-Shop cute Japanese products and cool products from Japan. This cute blog is about Japanese kawaii, kawaii Japan, kawaii fashion, Japanese pop culture and more. It's a kawaii blog from Japan, Japan blog in English by a Japanese girl.

kawaii hat
26/NOV/2008 on air

*This episode was missing from the list, but the content is from fall 2008, which doesn’t always mean what’s spoken inside corresponds with fall 2009.

30% of people in Harajuku enjoy wearing hats. Why they like to wear it? Because we can change our image or the atmosphere with just one hat.

Loro, a hat store in Shibuya is where anyone can find a hat that suits on him or her.  Most of the products in the store are handmade, yet they are around 7000 yen, not so expensive. Joyuubou, or actress hat got so popular. Actress would wear it low over her eyes to hide the face. This makes the face look smaller and of course people would not notice that person is an actress. When common people, just like us do the same, people might think that we are celebrity or actress. That’s how this hat became popular.

21-year-old fashion school student who belongs to hat and jewelry design dept. has collected as many as 50 hats. When she gets dressed, she chooses hat first then other clothing that look good with the hat.

Wearing a hat can make one’s face look smaller.

Knit cafe is so popular. Even middle-high aged men are into knitting.

“There should be no one that looks poor wearing a hat,” says Mr. Toshio Yoshizawa an owner of hat stores in the world. He says, when one thinks he doesn’t look good with hat, that’s only because he doesn’t know the good angle.
First of all, those who has big eyes especially look good with hat on.
Secondary, it’s cool to wear a traditional hat in a little twisted way.

He likes watching young people in Harajuku to consider what kind of hat is hot now, what shape of hat will look good on Japanese people, and so on. He has become so popular among Harajuku by now, but his store used to be in Ameyoko, Ueno (Tokyo) back in 1989.
He used to sell imported hats from the U.S, and this cashed in on the boom of so-called “Amecaji” (American Casual fashion) In 1997, he established his original brand saying good bye to the imported American hats. His company has grown so big now as to spread worldwidely. Mr. Toshio says, “I don’t hire serious-minded fellow. I like someone being crazy for music, for example. Backgrounds don’t matter at all!” His employees mention that Mr. Toshio will not care about the sales, he cares about if the hat is something outstanding or not.

Finally he says, “We look greater, as we get used to wearing a hat. It’s so true!”

Kirin’s opinion

I like hat, but I’ve never thought of selecting what to wear from the taste of the hat. I liked that idea, and in that way, there’s no wonder one has as many as 50 hats. It also sounds true to me that we look good with hat when we get used to wearing it.
But at first, I remember I was a little embarrassed to wear it.
Now, I’d wear it so often, but most of the case I do to hide my messy hair! (LOL)
How about you? Do you have any episode with hat?

I’m leaving for Europe and will be back early October. But I have reserved blog posts so that you can enjoy reading them even while I am away. But please understand your comment moderation may need time to be approved, as I am not sure how often I will check emails there.

You may think that I am such a frequent traveler, I wish I were. :p  This year is something special. I have not been travelling abroad for the past 4-5 years. Flying to Europe from Japan is not easy. It costs me much money and I have to struggle with jetlag. I don’t like the long-hour flight, either.

BTW, let me accept my apology for any inconvenience you may have had these days with this blog.  I found something was wrong with it, as it was not displayed correctly.  As for this error, I asked my host server to fix it yesterday, and so it’ll be no problem by now, I suppose…

My email address, the one in contact form, however, is not working properly at this moment, and I am trying to have it fixed.  Because of this, I am needing time to reply to those who emailed me during this period.  (I can receive emails but I cannot send them.) 

If I cannot have this problem fixed, I may not be able to send you emails from my email address for a while.  It’s so restless but I may have to leave tomorrow with this problem unsettled.  So please do not worry if you don’t receive replies from me for a while.  I am not ignoring your emails.  I am suffering from some technical issue.  (T_T) *crying*