Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

[djrajio]

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20061008x2.html

Sunday, Oct. 8, 2006

Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

When Japan's beleaguered textiles industry belatedly
decided to invest in organizing a fashion week to rival the best of
Paris, Milan, New York and London -- and persuaded the Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry to back it -- they hoped a slick new event
would garner valuable worldwide media coverage and help boost exports
in the face of competition from China, writes Martin Webb.

Dreamy headgear at JFW from designer Sunao Kuwahara, and a sassy look (below) from Yasuhiro Mihara. YOSHIAKI MIURA PHOTOS

The development of Japan Fashion Week in Tokyo (JFW)
certainly hasn't been a smooth ride, given the dyed-in-the-wool
hierarchies, feuds and convoluted politics that have for so long
stymied the city's aspirations to become an A-list venue for movers and
shakers in the world of fashion. Only now, 18 months after the new-look
event was launched, can it claim limited success -- but it still
remains dogged by controversy.

In a move that has alienated many of Tokyo's top
style-setters, the third JFW was held from Sept. 4-8, putting it before
all the other showcases on the season's global fashion calendar, not
after the world's other main catwalk shows, as it always used to be.
That radical change broke a 20-year pattern of only getting down to
business long after the rest of the world's wholesale buyers and
fashionista editors had headed home from Paris -- the final stop on the
style circuit -- to finalize budgets and put magazines to bed. As such,
the organizers hoped to make an impact at the start of the season,
rather than be ignored at the end.

Greatly improved result

JFW spokeswoman Yayoi Suzuki said that by making it
more convenient for globe-trotting fashion folk, the new dates produced
a greatly improved result -- more overseas buyers (up to 50 from 20
last season) and journalists (up to 130 from 90). "We've definitely
succeeded in raising the profile of the event," she said, adding: "This
should pave the way for better results next season."

But a more mixed view of the shift in timing comes
from Miwa Goroku, editor at Fashion News magazine, which offers the
most comprehensive JFW coverage.

"If the question is simply getting the JFW name known
on a global scale, it does appear to be a success," she told The Japan
Times. "But the jury is still out as to whether the overseas media is
portraying the truly interesting stuff coming out of Tokyo, and the
extent to which the event is actually having an effect on sales."

Besides its new time slot, JFW also got a new venue --
abandoning its marquees in Aoyama for the Tokyo International Forum,
where many of the 44 brands on the official schedule presented their
Spring 2007 catwalk shows this September.

Perversely, though, despite the success of the new
time slot, next season's event will revert to its old position,
trailing the Paris collections, in what will surely again become a
final nonevent on the world fashion circuit.

Models in glam-rock facepaint bound down the runway at mercibeaucoup.

Generous sponsor

The venue will be changing again, too. Although not
yet confirmed, next season's shows are due to be staged from March
12-16 on the site of the former headquarters of Toray Industries, one
of JFW's most generous sponsors, in central Tokyo's decidedly downbeat
and unhip Nihonbashi district.

But not all may be lost. Despite the bizarre
flip-flops over timing and choice of venue, JFW does appear to have --
to the surprise of many -- come up with some better ideas to attract
media coverage. Shows staged by Sony-Ericsson to launch a new cell
phone, and by Uniqlo to promote new lines by Tokyo catwalk hopefuls,
were snapped up excitedly in the international press.

This glimmer of global media hope has gone some way to
placating participating designers, almost all of whom are focused on
generating interest abroad. But JFW still has a long, long way to go
before it becomes a magnet for Japan's finest, who, intent on breaking
into overseas markets, instead take their shows to Paris.

So, all in all, with top labels -- including
mercibeaucoup, DressCamp and Han Ahn Soon -- making no secret of their
intention to show overseas as soon as their resources allow it, the
event already looks set to hemorrhage new talent faster than it can
uncover it.

At the mercibeaucoup collection, which visiting Time
magazine critic Andrew Tucker and Paul Flynn of i-D magazine rated as
their favorite, models with glam-rock face paint literally leapt down
the runway in between giant translucent balloon sculptures. The brand,
designed by former Frapbois maestro Eri Utsugi and backed by A-Net --
the company founded by J-fash pioneer Issey Miyake to promote his
proteges -- has the financial muscle to have opened six stores in the
last two months. Nonetheless, trade insiders believe Utsugi is almost
certain to follow A-Net stablemates Zucca and Tsumori Chisato to Paris.

While Utsugi's cute and quirky designs brim with an
originality that could only emerge from Tokyo, the more predictable
frills-and-flounces glam of fellow high-flyers DressCamp and Han Ahn
Soon is less likely to compare favorably with European peers.

While the former brand goes from strength to strength
on the back of tieups with watchmaker Piaget and sportswear brand
Champion, Osaka-born Korean designer Han Ahn Soon presented a series of
voluminous evening dresses, including a stunning all-gold floor-length
number, in her first runway show for three seasons after finding an
ambitious new backer. Despite skepticism over their chances of
achieving critical acclaim, both labels have publicly declared their
intention to shift their shows to Paris at the earliest opportunity.

One of the rising stars of JFW; Osaka-born Han Ahn Soon's runway return featured stunning evening dresses.

But it's not all bad news for JFW. To its credit, the
event's organizers have managed to persuade Yasuhiro Mihara -- who
scored with a sneakers line for Puma, but who quit Tokyo's catwalks in
2004 in favor of Milan's menswear event -- to reprise the all-gray
collection he presented in Italy in July. Accompanied by tap-dance star
Kazunori Kumagai performing live, the show included sharp and slinky
looks for ladies, as well as the deconstructed tailoring that has won
him many male devotees.

Despite this minor coup, Tokyo's powers-that-be failed
to persuade top-ranked menswear outfit Mister Hollywood to show under
their banner. Along with much-hyped womenswear label Green, it paraded
the latest creations from its N. Hoolywood line -- a series of
dressed-down formalwear looks -- in the week following the officially
sanctioned time frame.

Also doggedly refusing to have anything to do with the
suits behind JFW was Limi Feu, the brand headed up by Limi Yamamoto,
daughter of dark and deconstructed design paragon Yohji.

Likewise, the venerable fashion houses of Jun Ashida,
Yuki Torii and Yukiko Hanai also spurn JFW -- but in their cases it's
because of their concern that their aging but high-spending clientele,
many of whom are invited guests at their catwalk shows, may be averse
to them changing their long-standing timing to suit foreign visitors.

But cozying up to the JFW executive can certainly
yield rewards. Regular on-schedule participants Theatre Products and
menswear label Iliad were both hooked up with a deal to create "capsule
collections" of just a few items for apparel giant Uniqlo, which will
retail them at extremely affordable prices through its 730-store
nationwide retail network.

Certainly, the injection of cash earned from this
collaboration was put to good use at Iliad, whose designer Gentaro Noda
was inspired by medieval court costumes to create by far his best
collection to date.

But in total contrast, the duo behind Theatre Products
paraded an excruciatingly ugly lineup of girly dresses in sickly pastel
shades on a paltry five models, who were clearly drafted in on a
shoestring budget.

A formalwear-inspired look from the highly-rated menswear brand N. Hoolywood.

The yawning gap between the quality of those two
productions follows an established pattern that is opposite to the
global norm: namely, that Tokyo brands catering to style-conscious
males achieve more success than those producing apparel for women.
Consequently, along with Iliad, brands like Mister Hollywood and John
Lawrence Sullivan look set to replicate the success of labels like
Number (N)ine, Mihara Yasuhiro and Kiminori Morishita by winning
lucrative wholesale orders from major retailers overseas.

While international buyers' interest in womenswear
brands was limited, design duo Mint Designs, who debuted four years
ago, finally elicited attention from several top overseas stores with a
lineup dominated by huge basket headgear and kitsch prints. Dubai
super-boutique Villa Moda, and Singapore's classy Club 21 store, are
both said to be showing an interest in stocking the latest collection,
which was arguably the brand's best to date.

So while several labels whose international debut is
long overdue got a favorable outcome from the new time slot, with next
season's JFW returning to its trailing spot on the world's
fashion-shows calendar, as apparel industry daily Senken Shimbun editor
Takuro Ogasawara says, the long-term future of their deals remains in
doubt.

"More and more designers are realizing that moving to
Paris is the best way to reach an international audience," he says.
"There's a distinct possibility that JFW, and the Tokyo collections as
we know them, will cease to exist."

So much for JFW's vision -- and the hard work put in
by so many to turn around Japan's fortunes in the big wide world of
fashion.

The Japan Times

(C) All rights reserved

[Faust]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



This is pretty badly written, but that's another story. Rajiv, what do you make of the theme of the article? Will the Japanese designers ever want to let The West come to them, or will they keep striving to make it in Paris/Milan?

[djrajio]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



Good question.I have always felt thatthe Japanese have hadan inferiority complexwith the West. Despite the dynamisim and great strides many well known Japanese designers have made in their own home country and around pan-Asia, inheritantly I feel Japanese "high fashion" designers look towards the West for validation and acceptance within the fashion world. I never understood whyJapanese fashion designers always had this issue, since many great ground-up labels invariably have made big splashes without (initially) seeking a Western audience; i.e. for better or worse A Bathing Ape which has had considerable cultural and design influence recently in American/Western street-wear. As a result, what I tend to find is that the majority of Japanese labels tend to be great "copiers" and "interpreters" of Western trends/looks/styles but not very good in cultivating that home-grown creativity. The problem with Japan Fashion Week isn't the timing or scheduling, it's that too many collections aren't very good, fundamentally because its all a rehash/reintrepretation of Paris/Milan/London/New York. If you went to last springs fashion week, you'd have trouble counting the number of labels that "bit-off" the tired Dior-Homme rocker look (Roar, Roen, Mastermind, Ato, etc..). As a result, the noise pretty much drowns out the real gem collections; Frapbois/Mercibeaucoup, Dresscamp, N. Hoolywood, etc. It's been pretty muchlike this for many seasons and as a result,the best (new) designers have gone to Paris to give themselves more breathing room; Number (N)ine, Undercover, etc.I suspect this trend to only continue since IMO the trulycreative new Japanese labelsare far too small and niche toconcern themselves withexpanding to the West and frankly many could give a rats ass (Julius, Diet Butcher Slim Skin, etc.). They like keeping their labels small, exclusive, allusive and personal which is also a very Japanese mentality.

[Faust]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

[quote user="djrajio"]

Good question.I have always felt
thatthe Japanese have hadan inferiority complexwith
the West. Despite the dynamisim and great strides many well known
Japanese designers have made in their own home country and around
pan-Asia, inheritantly I feel Japanese "high fashion" designers look
towards the West for validation and acceptance within the fashion
world. I never understood whyJapanese fashion designers always
had this issue, since many great ground-up labels invariably have made
big splashes without (initially) seeking a Western audience; i.e. for
better or worse A Bathing Ape which has had considerable cultural and
design influence recently in American/Western street-wear. As a result,
what I tend to find is that the majority of Japanese labels tend to be
great "copiers" and "interpreters" of Western trends/looks/styles but
not very good in cultivating that home-grown creativity. The problem
with Japan Fashion Week isn't the timing or scheduling, it's that too
many collections aren't very good, fundamentally because its all a
rehash/reintrepretation of Paris/Milan/London/New York. If you went to
last springs fashion week, you'd have trouble counting the number of
labels that "bit-off" the tired Dior-Homme rocker look (Roar, Roen,
Mastermind, Ato, etc..). As a result, the noise pretty much drowns out
the real gem collections; Frapbois/Mercibeaucoup, Dresscamp, N.
Hoolywood, etc. It's been pretty muchlike this for many seasons
and as a result,the best (new) designers have gone to Paris to
give themselves more breathing room; Number (N)ine, Undercover,
etc.I suspect this trend to only continue since IMO the
trulycreative new Japanese labelsare far too small and
niche toconcern themselves withexpanding to the West and
frankly many could give a rats ass (Julius, Diet Butcher Slim Skin,
etc.). They like keeping their labels small, exclusive, allusive and
personal which is also a very Japanese mentality.

[/quote]

Interesting.
It's definitely along the lines of what I've gathered - good to know
that I'm not alone. I hate to say this, but I think this constant
looking up to the West is a byproduct of colonization. Yes, it's
done and over with, but the cultural inferiority that's been drilled in
by the Europeans into Asia seems to linger on.

[dontbecruel]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



I don't know about this cultural inferiority idea. Japan's never really been "colonised" by a Western country. I don't think the post-war American occupation counts. The Tokyo obsession with Parisian fashion certainly predates that anyway. I don't want to make sweeping generalisations, especially with a cultural anthropologist listening in, but I think it is a national characteristic of Japanese people to be aesthetes, to aspire to the most beautiful version of everything. This has cultural roots going back at least a thousand years. You can see it in the descriptions of clothing and faces in early Japanese literature. You can see it in the gourmet culture. It transcends national allegiance. If Balenciaga make the best frocks in the world this year, noones going to pretend they don't, for the sake of Japan Fashion Week. Unlike in the UK, for example, where we have an inexplicable attachment to anyone who is based here. Does anyone outside of London actually give a shit about Peter Jensen or Siv Stoldal?

And the "Sony" myth that the Japanese are good at copying but not at innovating is simply irrelevant in fashion. Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake were so obviously the most innovative clothes designers of the past 30 years or so (and that was recognised by people in Japan as well as in Europe).

[djrajio]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

[quote user="dontbecruel"]

And the "Sony" myth that the Japanese are good at copying but not at innovating is simply irrelevant in fashion. Yohji Yamamoto and Issey Miyake were so obviously the most innovative clothes designers of the past 30 years or so (and that was recognised by people in Japan as well as in Europe).

[/quote]

I would have to respectfully disagree. YY and Issey Miyake are old hats here and lack much influence nowadays. Tokyo fashion in the 1980s is the not the same Tokyotoday in2006. Come to Tokyo today and no one will be wearing anything remotely Yohji or Miyake; they are far removed fromthe pulse ofcurrent Tokyo fashionlargely because they've gone global.Here the predomineant look amongst men isre-hashes of Dior/skinny/rocker + Harajuku/punk-rock/used-clothing style. I still stand by my stance on the inferiority complex. Ask the typical 20/30 something young girl what she wants to buy and she won't say she wants the most asthetically pleasing kimono or a beautiful Rei Kawakubo garment. She'll want LV or Gucci or Hermes because its expensive, foreign, and western, therefore it has to be high quality. This is the truth and reality of the typicalJapanese mindset.Plus, the idea that Japanese seek the "most beautiful version of everything and have cultural roots going back at least a thousand years" is very much a Western stereotype of Japanese culture. If anything they are just more hyper-consumeric and maniacal.

[dontbecruel]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



I lived in Tokyo from 1998-2003. I'm no expert on Japanese culture, but I love it and I have experienced it. The last time I visited was in January.

I was talking historically about Yohji and Issey as innovators in design and technology, not about what is trendy on the street today. In fact, Tokyo streetwear has been successfully exported around the world, so we all know what it looks like . That slightly undermines the inferiority complex idea doesn't it? Japanese people were proud when Yohji made it big in Paris, sure. Same as many Brits were when McQueen did he same. But there's nothing wrong with seeking approval from a bigger audience.

I've heard this kind of argument many times in Japan, and a lot of Japanese people I know feel, like you, that their peers are mindlessly in thrall to whatever is expensive and Western. I guess there must be some truth in it. But as someone who has lived in Europe and in Japan, I've got to say I don't see any difference in this respect.

What the average kid wants to buy is irrelevant. Everywhere in this horrible world we live in they want gaudy expensive crap. That doesn't make Japan more or less consumerist than anywhere else. You should be grateful that Japanese kids want Hermes scarves rather than 50 inch plasma screens like they do over here (the most desirable ones are Japanese made, naturally). I don't agree that the aesthete view of Japanese culture is just a stereotype either. It is a generalisation but it is based on something real. You've watched the daytime cookery shows on TV? Do you think any other country in the world has daytime trash TV about which region grows the most delicious radishes? If you haven't read Genji Monogatari, I recommend it. It may be the world's oldest novel, but there is an attention to the detail of how things look, smell etc etc that you see coming up again and again throughout Japanese history.

[djrajio]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



I guess our views and experiences considering Japanese fashion are very different and I'll accept that but I won't goand detract from the original intention of thisthread tonick-pick your arguments.In regards to Faust's originalquestion I still continue to believe that Japanese designers are not quite there and I still firmly believeits deeply rootedin theirinferiority complex against the West. You're free to disagree. Hopefully other posters can provide their own views. Thanks.

[dontbecruel]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

Yeah, we all have different experiences and I guess that makes life interesting. Sorry if I came on a bit strong!

[laika]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



ok, I am chiming (not "listening" [;)]) in.

This seems like two sides of the same coin, in a way. I have to agree about the inferiority complex thing. Japan has been colonized, in the specific sense of being, like many Asian countries, "feminized" by the west. Meaning made to feel emasculated and weak. I am certainly no expert, but I believe this does play into the creative psyche. Mishima expressed this outright in his life and books.

On the other hand, I think it is dangerous to ascribe the failure of JFW to this factor alone, simply because it's too reductive an explanation (as any singular explanation would be). The identities involved here are so intertwined as to be inextricable from one another--many consider Japan to be part of the so-called "West," in many aspects. I don't think the two sides can really be polarized here. I'm sure there are a thousand layers to this explanation, and I'm sure they involve parts of what both of you are saying.

Thanks so much for posting the article! It was kind of hard to get through, but this discussion is really fascinating. I hope more people post their thoughts.

[dontbecruel]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set

Laika! Only teasing about the anthropology, of course. I'm intrigued by what you mean by "feminised". Tell us more...I'm hoping you don'tassociate the emotions experienced by Mishima (a miserable human being, in every sense of the word miserable) with the psychological experience of Japanese people as a whole. Everyone I've ever met in that country has been peace-loving and forward thinking, thank goodness, as people are everywhere else in the world. And I reckon the main negative effect of Japan's contact with the world outside of Asia has been the partial introduction of sex taboos (single sex hotspring baths etc.) in the past 50 years.

[laika]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



No, that's not what i meant by the Mishima reference at all. He expresses (as
an artist) certain crises of identity (national, masculine, etc), but
he's certainly not representative of all japanese people. I take it
you don't care for him?



Anyway, the feminization thing--that's what made me think of Mishima in
the first place. Basically, a lot of studies of colonialism suggest
that "the Orient" was feminized by colonial authorities who represented
the natives as passive, weak, irrational, submissive, etc--you know,
all the usual qualities us lucky girls have. [;)] Native men were seen as
effeminate, in comparison to the "hyper-masculine" colonizers. Some
people theorize that the survival of this artificially gendered relationship informs
the politics of post-colonialism. Of course, as you point out, Japan
was never colonized in the original sense of the word. However, the
circumstances of the unconditional surrender after the atomic bombings
may have created a similarly gendered dynamic.



I will close this little rif by adding that this is just an academic theory, and therefore probably a bunch of hooey. [8-|]

I don't know if it contributes much to understanding the JFW situation
either, although it might be a (tissue-thin) layer of the explanation.

[Faust]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



Adding fule to the fire. What do you think of the NYT article below? Never mind that it's badly written (the part about her marveling at H&M tshirts and looking at mannequins is such a grotesque charicature). I think Sunday Style section is somehow exempt from quality control. But what about the context? What do you think? BTW, should we split the latter part of this thread into a new one in the culture section?

October 15, 2006

Escape From Japan

By SHERIDAN PRASSO

AT the Terminal 8 food court of
Kennedy International Airport, over a breakfast of Coca-Cola and greasy
Chinese noodles, Miho Mimura slipped her hand into her new American
boyfriend’s and the tears started to flow. “I’m sad, I don’t want to go
back to Japan,” she said.

She looked tired, her complexion worsened by the fierce fluorescent
lights. It was the morning after her 23rd birthday, and she and her
boyfriend had stayed out celebrating until the wee hours.

“Today I expect cry, so no makeup,” Ms. Mimura said in her imperfect
English, rubbing her eyes. The emotion was understandable. Her three
months in New York had changed her forever.

Ms. Mimura had come with a broken heart, after splitting with a
Japanese boyfriend. To pay for her plane ticket, she took a second job
in a bar in Tokyo, supplementing her $10-an-hour wage as a clerk in a
clothing shop.

She came to New York to heal. She came to dance, particularly the
hip-hop moves she had practiced in Japan. And she came to New York,
like thousands of other young Japanese, to find herself.

In the East Village on any given weekend night, throngs of such
Japanese crowd the restaurants known as izakaya that have sprung up on
and around St. Marks Place, in an enclave sometimes called Little
Tokyo. With red paper lanterns and cacophonous dins, the restaurants
serve delectables like raw liver sashimi and grilled rice balls, to
tables of expatriates known in Japan as “freeters” (a combination of
free and the German word for worker, arbeiter), or “NEETs” (Not in
Education, Employment or Training).

As a Japanese version of slackers, such young people are often
derided at home as selfish for drifting through part-time jobs or
trying to develop talents in the arts — photography, music, painting,
dance — rather than contributing to society by joining a corporation or
marrying and having babies. The pressure can be intense.

Many escape to New York, staying from three months to three years.
“In New York they feel they don’t get any pressure, that New York gives
them freedom,” said the Japanese-born owner of the Sunrise Mart, a
Japanese market in Little Tokyo.

The influx is at least a decade old, but unlike in the mid-1990’s
when men and women freeters came in equal numbers, now it is largely a
female wave — a result of the recovering economy in Japan that has made
it slightly easier for young men to find corporate jobs upon graduation.

Some of the youths are financed by their parents. Others say they
wait tables, even when lacking work permits, in Japanese restaurants in
New York where little English is required, or take cash jobs like
posing nude for drawing classes in Chelsea art studios.

“Three months ago, I asked my parents to send me money, and they
said, ‘This is the last money!’ ” said Misaki Ishihara, 23, an aspiring
makeup artist from central Japan, near Kobe, who has been in New York
for two years. “My parents are so conservative, they can’t believe I’m
here alone. They want me to be married to a Japanese man, an
established man, make some kids and live in the same house with them. I
can’t even believe I am from that family. I am so different!”

Ms. Ishihara’s New York sojourn has included learning to surf on the
Jersey Shore, studying English and establishing credentials for her
career. “I want to go back to Japan eventually, but now is not the
time,” she said. Her dwindling cash supply notwithstanding, her
favorite pastimes are, she said, shopping, clubbing with hipsters on
the Lower East Side and partying.

Peter Pachter, who runs the American Language Communication Center
in the Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue near Penn Station, has
watched the ranks of his Japanese students increase 14 percent, to
about 500 in the last two years.

“There’s a feeling that they kind of blossom here; they finally get a chance to express themselves,” he said.

A number of Japanese freeters have become role models in Tokyo by
finding success in New York; their stories make their way home via the
weekly radio show “Good Day New York,” which broadcasts “live from the
Big Apple” to 12 million Japanese from a studio on Fifth Avenue, and
the “D.J. Kaori Show,” which reaches listeners all over Japan.

D.J. Kaori, the host, began spinning records at the restaurant Match
in SoHo in the mid-90’s. After being discovered by Funkmaster Flex of
Hot 97, she graduated to D.J. jobs for celebrity parties. That
translated into a recording contract for one — and now eight — CD mixes
in Japan.

“It was so hard in Japan to have the confidence to say, ‘I can be
what I want to be, I can do what I want to do,’ ” Kaori, now in her
30’s, said in a mellifluous voice. “New York is very free. I thought,
‘If I want to do this, I can do it. In Japan you have to follow the
rails.”

In Tokyo bookstores, guides like “Finding Yourself in New York,” and
“The ‘I Love New York’ Book of Dreams” fuel the fantasies of those
would follow in Kaori’s footsteps. In an indication that a phenomenon
has truly taken off, there’s a contrarian title, “Even If You Live in
New York, You Won’t Be Happy.”

New York now has the largest number of Japanese living in any city
outside Japan: 59,295, according to last year’s Japanese Foreign
Ministry data. But the Miho Mimuras don’t register in those statistics.
Like the majority of the nearly 475,000 Japanese who landed at Kennedy
and Newark airports last year, she was officially a tourist. In her
allotted 90 days in the United States, she took more than 850 photos —
“my memory souvenir!” — of the Statue of Liberty, of Picassos at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
when the guards weren’t looking, and of Harlem, Radio City Music Hall
and all the other places on a Japanese girl’s must-see list.

She had a favorite East Village restaurant. She marveled over $5
T-shirts at H & M. “Very cheap!” she exclaimed. She stood in front
of store windows imitating the mannequins. She took classes almost
every night, mostly at Broadway Dance Center on West 57th Street, a
studio heavily populated with young Japanese women. She saw “Stomp”
because the 13-member cast includes a Japanese woman who, like Ms.
Mimura, came to New York to pursue a dream of being a dancer.

On her very first Saturday night in the city last March, at a
clandestine Japanese lounge operating without a liquor license in
Midtown, Ms. Mimura ordered a drink more appropriate to the girl she
still was than the woman she aspired to be: milk and Malibu rum. She
had arranged to meet a fellow student from her first hip-hop class who
went by the nickname Smiles, and a friend of his. Before their arrival,
Ms. Mimura confided, “I want American boyfriend.”

She spent those first weeks struggling to learn her way around the
city. She found it difficult to navigate the subway or to find Internet
access. For a month, she slept on the couch in the Brooklyn apartment
of her best friend from childhood, a design student at LaGuardia
Community College. The two women spent hours in deep conversation.

Ms. Mimura wrote in her diary about her ex-boyfriend and why he had
abandoned her. In one entry, which she allowed a reporter to read with
the help of a translator, she confided that she had been needy and
insecure around the boyfriend. Six months after the breakup, it was
still hard to let go. She phoned him from New York and they talked
about why their romance had ended. “I still need him,” Ms. Mimura said.

One night, Ms. Mimura went to the East Village club Sin Sin, at a
monthly party called “Soulgasm,” where a well-known dancer, Henry Link
of Elite Force Crew (who has danced for Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey), often shows up. The party is popular with young Japanese women interested in hip-hop culture.

About 1 a.m. Mr. Link appeared, dressed in a T-shirt and track
pants, and soon a circle formed around him as he danced. From time to
time challengers stepped into the circle to battle, using their own
dance moves, with crowd reaction measuring their success.

Ms. Mimura bounced with anticipation. In Japan, she never would have
tried such a thing, but when an opening came she handed her beer to a
bystander and plunged into the circle. Mr. Link stood back in
admiration, and spectators nodded and clapped.

“At Sin Sin I wasn’t nervous, just not thinking about it,” she said
later. “I felt really happy — everybody cheering. I felt so good!”

A dancer from the Bronx named Mark stood on the edge of the circle
watching Ms. Mimura’s impressive moves. He walked her to the subway
after the club closed at 4 a.m. She thought he was “very kindness,” she
said later, and agreed to dinner and a movie the next Saturday night.

But Mark showed up two hours late, and when Ms. Mimura sought an
explanation he babbled at her so quickly that she didn’t understand. It
was a stilted evening, hampered by language difficulties and hurt
feelings. But still Ms. Mimura was eager to see him the next week at
the House Dance Conference, another monthly event at a club.

When she did, however, the initial spark was gone. Smiles, her first
American friend, was also there. A 22-year-old student of graphic
design at New Jersey City University, he is partial to tank tops that
show off his biceps. At the club, he took a proprietary interest in Ms.
Mimura’s welfare, making sure she got a prime spot on the edge of the
challenge floor to watch the action.

Slowly, Ms. Mimura was gaining confidence about living in New York,
discovering an inner strength. She signed up to go to a national dance
contest in Boston, where she made it to the semifinals. Her new friend,
Smiles, wished her “Ganbatte!” a combination of “Good luck” and “Knock
’em dead” in Japanese.

But she didn’t win. She blamed too much technique and not enough
feeling for her loss. She needed to let the freedom of New York and the
let-it-all-hang-out attitude of Americans into her heart while dancing,
she said. “Japanese dancers copy, not create,” she said, “and I’m more
like typical Japanese dancer.” She resolved to be more American.

Shortly before she was scheduled to return home, over dinner on St.
Marks Place, Ms. Mimura declared that New York had changed her. “I
wasn’t strong at all when I came here,” she said. “In Japan, I had
people to rely on, but in New York I didn’t have any people. I have to
rely myself, so I became stronger. In Japan, I am a little bit shy. But
in New York, people have freedom, and that freedom is very good for me.”

She said that when she returned home she would pursue her dream of
becoming a dancer. She had been promised a promotion if she returned to
her job at the clothing store in Tokyo, but Ms. Mimura resolved to take
a less demanding job to leave time for dance. Indeed, since returning
to Japan in June, she has kept that promise to herself and is working
in a mobile-phone shop, while entering dance contests — three so far.

It was a mild summer morning when she arrived at Kennedy for her
flight home. She had bought a second suitcase for all her purchases —
30 pairs of Tommy Hilfiger socks for friends back home; a crystal
statue for her ex-boyfriend’s mother; a stuffed bear for a grandmother;
jewelry for her mother and sister; and for herself, dancing shoes and
piles of new clothes.

Smiles was with her. At some point in the previous days, it seemed
clear, he had become her boyfriend. He helped load her suitcases onto
the baggage scale. They headed to the food court.

Alternately crying, then finding something to laugh about, then crying again, Ms. Mimura took out her camera.

She wanted to remember the moment.

[laika]

Re: Japan Times - Japan Fashion Week tweaks time and place to suit style jet set



Thanks for posting this. (glad i didn't kill the thread with my irrelevant rambling!)

I'm still trying to think of what to say. I read the article when it appeared, and I found it rather offensive. It's very relevant to this conversation though...I would like to hear people with a closer persepctive weigh in.

The writing is so condescending no? Especially that last line. [+o(]