Earth, the most curious, precious thing there was, amidst all the radiation and dark matter.

Gone.

For papery shirts, bad plastics, knocked-off netbooks.

Gone.

Thanks, China.

Thanks a lot.

Re: Petrified Chestnuts with Special Fried Life! China and India "wreck Copenhagen"

[(Anonymous)]

thanks america and japan too, while you're at it -- the first and second biggest economies on the earth. we've opened this hyper-industrialist can of worms, after all, you know.

Re: Petrified Chestnuts with Special Fried Life! China and India "wreck Copenhagen"

[(Anonymous)]

Didn't the recent sight of the sainted Obama fawning over the Chinese leadership teach you anything? The China you complain about is as much a product of western (particularly American) consumption and investment as it is a product of its own leadership. Shouldn't you be sharing the blame somewhat?

Re: Petrified Chestnuts with Special Fried Life! China and India "wreck Copenhagen"

[(Anonymous)]

all ultra-consumerist, late-capitalist societies -- particularly those dependent on oil for energy -- are gravely responsible for the state of the world; and it's future.