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Tokyo Kawaii Collection in Paris
15/AUG/2009 on air

Tokyo Kawaii TV organized a fashion show that introduced Japanese kawaii at a luxurious salon in Paris. They call it “Tokyo Kawaii Collection in Paris” and for this event, Tokyo Kawaii TV held auditions to select the representative designers of cutting-edge works that reflect trends in Tokyo today.

1st entry is from a department of school uniform.
School uniform has become a solid fashion thanks to school girls of Shibuya – Harajuku area. Anime and Manga played an important role to let it spread in the world.
Toyoko Yokoyama is a pioneer designer of school uniform, who has also produced a school uniform-looking clothes shop in Harajuku.

2nd entry is from a department of men’s style.
Shinya Yamaguchi is a designer, creator of multiple fashion items, and even a king of street snap. He works from a small 6Jo room (For your better understandings, something like this.) where he keeps his clothing. “Isn’t it interesting that one of the coolest things in Tokyo is created in such a small space?” says, Shinya.

3rd entry is from a department of Lolita fashion.
It’s a fashion genre that is also supported enthusiastically by American, French, and Russian people. Yoshie Yamashita is a designer. She sells beautiful Lolita dresses online with the concept of “Lolita clothing for adults”. Kokusyokusumire is a big fan of her dresses.

4th entry is from a department of deco design.
Maiko Kaji is a deco designer who has many clients of Japanese celebs, as well as Patricia Field and Paris Hilton. (Here is an episode how she was selected.)

Tokyo Kawaii TV asked authorities of fashion industry in Paris for the tips to make the show successful. It should be a location where the show is taken place, the celebs who come to the show, and the talent to make it successful. But it seems “kawaii” is not popular in Paris… Tokyo Kawaii TV is however proud of the designers this time, because they also asked opinions from Aloha from Hell, a German musician and The Black Eyed Peas, and Kashiwa Sato, a Japanese art director who is active worldwidely and also well-known as a designer of Uniqlo logo in order to see how the selected designs were sensed by international people.

Japan Expo is a biggest J-culture event in Europe. Many people visit there to buy Anime or Manga, but these days fashion items from Shibuya and Harajuku have increased. In average, 241 Euro per person was spent there. However, 90% of shops were non-Japanese. Taiwanese man sold Nekomimi hat (cat ear hat). French woman made sweets accessories and sold them. There was a Japanese woman sent by Ministry of Economy researching the site. Our government thinks that Japanese corporations should make use of kawaii as a business opportunity. “Japanese government wants to put out Japanese culture to the world more aggressively.” says the woman.

There are however some companies that are successful in expanding their business to the world. Laforet Kawaii Collection is a fashion show held in Paris and that was from 10 Gothic and Lolita brands that are popular in Harajuku. “We come to Paris, do the show, and see how local people evaluate us. We bring it back to Japan and we want to improve our place in the Japanese fashion industry.” says the CEO of Peace Now.
Kamikaze Girls is a Japanese lolita movie that was released in 7 countries. Baby the stars shine bright is a company that provided the clothing to the movie. The lolita clothing of the heroine has captivated many girls in the world. After the release of the movie, this company received many orders. They sell the lolita clothing to 32 countries today. Their international sales is as much as 3,000,000 yen, which is almost the same as a monthly sales amount from a single regional town. In fact, they didn’t expect orders from South America, but there are some these days. They hired an American lolita girl who takes care of English website. “I am too tall and fat for Lolita clothing…I was thinking so, but I found my size finally! I want to tell girls all over the world how wonderful Lolita is!!”

Tokyo Kawaii Collection had a hard time to find celebrities who got interested in “kawaii” in Paris. Yamaguchi-san dropped at a local shoes store to ask opinions for the high heel shoes he designed especially for men. But they say in Paris, it’s difficult to be accepted unless it’s used by some famous designers. When Yamashita-san asked opinions for local people, the reaction was also very conservative.

The episode is cut here, due to an accident while it was recorded, sorry!

Kirin’s opinion:
I’m very much disappointed at the reactions of the people in Paris. They sounded very conservative. Kawaii maybe too childish to them? As you may know, in Japan chasing kawaii is not limited to children. To the contrary, kawaii for adults are very much accepted and nothing cannot be promotive without kawaii element or concept, especially if the business is targeted for young women of 20-30s.
Anyhow…sorry the episode was cut off due to some accident. I don’t have the rest of the episode. It’s not available unless it’s re-aired.

Paris Collection: part1
18/FEB/2009 on air

Mr. Ikki appears at Masatomo Autumn-Winter Men’s collection in Paris! More photos and a link available.

He used to be a fahion model in Japan, but when it comes to Paris Collection, he has to face the difference he found between other Caucasian models; they are much taller and younger.

While Mr. Ikki struggles under pressure, Beni-chan enjoys several unique stages here and there in the city of Paris.
LANVIN for example used a high school gym. At UNITY, with a word she’s from Tokyo Kawaii TV, she was lead to the very front row
where selected people engaged in fashion industries around the globe are only allowed to be seated.

Mr. Ikki’s costume is Japanese traditional armor style as much as 4kg in weight. The costume looks cool but in fact, it’s so heavy and hard for him to walk with it dressed. It’s composed of 15 parts, each of which is tied with strings to be fixed. In spite of that, Mr. Ikki has to take it off to change to the next dress in as short as 8 minutes. Direct & honest criticism against the collection that can be read in papers gives him high pressure.

Nowadays Paris mode or vogue tends to get inspired with Japanese street tastes.The casual line from last season John Galliano presented Osaka Boys. Christian Lacroix comments;
“It used to be London when speaking of the most fashionable place for young people, but now, it’s no longer London and is Tokyo instead. All kind of fashion brands in France study magazines that collect street snaps from Tokyo.” “Kawaii? Of course I know that word, meaning ‘jolie’ in French, right?”

Wow! Is that really? Then what about Parisienne? Do they know what kawaii means? “Kawaii? Oh, yes I know that means ‘mignon’ in French and is mostly used to describe fashion.” “That means beautiful outfits, as in Tokyo style, huh?” “Kawaii is the word for something sweet!”

French girls know what kawaii means!

Have you ever hard of Visual-kei in Japanese?
That’s a word nowadays in Paris young people recognize. French Visual-kei music band sings in Japanese?!

You may know Hello Kitty. Isn’t it surprising that a chic French boutique store has Kitty-chan (that’s how Hello Kitty is called in Japanese)
clothes!
It’s just like French chic mixed with Japanese kawaii. French madams are buying Kitty clothes! How is that?

There is a Lolita fashion brand store in Paris which opened about 2 years ago and now it already has as many as 600 people registered as membership.

Lolita fashion in France is getting popular? Let’s take a peep at a Lolita tea party held every week in Paris. Someone brings outfit that she purchased in Harajuku when she visited Tokyo, while someone has a deco mirror of her original as she cannot get small decoration items or parts as we can in Japan.

Japanese government cannot disregard this kawaii popularity supported inside and outside Japan. In January 2009, a team is developed in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that investigate about kawaii. Kawaii is one of the most potential elements that Japan can appeal to the world, which is just like anime and manga have done so far.

They looked inside Jesus Diamante, a most famous Japanese Hime-kei brand in Harajuku. A word “Hime-Gyaru” is getting spread among Asian and European teenagers. Keiko-Hime is the most popular Hime gyaru.

“What do you always try to keep yourself as Hime (=means princess in Japanese)?” asked a man of the team. “I try to act like Hime. How I walk, how I sit down, and how I behave must be elegant as a Hime,” Keiko-Hime replies.

Next, the team checked out remake fashion in Harajuku.
There are many second-hand clothes stores in Harajuku where a lot of buyers visit and buy a great deal.
Here is a shop introduced in the show.

Mr. Ikki, at the stage is to be continued to the next show, titled “Paris Collection part2″.

Kirin’s opinion:

Is the word or the concept “kawaii” well accepted in other countries?
Well in Japanese “kawaii” can be used for anything. It could be a word describing fashion, goods, art, characters,
manga, anime, furniture, the way people are, kids, pets, and really whatever looks cute, sweet, or adorable.
So it’s not used only for fashion. But if people in other parts of the world can enjoy kawaii things just like we (Japanese) do,
that’ll be definitely much fun!