Blog 5

Natsumi Moudry

Blog 5

12/02/2012

Inside Source: Yuniya Kawamura. “Japanese Teens as Producers of Street Fashion.” Reader.

Outside Source: Shouno, Yusuke, Natsumi Fujita, and Kurando Furuya.Frontline of Fashion. Irifune Chuo-ku Tokyo: BNN, 2009. Print.

In class we watched a documentary about the making of Vogue magazines. From this video I learned that fashion in America is usually top down or trickled down from higher classes to lower classes. Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, makes the final decisions of which photoshoots get included in the Vogue magazines, whether there are others working for Vogue who disagree with her decisions or not. In class, we discussed how Anna Wintour has much control over what the trend is for any class because many of the designers in America imitate the styles shown in Vogue.

Despite having imitation from higher classes to lower classes in America, Japan has a different direction in their fashion. In Japan, the youth in the streets usually set the fashion trend (Kawamura, 784). In the past Japan has been viewed as very conservative in their dress, but from the 1990s Japan’s economic system changed; they no longer had the lifetime employment system (Kawamura, 210). Because of this change, Japanese youth no longer had the resources to depend on just their families. They began to rely on their identity and others who can relate with them for their cultural values. Japanese youth in response created their own identity through their distinctive street fashion (Kawamura, 210). Because Japanese youth set their own fashion trend and also influence fashion trends in other Asian countries such as Korea and Hong Kong, Japanese fashion can be described as Herbert Blumer’s trickle up/ bubble up or trickle across theory (Kawamura, 785).

My Japanese family does not live in Tokyo and I have only spent time in Tokyo for about a few days. I spent almost ten hours on every one of those few days just walking around Tokyo in mainly places like Shibuya and Harajuku. During that time I had been fascinated by the ability for youth in Japan to dress in eclectic ways on streets. I had always wished since then that Americans and other places in Japan would be more accepting of different styles of dress. In America I would feel out of place if I wore clothes I had bought from Harajuku. I admire Japan’s trickle up trend in fashion.

I remember in Fukuoka, there was only part of a floor in a huge department store that had clothes which resembled clothes in Harajuku. This picture is a sample of what these stores may look like.