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Bimajo
Dec/03/2011 on air

Lately, fashion magazines targeting women in their 40s are published one after another.

Glow‘s article of how the women in their 40s dress everyday, for example was a big hit. Some cosmetic brands also target women in late 30s to early 40s. They think it’s the women in their 40s that are active and have consumer appetite. Yet, it’s serious how body line changes when women turn 40. Department stores try to have a salesroom exclusive for anti-aging controlling undergarment for their targeted customers aged around 40.

Tokyo Kawaii TV found the most beautiful “arafour” (around age 40) women and how they maintain the beauty. Bimajo contest was held in Nov. 2011. 2000 beautiful women aged over 35 under 46 gathered from all over Japan to participate in the contest. Tokyo Kawaii TV especially focused on 3 women.

1) Ebisawa-san, 37 y.o.
She’s a mom of 4 kids. But she’s not only that. She used to be a snowboard cross Japan champion and she is a master of Ikebana (the Japanese traditional art of arranging cut flowers) and Shodo (Japanese calligraphy). She applied for the contest 5 days before she gave birth to her 4th child. “I don’t want to lose charm as a woman, even if I’m a mother of 4 kids.” She started exercise right after the childbirth and she has lost 11kg in the past 5 months. She wouldn’t quit training no matter how much her baby cries. She wants to show her kids through her own experience that we can get a prize if we make an effort.

2) Hibi-san, 39
She used to be a car race model with a thin 57cm waist, but she gained 15kg at pregnancy. She inflates a plastic bag and kicks it up like soccer ball juggling. She does it 50 times each in the morning and evening.

Then she uses a spoon to massage her facial muscle. The empty water bottle is to train abdominal.

She is quite unhappy with the fat on her belly, and she is trying her best to make it flat so she can wear a bikini at the contest.

3) Nagayama-san, 41
She is avoiding sunshine as much as she can, because she thoroughly seeks for white skin. It’s not only when she is walking outside but also during a few minutes when she dries laundries in the balcony. She never fails to wear a hat, a sun visor, gloves and etc. to cover her body. (under hot humid summer weather!) She also spends 4 hours everyday for facial exercise.

She does 22 types of facial exercises everyday and night. “Age 40 with or without exercise makes difference in physical appearances. We have to make an effort to maintain beauty at age 40 and older,” she says.

Next is how to make up and look 5 years younger.
Chiaki Shimada, a makeup artist for great actresses such as Mao Daichi or Seiko Matsuda, advises how to make marionette lines invisible. He also looks younger considering his age is 53. He advises that we should choose base color one tone lighter than our skin color. However, as for foundation, we should choose a bit darker one and put it on the face lightly with a brush. Then, pat the concealer on the marionette lines. The concealer maybe 2 or 3 tones lighter than our skin color.

“Base makeup is a key that changes how you look, when you turn 40.” “You may not have enough eyelashes that can hold up mascara. That’s why you’ll need false eyelashes to be applied downward and do not apply eyeliner,” he continues.

Next is how to make dekame (big eyes) that look good on elder women.
A 46-year-old woman in love with Gyaru fashion looks even older because her Gyaru way of makeup doesn’t look good on her. A popular Gyaru model Kumikki is here to help her. Her Gyaru makeup is appreciated by wide range of generation because it’s not too Gyrau. She advises that we should twist false eyelashes, upward (corner) and downward (tail), and apply lower lashes a bit under the line of the tail of eyes. In that way we can make natural dekame that does not look too Gyaru for the women around 40.

At the Bimajo contest, there were 3 types of test; bathing suits, special skills, and dress tests.
Hibi-san successfully lost the fat around the waist line and she was somehow awarded an Oppai prize. (beautiful breasts)

Nagayama-san was awarded a photogenic prize.

Ebisawa-san presented the proud calligraphy that she continues over 20 years but unfortunately she didn’t receive an award.

The winner was a 45-year-old corporate operator.

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Kirin’s opinion:
Now, I’m getting scared to turn 40, as it seems that without such effort I could get old so soon! x_____x But I don’t want to use my time and effort for so much of exercise everyday. I’ve got plenty of things and work to do! I really respect how these women pursuit beauty but at the same time I feel tired about the society that pays so much attention to physical beauty. I liked how the mom (Ebisawa-san) tried to teach her kids a lesson by showing how much she makes efforts for the goal. I wanted her to get a prize.
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Disclaimer: Tokyo Kawaii TV is a TV program owned and broadcasted by NHK Japan, and has nothing to do with this blog.

***There are archives of episodes listed under the page titled “Tokyo Kawaii TV” that is just located under the title banner of this blog.
***If you want to know the music that was used in the episode, please refer to this page and help yourself to find it by selecting the date when the episode was on air in Japan.

Kawaii House Inrterior
16/JUL/2011 on air

NIGO is a fashion director of A Bathing Ape who loves to modify vintage furniture from 1950′s. In this episode, Tokyo Kawaii TV shows how Japanese young people live in an unique interior.

A 33-year-old man who works as a sports instructor modified his 3 bedroom like a Japanese garden. He placed stones in the 6 Jo (=6 tatami mats) room by himself. His house is totally decorated in Japanese style. The blissful moment is when he relaxes with a drink in this room.

A 26-year-old woman who works as a dokumo (an amateur fashion model from subscribers of the fashion magazine) modified a 3 bedroom apartment by herself. The theme of her room is adult-Hime room. She’s spent 1 million yen so far to buy rococo furniture so it should match the interior image. She used to be a Yamanba Gyaru but now she is a beautiful princess. But you’ll never guess her main job as a driver of a trailer!

At a Hobby Show 2011, Girl’s DIY attracted people in this year. DIY Joshi-bu is a club from women who love DIY. Mr. Ikki and Beni-chan modified a 1000yen chair to something unique.

Tokyo cool room file No.1
A room in a colorful wall paper. It’s Mika Ninagawa‘s room. It’s actually her works that she used for wall paper! She thinks it’s important what surrounds her.

Tokyo cool room file No.2
This shared house is very unique. It’s a 20-year-old building that has recently renovated. The house has 11 mobile boxes for 11 people who share this house. Each box has 3J (3 tatami mats) and its monthly rent is 53,000 yen. It’s up to the resident how he or she wants to decorate inside the box. They can even hold a party in a large space that can hold about 50 people at a time, when all the boxes are moved to the other side of the space. Basically the house is for creators for their creative interaction.

Tokyo cool room file No.3
30-year-old 2 bedroom apartment was totally renovated by a housewife. This housewife visited Bordeaux (France) several times to study how the antique furniture in a farm house looks like. Then she studied how to paint furniture with antique taste. “Antique furniture is very expensive in Japan, but when I made antique-look furniture by myself, it was fun! It doesn’t cost much and I can do it as I like.” She has been introduced in a magazine and she is popular among housewives who love this taste.

Morimayu-chan works as a sales assistant as well as a blogger. But her room is messed up.

Kojimagic, a comedian who also is good at making use of the goods from 100 yen shop to make cabinets and storage, helped place a dressing table in the room after cleaning it up for over 4 hours. He put 2 shelves together and placed 2 drawers: one for summer clothing and the other for winter clothing. What’s interesting is that he used goods from 100 yen shop in a different way from how they are normally used.

Some people who are working in an interior industry check up 30 cheap chairs that are priced between 3,000-4,000 yen.
They’ve published MONOQLO magazine to provide the readers with how to distinguish between the good and the bad especially among low-priced furniture brands such as IKEA, Nitori, and Muji (Mujirushi). Of course, these companies are unhappy about this magazine.

Tokyo cool room file No.4
A studio room with a monthly rent of 84,000 yen, in Tokyo.
This room is decorated in French taste. A wall is painted with chalkboard paint. A woman who lives in this room has never been out of Japan but she wishes to check out flea markets in France, buy some furniture there and open her shop in Japan in the future.

Tokyo cool room file No.5
A studio room with a monthly rent of 70,000 yen, in Tokyo.
This room is full of figures. It’s Maruyacco‘s room.

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Kirin’s opinion:
I remember some of the readers mentioned they want to see house interiors in Tokyo. The rooms introduced in this episode are so unique but it’s true some people pursue the taste they like this much. It’s so much fun to look at interior magazines and plan or do something about one’s own house. Nitori for example has become so successful because their reasonable priced furniture, window treatments, and etc. are appreciated by the majority of people during the current economic slump. I know a lot more decent furniture brands but their products are too expensive considering how our economy situation is. Reasonable furniture, clothing and food are strong in Japan now, due to economic downturn.

About the house rent, it’s common in Tokyo to pay 70,000-80,000 or even 100,000 yen monthly to rent a small studio room with a tiny kitchen and a small sink combined with a small bathroom. House share was not popular 10-15 years ago, but lately it’s no longer. There are many nice shared houses in Tokyo and people love it because it’s cheap and fun.
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Disclaimer: Tokyo Kawaii TV is a TV program owned and broadcasted by NHK Japan, and has nothing to do with this blog.

***There are archives of episodes listed under the page titled “Tokyo Kawaii TV” that is just located under the title banner of this blog.
***If you want to know the music that was used in the episode, please refer to this page and help yourself to find it by selecting the date when the episode was on air in Japan.

Working Girl’s Fashion in Japan
05/MAR/2011 on air

**OL is a Japanglish word (abbreviation of Office Lady) that means female office worker.

What kind of fashion do Japanese OL (female office workers) enjoy at work? Tokyo Kawaii TV conducted a street survey in Ginza. It seems that most of stylish workers suffer from strict dress code given by the company they are working for. For example, someone was told by one of her senior workers that she should not wear mini skirt at the office. Some people say their hair color is specified with specific color numbers so their hair color should not be too bright or inappropriate. Someone covers her deco nails with Band-Aids because they are considered too loud at work. At most of the working places in Japan, boots, jeans and bare legs are prohibited by the company dress code.

Yu-san represents a OL circle. She uses genuine diamonds for her 3D deco nails. (A piece of diamond costs 25,000yen!) 11 OL colleagues gathered one day to discuss the powerful coordination that is appealing to men on Valentine’s Day. Yu-san has been studying how to attract men by kawaii office fashion for 4 years. She was successfully married to a good-looking guy working in the same company and now her interests are shifting to cooking.

However, there is a company that is totally free from company dress code. This company runs the largest scale online fashion shopping site in Japan called ZOZOTOWN. Employees in this company truly enjoy fashion while they are working. Some people even cosplay while they are working.

The man with ink bottle headdress custom-ordered it for 300,000yen (about USD4000 at current USD/JPY rate) at his own expense.

Akiyama-san is a buyer but she also represents her Mori Girl fashion shop. The company director understands how important it is for each worker to enjoy fashion by him/herself in order to fully understand apparel and fashion brands. Otherwise it was impossible to involve as many as 1500 brands into one huge online mall.

False lashes are OK to be worn at work as long as they look natural. In this case the false lashes that OL love to use should be totally different from Gyaru type of false lashes. Koji developed false lashes especially designed for OL with a famous makeup artist TAKAKO and they sold over 1.2 million pair of lashes in 5 years.

TAKAKO’s kawaii OL makeup.
She uses partial lashes at the corner of eyes and applies them lower than the eyelines so the eyes look kind of droopy. Then she uses air brush to apply eye shadow.

TAKAKO’s cool OL makeup.
She uses navy color eyeliner and applies partial lashes over the eyelines. Then at lower eyelid, she applies glittering shadow from inner corner of eye to the iris.　”The corner of eyes make woman look great! Any kind of woman can become sexy with a pair of false lashes at the corner of her eyes!!”
TAKAKO emphasized.

Apuweiser-riche is a OL fashion brand designed for the early 20s. The concept matches OL life. For example, some outfit is easy to coordinate for a busy morning when one overslept. Their reversible skirt is used inside out at an evening date with a boyfriend from the same office after work. (to make a difference between on and off work.) “We are very serious about creating a hot seller, and the difference by the centimeter makes difference!” 1 cm difference can be a hot seller or not.

Speaking of OL, it was common that they were wearing company uniform before 1989, when economy bubble burst hit Japan. For the past 18 years and even today, Japan has been suffering from economy recession, which made it difficult for many companies to continue providing uniform to their female workers. Company uniform used to be too plain with single color and it was uncool about 10 years ago. Joie reviewed office uniform by asking honest opinions from OL on the street. What kind of uniform do they like to wear? They want something kawaii but too much lovely is not good. They had a chance to do a presentation at a local clinic where there are female workers from age 20s to 60s. The female workers are unhappy about their current uniform because it’s too simple and conservative. They try 10 different samples. Pink is supported by the 20s, but the 60s are reluctant or hesitant. However all of them agreed to renew their uniform.

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Kirin’s opinion:
I like the free atmosphere that ZoZoTown office offers. I wonder why such easy-going company should not increase in Japan. Especially when it’s office work and the workers only see colleagues everyday, what a big deal if one is dressed with what he/she likes? Well, this is a question when I was working for a company as an exporter long time ago when I was always told by the seniors that I should not wear this and that at the office. haha!

I also have the experience of working at a company that provides uncool company uniform. If I was wise enough to listen to what my heart felt then, I wouldn’t choose to work for the company. But I followed what my parents said and I convinced myself to work for the company. It was very uncomfortable to dress what I hated. Moreover, it’s everyday, every week, every month, day after day…all the female workers were dressed with the same plain uniform and male workers sneakily compared which girl looked sexy with the uniform…ugh I was sick of it. I left the company before the 5th month. lol I think I really hate that others decide what I should wear everyday. It was not so long since then that I decided to be freelance, because I never wanted anybody else to decide what I should wear everyday and what time I should be at office and what time I can have a nap (which usually is not allowed at any companies I worked for) and etc. If the company uniform was what I liked, my life might be different? I don’t know…:p
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Disclaimer: Tokyo Kawaii TV is a TV program owned and broadcasted by NHK Japan, and has nothing to do with this blog.

***There are archives of episodes listed under the page titled “Tokyo Kawaii TV” that is just located under the title banner of this blog.
***If you want to know the music that was used in the episode, please refer to this page and help yourself to find it by selecting the date when the episode was on air in Japan.