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How To Get Snapped On Street
12/NOV/2008 on air

Being snapped on Tokyo street and how fashion trends are created…

Street snap = “sutosuna”
Jingumae clossing is the hot area for sutosuna. Shooters are watching people passing on the streets for sutosuna hunting!
Sutosuna is one of the most popular features for fashion magazines to have. But it’s not easy to be hunted by them from such huge crowd of people in Harajuku. So many people want to be hunted for sutosuna!

3 guys who want to be hunted for sutosuna gathered. Murayama-kun wants to make his debut in the show business from sutosuna experience. Tsuto-kun takes 4.5 hours by Shinkansen to come to Harajuku once in every month only to get snapped on the street, hopefully. He usually works at a local factory. His fashion is so outstanding in his town. 140,000yen is his net salary per month but he uses most of it for apparel from Harajuku. Nishii-kun is a Rouninsei (a graduate who, having failed a university entrance exam, is preparing for one next year) living with his girlfriend. He studies 8 hours a day and works for the rest of the day to make living. He wants to have more girl friends.

Tsuto-kun was successfully snapped by a lady’s fashion magazine.
Nearly 100 fashion magazines are issued in Japan, and each of it has its own sutosuna pages. There are even magazines that are only for street snaps. It’s a good idea to check out street snap magazines for new idea. Street snaps reflect real trends from street. Watching Harajuku streets gives us a lot of new ideas. The apparel shop “e.a.p” refletcs their sutosuna experience to their new items as soon as possible. Even at a university there is a study group of sutosuna. Watanabe-san, the leader of the group has been studying sutosuna for over 15 years realized something very interesting. The cropped pants seen from 2007 Paris Milano Collection were found at Tokyo street half a year ago. The marine look from 2007 Spring Summer Collection was also found in Tokyo street a few months ago. Watanabe-san says, “There are many foreign desiners who are interested in Japanese street fashion. There’s no doubt they get the idea from Tokyo street.”

Yamaguchi-san, the star of Harajuku sutosuna, has been snapped 20 times in 2 years. His fashion and hairstyle is so unique. He must know the secret of getting snapped on the streets. He wears 10cm-heel sneakers that he designed by himself. His room is stuffed with his clothes, shoes and accessories. He even wears skirt since he was a high school boy. “Men can be beautiful, too, why not?” He takes photos of himself in the bathroom of Isetan department store.

Two people from Brigit are professionals of sutosuna hunter. They advise that walking too fast is not likely to be hunted for a snap. Usually fashion magazines will be published a month later from when pictures are taken. It’s nice to dress as you would a month later.

Yamaguchi-san helps Nishii-kun, and Bridgit team helps Tsuto-kun so they can highly be snapped on the street.
Tsuto-kun was finally snapped, but what was wrong with Nishii-kun? Mr. Ikki and Beni-chan asked the reason directly to the shooters there. “He was too fashionable for the readers of their fashion magazine to copy.” While the reason why Tsuto-kun was snapped was because his fashion was easy for the readers to copy.

Street snap from Harajuku is available now online at Style from Tokyo. The blog is by Shito-san, the queen of street snap hunter. She is looking for people who know their charm and so how they can dress better to make the most out of it.

Kirin’s opinion,
Do you remember Yamaguchi-kun? He was a frequent sutosuna model on fashion magazines to begin with. It looks like it’s not easy to walk with 10cm-heel sneakers when someone wears them for the first time. ^ ^

***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.

Have you checked out FlutterScape before?
I’ve read about it here and there and I finally joined them as a seller the other day!!
I’d quote a post from Tofugu that explains things better than I will do so from scratch. :p

So basically it’s a marketplace where sellers who live in Japan and buyers overseas meet. I wanted to have a chance to sell kawaii stuff from Japan but eBay was not my thing. I opened my account but somehow I didn’t feel like joining them. It’s just too huge and too complicated for a person like me who is not familiar with online auctions. Then what about FlutterScape? To me, it seemed to be less complicated, family atmosphere that sellers and buyers exchange comments so casually each other just like on blogs, and more over it was run by a Japanese guy and their office is in Shibuya where I can easily visit if I needed to do something off-line.

I also once thought of making an opportunity for you to be able to purchase Decotti from me when I made my first Decotti making video but my problem was how buyers can feel comfortable about paying everything in advance when they don’t know me very well. It’s good to have a corporate agent inbetween the sellers and buyers who don’t know each other.

That’s the background I decided to join them as a seller at FlutterScape.
As always, I can be easily confused with new online systems and services, at FlutterScape, even though it’s rather simple, my confusion occurred almost exclusively. I had to keep asking questions to the staff, and meanwhile I made a first sale the other day! I was allowed to drop off the parcel at their office in Shibuya. I needed to go to Shibuya anyhow to buy some cosmetics that day, it was nice I could do both at a time. Moreover, Mr. Kakiyama, the CEO of FlutterScape was so nice he invited me to join his dinner with his colleagues and his loyal customer from the UK who’s visiting Tokyo on vacation. It was fun to see them in person off-line!

I’ll keep uploading cool stuff and kawaii stuff from Japan on my account at FlutterScape, but you can also request specific items from Japan. All the other sellers have very interesting and cool stuff that you can enjoy shopping or even only browsing. BTW, if you want to deal with me directly because you trust me and you like me so much (lol) just contact me. I am available for you at several ways from here, Tokyo.

While ago my husband and I went to onsen that is only 2 hours or so from our place. At that time we didn’t take Pi-chan. It was nice to be with her, but at the same time I found that I was always concerned if she feels good, if she needs to go to No.1 or 2, and I was very tired from the holiday after all. I wanted to go to onsen anyhow before it gets too hot and humid.

At that time when we went to the onsen, the weather was OK compared with the current one. Right now it’s in the middle of rainy season called “Tsuyu” in Japan. The temperature is around 30 degrees Celsius, humidity maybe around 60-70%. Here comes my least favorite season! Tsuyu lasts for a month, and then summer comes that is about 35+C (even at night it’s around 30C) and very humid. We basically cannot live a comfortable life without air-con in summer. It’s hot by the end of September. *depressed* I hate summer more than any other seasons if I have to stay in Japan. It was the last chance for me to visit onsen that time, because I will not be able to enjoy onsen when the weather is so hot, no matter how much I love it.

At east Japan most of Unagi is steamed, which is a big difference between Unagi from west Japan. I sometimes want to eat it made in a west Japan way. They don’t steam it. The difference is ours is too soft compared with theirs. Well actually miso or dashi (soup for Udon for example) is also different between east and west Japan. I somehow long for another Japanese life of mine in Osaka especially since my visit to Osaka last time.

The Unagi unexpectedly stayed in my stomach so long hours that I had hard time having a big dinner at the inn.

Nice historical onsen ryokan “Toukaikan” (founded in 1928) looked so tempting. It somehow reminded me of the movie “千と千尋の神隠し” (Spirited Away) but unfortunately we had no time to have onsen there. We never expected this existed there. We had our plan. We had to go.

It’s so nice to stay at such a very Japanese place but my problem is that I prefer western foods and bed to Japanese foods and futon. I have found so many nice Japanese hotels with very Japanese-like interiors and exteriors but these places often prepare 100% Japanese way. I was not sure if I can eat Japanese foods for both at dinner and breakfast, and I am not sure if I can sleep well on futon. This may sound very strange to you, but I don’t like to sleep on futon and tatami because it’s too hard. It’s actually very hard to find out Japanese taste of interior, exterior, and onsen but combined with western taste of food and bed within my budget. Most of the time I settle at a small inn that offers French cuisine or Japanese-French cuisine and western type of room that has a bed located and the outside onsen is fabulous. (My husband doesn’t care. I am the one who is particular about what to eat, where to go and stay, what to do, and etc. Thus it’s always I that plan for our trip or where to eat out.) While some of my blog readers say their previous life could be Japanese, I have a feeling this is my first life as a Japanese. (lol)

My husband used to come here often for fishing. I cannot fish because I feel so sorry and sad when I have to see the mouth of fish when the hook is to be taken off. Moreover it’s too boring and being short-tempered I cannot stand staying still until the fish comes.

Walking in the park, I need to locate myself in a deep forest. I was dying to have forest bathing. At night, we came back this place to observe bunch of lightning bugs.

Bathing at a private onsen after walking. We can hear birds singing and murmur of a brook while having a nice onsen!

Another private onsen (Rotenburo= outside onsen) where we bathed at night and in the morning before breakfast.

Himono (salted dry fish) as a souvenir. I don’t like to eat grilled fish so much but they were really good! Himono when it’s grilled it tastes better than raw fish being grilled, only if the Himono is made in good quality. My husband said he would buy their Himono if he has a chance to go fishing in Ito again. We can keep them in a freezer with each Himono wrapped separately.

It’ll be in October when I feel like going to onsen again. I have to survive this uncomfortable summer from now on, but from time to time I need to go to Ganbanyoku to have my body warmed from everyday’s cooling by air-con.

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