Posts Tagged ‘hide’
[press release] J-Summit New York City on Aug. 29
Thursday, August 26th, 2010 by Kathy Chee
[lifestyle] Tokyo Fashion Festa NYC
Saturday, March 20th, 2010 by Kathy Chee
Written by Leisl Schrader
If Lolita were a college student, perhaps a Fashion Design major at New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology, the Tokyo Fashion Festa would be much like her senior thesis show. Her fanciful and innocent vision of fashion would express a great talent and imagination, as well as great potential for booming popularity.
The Festa, piggybacking onto NYC’s Fashion Week, was the first proper Lolita-themed fashion show outside of a convention (or the opening of “Baby, the Stars Shine Bright” store in San Francisco). Supporting the show were Sync Music Japan, a loose confederation of labels devoted to overseas promotion of Japanese artists, and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, keen on promoting Japanese “music culture” and Lolita fashion overseas. Misako Aoki, the “kawaii ambassador” of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made the Festa her latest stop on a worldwide mission to promote Lolita that has so far spanned eight countries. The next day, she held a special meet and greet with fans at Tokyo Rebel, NYC’s first store dedicated exclusively to Japanese street fashion and Lolita brands.
Admission was free by reservation. Ticket reservations were first taken informally through email, and a second time through FIT’s website just two days before the event. Advertising seemed to be done exclusively over Facebook and Livejournal, sufficiently filling up the 750 person capacity of FIT’s HAFT auditorium.
Rock star brand “Baby, The Stars Shine Bright” started things off with a basic introduction to sweet Lolita styles. Frilled and layered jumpers and blouses, in white and only the palest of pink and blue, were paired with large hair bows and voluminous curls. “Angelic Pretty” did more than “Baby” to mix things up from the norm. Cyan and lavender were used alongside the usual white, pink, and sky blue. Some skirt designs even used glitter to enhance their graphic prints. All of the looks were paired with complementary purses (or bunnies, or magic scepters).
“MiELette Tautou” showed the most progressive direction of the Lolita brands, adopting elements of the natural Lolita and mori-kei trends. A new line debuting its first collection, the look is a far more subdued truer to actual Victorian era garments than the re-interpretive, over-the-top fantasy currently most prevalent. The bell shape curve is done away with, and skirts are long, either without curves or with a flared silhouette. Complimentary pieces included an empire waist cardigan and a cropped blazer.
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BTSSB offshoot line “Alice and the Pirates” was the one bastion for Gothic Lolita. Looks varied from the feminine red graphic-printed jumper and purple petticoat, to outright masculinity with red velvet knickers and matching puff-sleeved waistcoat with a miniature pork-pie hat. Peace Now brought the strongest image of classic Gothic elegance mixed with punk edge, with asymmetrical skirts, flowing petticoats in contrasting colors, and even shorts with thigh-high stockings. A small neck ruff made a strong impact as a uncommon piece directly drawn from historical fashions.
The “Madame Killer” line was created by Nichi Kashihara, one of the event’s organizers and the owner of a synonymous Soho boutique that imports Japanese fashions. Positioned as “gyaru,” the looks were more of a mix of NYC hipster and 1990s grunge. Tacked on at the end was the “hi-ho” line, inspired by the late and legendary X-Japan guitarist hide. Yukata and obi featuring bright colors and punk-styled prints, while a literal fusion of Japan and music, didn’t break any new ground, and didn’t quite fit alongside the event’s other lines.
Music and video was worked in with mixed effectiveness. Musical guests VY, composed of MOA on vocals and RIO on turntables, played a dark, techno pop-rock, and certainly dressed appropriately. Far less entertaining were two overly long commercial breaks from h.Naoto and Sync Music Japan. While the event production was not outright disruptive, flaws in lighting, transition timing, and an awkwardly unannounced show conclusion broke the magic at times.
Competing with big-name mainstream brands in the midst of New York City’s fashion week, it may be that our dear aspiring fashion star Lolita may not make it much farther than the small-time world of Japanese pop culture. There is, however, great potential for mainstream exposure in the “Japan Fashion Now” exhibit, coming this September at FIT. An event like the Tokyo Fashion Festa that shows the support of American fashion institutions, and of the Japanese music industry, may bring the big break she’s been hoping for.
[vault review] Cocco: Bougainvillea
Thursday, December 24th, 2009 by Victoria Goldenberg
Cocco’s major debut single from 1997, “Count Down,” is a heavy monster of a song that threatens a man who spurned the singer-songwriter. An unsettling, ticking drumbeat gives way to grungy guitar explosions as Cocco details the ways she will beat up the traitor, leaving him licking her toes and begging for forgiveness. The song ends with her counting down before she shoots the man, but we never get to find out his fate.
This would’ve been a bold song to release in the United States, where Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” was controversial and punk pianist Amanda Palmer’s “Leeds United” video was nearly censored because Roadrunner Records thought the artist didn’t look sexy enough. That the album containing it, Bougainvillea, was a top 40 hit and the artist herself would eventually have a number one record in the notoriously conservative Japan are even more remarkable.
Not to make Cocco sound like a shock value artist merely trying to push the envelope. Rather, she’s someone who writes music to exorcise her emotions. Listen to her music or read her lyrics and you’ll recognize those demons deep inside yourself, hidden under layers of social norms and self-censorship. Speedstar Records deserves credit for signing Cocco and letting her release this music and wear plain dresses and no makeup.
Cocco’s lightened up over the years, but her 1997 debut album Bougainvillea is still a watershed. It’s her darkest, most lyrically direct recording, and it established Cocco as an artist who could wield a variety of genres and still put together a cohesive album. “Kubi” opens with a rising, dissonant violin solo before Cocco cuts in, her voice distorted as she wails about her conflicting emotions over the termination of a long relationship. “Rain man” is a pained lullaby sung in competent English, while “Nemureru Mori no Oujisama~Haru*Natsu*Aki*Fuyu~” is a crushing rocker that leaves even the singer herself panicked and gasping for breath by the end. “Gajumaru no Ki” has serious lyrics about feeling out of control and aimless as an adult, but it’s played as a major key children’s song. “Somebody, stop me/put me down/and bind me to that tree/somebody, please stop me/tie me to that tree so tight/when the morning comes/Am I still gonna be alive?” Cocco sings over the sound of a marimba and recorder.
Bougainvillea also tackles a variety of lyrical subjects fantastically. “Isho,” a sparse song in which Cocco asks her lover to kill her if she ever becomes brain dead, is so haunting it reportedly brought X Japan guitarist Hide to tears. On the other end of the spectrum, the upbeat “Sing A Song~No Music, No Life~” builds off “No Smoking” signs into an anthem for creative expression, complete with cute doodles to accompany the lyrics. (If the subtitle sounds familiar, Tower Records adopted it as the permanent slogan for its Japan stores and used it occasionally in the U.S.)
Though emotional music can fall flat with the wrong singer, Cocco has the perfect expressive voice for her work. Her tone quality is crisp and pure, and her range is capable of everything from a ghostly whisper to freakout scream. But Cocco understands efficiency, and she can convey a large scope of feelings through subtle changes in color or by adding a slight spit or fragile quiver. Even at her most tender moments, Cocco always has a detectable chilliness to her singing, adding to the depth of her songs. But most important, she sounds authentic. You could spend hours dissecting the inflections in her singing, and yet none of them comes off calculated.
I don’t agree with the cliché “Music is a universal language” because some layers get lost when you don’t understand the lyrics. (And cultural context, and the rhetorical devices within the songs, and so on.) Most of Cocco’s CDs, Bougainvillea included, come with decent English translations, but I’m sure the listening experience is far more intense for someone who knows what the songs are about without having to grab the lyric booklet. But even with this handicap, Bougainvillea is still a profound experience. The emotion in Cocco’s singing, the crunchy guitars, and the turbulent drums are instantly recognizable and relatable. Cocco’s music isn’t just about herself, it’s about the humanity inside all of us.
English lyrics taken from the Bougainvillea lyric booklet. Translation by Kazuomi Kajihara and Toni Pedecine.