Black Friday

Racheal Rhee
#3

Reader Source: Yuniya Kawamura. "Japanese Teens as Producers of Street Fashion." Reader

       Fashion. This word becomes an idea and term that draws people into culture and places. When does fashion exactly begin? In the reader source, Kawamura states that Street Fashion specifically began with Japanese Teens. It began as symbolic group identity where group of girls dress and wear makeup in a similar way which became shared symbols of membership affiliation. The best point about street fashion's creation, was that it was expressed in however the teens wanted to present themselves. Whether the look was exotic, cute or eccentric, they wanted to be visibly seen different from society, yet wanted to be seen as part of a group. At this case, we can state that street fashion came from teen rebels which later became part of Tokyo culture to have teens in streets showing off individual's or community's fashion to each other and to the world.  This was a cultural change and a turning point for fashion industry not only in positive, but also in a negative way. Presenting the world with newly discovered Street Fashion industry brought Japan to another level of showing their existence in world fashion industry. However, the professional fashion industry within Japan was flipped upside down. Consumers became the one who leads the trend as fashion designers had to chase after their creative clothing updates. In other words, consumers are the ones who became the gatekeepers of fashion industry. To fight consumerism, we are able to adapt this street fashion idea into our society. Instead of having the gatekeepers (which are Big Fashion industry magazines and journalists), if people in community and society looked into their own meaning of clothing instead of continuously heading towards the general idea of fashion where skinny models wear double zero size while managing to wear 4 inch heels adding onto their original average model height (5ft 8in), we would be able to fold our thoughts of wanting to (or feeling the need to) consume what the mannequin wears, or what the journalist think the best outfit is.

Outside Source: Personal experience of Black Friday in San Francisco Downtown outlet/mall

        Black Friday!! Yes. I have never been to black friday shopping, so was very excited to travel the outdoor, especially urban area although my intentions were to only eye shop. After first three weeks of fighting consumerism, the idea of black friday became a joke. When I decided to take a visit to the apple store to check out how the mini ipad looks like, people were standing in a line outside of the door waiting in the cold at 4 am. Yes, the mini ipad was in fact pretty cute looking and definitely lighter than ipad. However, what really shocked me was that people were walking into the store looking for sale items (ipad and iphone) that offered 46 dollars off of the original price $499. Consuming an ipad for $433 with 10% off discount when ipad is a luxury, not a necessity?