-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.

	Browsing around LOFT once in a while is so much fun to me. If you have been to Japan, you may know what it is. It’s a department building of kawaii stationery, cosmetics, general goods, tools for kitchen or anything, nice interior items or small furniture, especially targeted for young single or DINKS, and so many more. I cannot explain it well, and I’d strongly recommend you should go see it by yourself when you are in Japan. It’s not only in Tokyo, it’s available at many major cities! I’m sure you enjoy it, as much as Tokyu Hands! I’d go to Shibuya LOFT because of its scale and convenience.(Shibuya is easy access from my house.) The other day I went to Shibuya LOFT to look for a new diary for 2010. I know what I exactly want, because I keep using the same one for the past few years and I still like using it, but it’s just fun to look around other things, too. I bought some cute cards and cheap cosmetics, as well as a cute calendar, but my diary was not ready then. I have to come back mid November. Who was it that I exchanged messages on the shoutmix some time ago? I found Fueki glue that was so familiar at kindergarten…No, this time it’s revived as a hand cream! Fueki-kun (It was he! which I learned from the Fueki Blog. As it says “boku”=僕, it means male.) I think I’ve seen Fueki hand cream somewhere last winter, but I didn’t know that he has become such a famous character! (Japanese people LOVE characters, you know that!) It was in Shibuya LOFT the other day, and there were many more interesting goods and cosmetics that kept me stay there for a long time. I dropped at Shibuya HMV that is just across the street from Shibuya LOFT, and I happened to find a Cher diary for 1200 yen! (Cher is an apparel brand but it’s more famous for its eco-bag as in this episode.) This was cute, but the style was not my taste. I’ll go for the same one as this year or the last year. There was a Hello Kitty Fan book and this looked cute with full of introduction of rare Hello Kitty goods inside. As is always these days, freebie for this magazine is a small reversible original Kitty-chan bag.

Oops, sorry for such a rambling…but I was so excited with kawaii all over, which is something very unique in Tokyo and that was what I was definitely missing from my trip to other countries. Speaking of kawaii, I think I love Tokyo most no matter how stupid and stressful our working situations are. I found many foreign visiters at tutuanna where I like to shop leggings and socks as well as Mity Soxer. They are cheap but cute! You should go there too (when you are here), if you like kawaii!

Kawaii competition -Paris project: accessory-
13/JUN/2009 on air

3 professional atrists were picked out for the final battle to win the representative of accessory department of Tokyo Kawaii TV who’s entitled to join the fashion show in Paris.
1: Kaji-san of deco specialist
2: 203gow-san of crochet specialist
3: Kumagai-san of sweets deco designger

They compete for decoration over headphones by their original ways.

Judges are the artists from 11 different countries who have experiences as exhibitors at Tokyo Design Festa.

Kaji-san used to enjoy bling-bling decoration as a part of hobby before she became very famous for receiving custom-order from Paris Hilton.
Paris liked Kaji-san’s jewel decoration. Patricia Field is another customer of hers.
There are also several Japanese companies that try to collaborate with her to produce such as deco mirror or deco clock. Deco jewelry can be even virtual on the screen of mobile phone.

203gow-san is a superstar of crocheting. She has scored top 1 to 4 of the crochet lovers site.
She commutes to a public library from time to time to study picture books for half to a whole day long. She keeps looking at them, imagines how 3 dimensions would be, and expresses them with crochet. She has lately started making books totally made of crocheting.

Kumagai-san, the sweets deco designer uses a tooth brush to make a sort of “baked” touch. She has collaborated with a company of sweets decoration bag that was used for Shibuya Girls Collection. She made a special sweets deco mirror for CIARA in front of her.

Zumreed store offers various designs of stickers for headphones’ decoration.
It’s a cool idea that we can change the images of headphones that fit fashion or the mood of the day. In fact, the sales of headphones have increased since these stickers were available. Mobile decoration is everywhere today, but headphones decoration is still rare. That’s true!

Kumagai-san is so good at decorating fake cakes, then how about the real ones? The truth is she has never baked and decorated real ones yet! “Girls like to try everything! That’s why it’s good to put various kinds of sweets decorations on.” says Kumagai-san.

This episode is an accessory department audition, but there are more auditions from other departments such as men’s fashion, school uniform, Gothloli, etc.

203gow-san or Kumagai-san’s headphones were attractive among the foreign judges, but DJ Kaori finally voted for Kaji-san’s less-decorated headphones, and Kaji-san won the competition. She is going to participate in the fashion show in Paris.

Kirin’s opinion:

Personally I liked 203gow-san’s unique crochet headphones, but that’s only for autumn and winter. I’m so much impressed that they achieved their skills as much as to the level of making business by themselves, and everything was based on their passion and that they really liked doing that as a hobby. Not many people can be so much into something to this extent, but it’s so cool we can be so famous from something we like doing, and these people must be so happy because they can make other people happy with what they love doing. I think that’s the ideal way of life! They would do it for nothing. I mean, they would never have expected to become popular or to get paid for what they do. I just adore their passion and energy!

Fast fashion special
23/MAY/2009 on air

What is this long queue in Harajuku? It was 29th of April 2009 that FOREVER21 1st store opened in Harajuku, Tokyo Japan. FOREVER21 is from the U.S, H&M which is just next to FOREVER21 is from Sweden, and we have ZARA from Spain, Topshop from U.K, collect point from Japan, all located in Harajuku. These shops are famous for kawaii trendy clothing for reasonable prices, and such fashion is called “fast fashion”. Harajuku has become a center of fast fashion battle.

There are some critical points that do not make fast fashion look cheap. With some creative ideas and a little bit of efforts, basic and cheap clothing can be really cool. Do you know “UNI-kakushi”? That means to do some makeover to UNIQLO clothing. UNIQLO is another fast fashion brand that Japan is proud of. Their clothes are very basic and durable with many color variations, but very cheap. What’s good about UNI-kakushi is that we can take a risk to do anything on the UNIQLO clothing, and if we fail, we lose only a small amount of money.

The man wearing a gold painted jacket did the spray painting by himself over the original UNIQLO red colored jacket.

Girls from deco-clo enjoy many ways of UNI-kakushi.

Tokyo Kawaii TV interviewed the CEO of UNIQLO to ask what he thinks of UNI-kakushi phenomenon. He said, “We are dealing with clothes as parts. It’s all up to individuals how he or she wants to wear them.”

H&M is a good place to find a cheap celeb-kei (celebrity-oriented) sort of fashion. The head designer of H&M has visited Tokyo more than 20 times in the past 15 years. It’s called inspiration trip and she is inspired for a new design from this trip. She checks out small second hand clothing stores in residential area in Tokyo, and the button store where Paul Smith also likes to shop.

Shimamura is a Japanese long-established clothing store since 1953. Speaking of cheap Gyaru coordination, Shimamura has become a key player. Gyaru who like to shop and wear Shimamura clothing are called “Shimarah”.

However, Shimamura has not been like this. It’s only 8 years ago when they changed their taste. They enriched Gyaru and teenager clothing. One big question however is that buyers are all middle aged men who don’t exactly understand the sense of kawaii at all. They try to catch up with the latest trends by repeating a supervised tour to Europe every other month. They try to figure out what’s coming next and strive for marketing research.

Mama retro fashion cost nothing, as long as your mom was fashionable and kept her wardrobe in a good condition.

Kirin’s opinion:

There was a long line at FOREVER21 even in this summer. I didn’t feel like shopping there because of too many people : A long line to get into the store, another long line for fitting, and another one for payment.

UNI-kakushi looks interesting. If I were good at sewing, I’d like to makeover and create my own clothing from UNIQLO, but unfortunately I am so bad at it, I have no choice. My mom was very good at sewing, my grandma was also so good at knitting, but I feel myself very clumsy and I feel safer being away from these things. :p
When I was a child, I was wearing original clothes from my mom and grandma, which I didn’t like very much then, but now I think I should’ve been more grateful to them. :p