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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!

MASATOMO’s concept this time was Neo Japonism, which delivers fresh Western x Japanese mix style and strong impact.

Back to the streets in Paris, Beni-chan found the famous street snap photographer, Scott Schuman.
She also enjoys taking photos of fashionable boys, asking if they know the word “kawaii”. It was pretty easy to join the show when she introduced herself being from Japanese TV.

It was last year that a letter from Moscow, Russia was posted to Tokyo Kawaii TV, asking if they can broadcast Tokyo Kawaii TV in Russia. The TV station of Moscow is named Kawaii TV Russia, and was founded Dec. 2008.

It’s a cable TV station, mainly targeting teenagers. Their core contents are Japanese anime & culture. Thus it used to be 90% anime but from now on they think fashion will be the next to anime. Broadcasting Tokyo Kawaii TV throughout Russia is the first step to them. They want to change dark gray sky in Moscow into fresh pink color! (Sounds cute, huh?)

Lately kawaii is getting popular among girls in Moscow. At a skate rink, there were Russian Lolita girls! They are the member of Russian Lolita Hime association. Their cute Lolita dress attracts kids, too.

One of them had a Japanese Onii-kei (attractive & fashionable cool looking men’s fashion) magazine and says she likes Japanese men rather than Russian men, just like other Russian Lolita girls.

In fact nowadays in Russia, Japanese kawaii culture is getting accepted little by little.
Decoden is a good example.
Decoden for the rich is made of gold & diamonds and costs US$150,000.00. So far 6 of them have been sold in Russia!
It’s originally from Switzerland company named GOLDVISH.

Young Moscow people like Harajuku street fashion, too. That ranges from Gothloli (gothic & lolita) to decora-kei Harajuku style. Some people sell sweets handmade decorations.

“I make kawaii clothing by myself, trying to make it looks like the one Harajuku girls are wearing. I’m referring photos of Harajuku girls.” says a Russian girl. Anime made her into Japanese culture. She makes clothing all by herself. She paints like kimono pattern on clothes and she can also make visual-kei style clothing just like this. “I found a photo of schoolgirl’s wearing school uniform on the net. So right now I’m making school uniform by myself. My dream is walking around Shibuya – Harajuku in this uniform. This year I’m going to Japan to study Japanese. I want to do a job connecting Russia and Japan in the future.”

Miyavi is a Japanese visual-kei singer who is popular among France, Germany, and Scandinavian countries. He’s got no idea why he’s become so popular, but one thing for sure is that visual-kei is accepted in Europe!

3 men are selected from Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in order to investigate kawaii culture. They think that kawaii culture can be a new diplomatic step to the world.
They visited 3 spots of the followings.

1)Deco shop in Harajuku (neu＊neu)
Deco mori meaning decoration with little fake sweets and rhinestones, is the latest trend. “Isn’t that hard to use?” “Yes, but we prefer cuteness rather than function or being practical.”

2)Charismatic Fashion Magazine Model (being a model from a subscriber)”Dokumo”
They found Aoki Misako-chan on the set of famous Lolita magazine.
(She is a model for fashion magazines such as KERA, KERA maniax, and Gothic & Lolita Bible.

She is so popular among Lolita girls that when she visited Paris, her fan gathered to see her from all around Europe. Her makeup is unique with doll-looking eyes with fake long eyelashes.

3)Goldengai Shinjuku
Kokusyoku Sumire, a unit from 2 girls in Lolita classic taste was there.
They work for the cafe, “sumire no tenmado”

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan picked out 3 girls as kawaii ambassadors.
Misako Aoki, as a representative of Lolita idol.
Yu Kimura, as a representative of remake fashion idol.
Shizuka Hujioka, as a school uniform idol.

Back to Mr. Ikki, he was not on the paper. Beni-chan made a collage for him and pitched him to Japan Life Style Magazine in Paris.
Then they liked Mr.Ikki and he was on March edition.

Mr.Ikki’s paris collection was successful since he was on MENSTYLE.FR, one of the most big scaled fashion sites in the world and also on GHUBAR!!

Kirin’s opinion:

It was interesting that Russian people also like Harajuku kawaii fashion and Japanese kawaii clothing. Well, I don’t know what to say about kawaii ambassadors….Is it such a project for Ministry of Foreign Affairs to intervene? But it was cute that 3 middle aged men being far from kawaii are trying to learn what kawaii means. What did you think?