Dress, Body, Culture

Series Editor: Joanne B. Eicher, Regents’ Professor, University of Minnesota

Advisory Board:

Djurdja Bartlett, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts

Pamela Church-Gibson, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts
James Hall, University of Illinois at Chicago
Vicki Karaminas, University of Technology, Sydney
Gwen O’Neal, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Ted Polhemus, Curator, ‘Street Style’ Exhibition, Victoria and Albert Museum
Valerie Steele, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology
Lou Taylor, University of Brighton
Karen Tranberg Hansen, Northwestern University
Ruth Barnes, Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Books in this provocative series seek to articulate the connections between culture and dress, which
is defined here in its broadest possible sense as any modification or supplement to the body.
Interdisciplinary in approach, the series highlights the dialogue between identity and dress,
cosmetics, coiffure and body alternations as manifested in practices as varied as plastic surgery,
tattooing, and ritual scarification. The series aims, in particular, to analyse the meaning of dress in
relation to popular culture and gender issues and will include works grounded in anthropology,
sociology, history, art history, literature and folklore.

ISSN: 1360-466X

Previously published in the series

Helen Bradley Foster, ‘New Raiments of Self’: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South
Claudine Griggs, S/he: Changing Sex and Changing Clothes
Michaele Thurgood Haynes, Dressing Up Debutantes: Pageantry and Glitz in Texas
Anne Brydon and Sandra Niessen, Consuming Fashion: Adorning the Transnational Body
Dani Cavallaro and Alexandra Warwick, Fashioning the Frame: Boundaries, Dress and the Body
Judith Perani and Norma H. Wolff, Cloth, Dress and Art Patronage in Africa
Linda B. Arthur, Religion, Dress and the Body
Paul Jobling, Fashion Spreads: Word and Image in Fashion Photography
Fadwa El Guindi, Veil: Modesty, Privacy and Resistance
Thomas S. Abler, Hinterland Warriors and Military Dress: European Empires and Exotic Uniforms
Linda Welters, Folk Dress in Europe and Anatolia: Beliefs about Protection and Fertility
Kim K.P. Johnson and Sharron J. Lennon, Appearance and Power
Barbara Burman, The Culture of Sewing
Annette Lynch, Dress, Gender and Cultural Change
Antonia Young, Women Who Become Men
David Muggleton, Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style
Nicola White, Reconstructing Italian Fashion: America and the Development of the Italian Fashion
Industry
Brian J. McVeigh, Wearing Ideology: The Uniformity of Self-Presentation in Japan
Shaun Cole, Don We Now Our Gay Apparel: Gay Men’s Dress in the Twentieth Century
Kate Ince, Orlan: Millennial Female
Nicola White and Ian Griffiths, The Fashion Business: Theory, Practice, Image
Ali Guy, Eileen Green and Maura Banim, Through the Wardrobe: Women’s Relationships with
their Clothes
Linda B. Arthur, Undressing Religion: Commitment and Conversion from a Cross-Cultural
Perspective
William J.F. Keenan, Dressed to Impress: Looking the Part
Joanne Entwistle and Elizabeth Wilson, Body Dressing
Leigh Summers, Bound to Please: A History of the Victorian Corset
Paul Hodkinson, Goth: Identity, Style and Subculture
Leslie W. Rabine, The Global Circulation of African Fashion
Michael Carter, Fashion Classics from Carlyle to Barthes
Sandra Niessen, Ann Marie Leshkowich and Carla Jones, Re-Orienting Fashion: The
Globalization of Asian Dress
Kim K. P. Johnson, Susan J. Torntore and Joanne B. Eicher, Fashion Foundations: Early
Writings on Fashion and Dress
Helen Bradley Foster and Donald Clay Johnson, Wedding Dress Across Cultures
Eugenia Paulicelli, Fashion under Fascism: Beyond the Black Shirt
Charlotte Suthrell, Unzipping Gender: Sex, Cross-Dressing and Culture
Irene Guenther, Nazi Chic? Fashioning Women in the Third Reich
Yuniya Kawamura, The Japanese Revolution in Paris Fashion
Patricia Calefato, The Clothed Body
Ruth Barcan, Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy
Samantha Holland, Alternative Femininities: Body, Age and Identity
Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark, Old Clothes, New Looks: Second Hand Fashion
Yuniya Kawamura, Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies
Regina A. Root, The Latin American Fashion Reader
Linda Welters and Patricia A. Cunningham, Twentieth-Century American Fashion
Jennifer Craik, Uniforms Exposed: From Conformity to Transgression
Alison L. Goodrum, The National Fabric: Fashion, Britishness, Globalization
Annette Lynch and Mitchell D. Strauss, Changing Fashion: A Critical Introduction to Trend
Analysis and Meaning
Catherine M. Roach, Stripping, Sex and Popular Culture
Marybeth C. Stalp, Quilting: The Fabric of Everyday Life
Jonathan S. Marion, Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance
Dunja Brill, Goth Culture: Gender, Sexuality and Style
Joanne Entwistle, The Aesthetic Economy of Fashion: Markets and Value in Clothing and
Modelling
Juanjuan Wu, Chinese Fashion: From Mao to Now
Brent Luvaas, DIY Style: Fashion, Music and Global Cultures
Jianhua Zhao, The Chinese Fashion Industry
Eric Silverman, A Cultural History of Jewish Dress
Karen Hansen and D. Soyini Madison, African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance
Maria Mellins, Vampire Culture
 CONTENTS

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements

1 Introducing Japanese fashion, past and present

2 Lost in a gaze: young men and fashion in contemporary Japan
3 Boy’s elegance: a liminality of boyish charm and old-world suavity
4 Glacé wonderland: cuteness, sexuality and young women
5 Ribbons and lace: girls, decorative femininity and androgyny
6 An Ivy boy and a preppy girl: style import-export
7 Concluding Japanese fashion cultures, change and continuity

Notes
References
Index
 ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
2.1 The cover of Men’s Club no. 31
3.1 High school student Musashi Rhodes wearing (a) Milkboy’s scarf tee
and (b) a shirt with studs
3.2 Teenage actor Ryutaro Akimoto looking cute in Milkboy’s bow-tie
shirt and a pair of sarouel trousers
3.3 Musashi Rhodes and Yota Tsurimoto wearing clothes from Milkboy’s
2013–14 collection
3.4 Musashi Rhodes with a ‘Neo-Edwardian’ schoolboy look, wearing a
dolman jacket, check pocket trousers and a top hat
4.1 Jun’ichi Nakahara’s illustration of a chic and lovely shōjo
4.2 Kashō Takabatake’s beautiful girl with flowers
4.3 Alisa Mizuki in ‘Town of Eden’ (1991)
4.4 Tomoko Kawase/Tommy February in ‘Bloomin’!’ (2002)
4.5 Kaela Kimura in ‘Snowdome’ (2007)
5.1 Amateur model Misako Aoki dressed in Innocent World’s Pompadour
bustle dress
5.2 Momoko and Ichigo’s first encounter
5.3 Momoko and Ichigo at ‘Forest of the Aristocrats’
5.4 Clad in a white Lolita dress, Momoko drives a scooter with a serious
mien
6.1 Bankara boys of old higher schools (kyūsei kōkō) in school uniform,
c. 1930s
6.2 ‘Miyuki Zoku’ in Tokyo, Japan

Tables
1.1 Data from the Survey of The Lifestyles and Consciousness of High
School Students
2.1 Content analysis of the three men’s magazines
2.2 Three postures of male models
3.1 BMI of Japanese young men between the ages of twenty and twenty-
nine
3.2 Body size of male models in Men’s non-no and Choki Choki
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is like a personal diary, a memory lane leading to the people I
have met and known throughout my life. It is therefore such a delight to
thank the people who have inspired me and made this book possible.
Foremost, I am deeply grateful to my excellent supervisors, mentors and
friends, Professor Meredith Jones and Professor Peter McNeil. This book
would not have been possible without their continued guidance, enthusiasm
and encouragement.
It is important to acknowledge both the Australia Postgraduate Award
Scheme and the Faculty of Design, Architecture and Built Environment
(DAB) at the University of Technology, Sydney, for offering me funding
and facilities that were quite vital to the completion of this book. I would
like to thank Ms Ann Hobson and the staff of the Faculty. I am indebted to
my former fellow students and friends in both the Faculty of Arts and
Social Sciences and DAB, who are too many to name here, for sharing this
incredible journey and making it such a convivial experience. It is also my
pleasure to acknowledge the support, generosity and advice of many
individuals, who have, whether directly or indirectly, ensured the
completion of this book. I would like to give special mention to Professor
Jaqueline Berndt, Dr Tim Edwards, Dr Lucy Fraser, Professor Alisa
Freedman, Ms Tiffany Godoy, Dr Olivier Krischer, Professor Vera Mackie,
Ms Patricia Mears, Dr Yumiko Mikanagi, Professor Laura Miller, Professor
Brian J. McVeigh, Mr Dominik Mohila, Dr Fuyubi Nakamura, Dr Ronnie
Zuessman and two anonymous readers for their valuable suggestions,
encouragement and feedback. I would also like to thank Dr Valerie Steele
and the Museum at FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology) team, Professor
Toby Slade for offering me memorable opportunities to present portions of
this book in New York and Honolulu, and my friends in Japan to whom the
foundation of my knowledge and experience in Japanese fashion and
popular culture is largely indebted.
I also thank the Whitehouse Institute of Design, Sydney, especially Dr
Melissa Laird and the wonderful design students for their kindess and
inspirations.
I thank Professor Joanne Eicher, editor of the Dress, Body, Culture series,
for her encouragement in developing this book. The Bloomsbury editorial
team deserves my heartfelt thanks for their tireless effort and assistance. I
am thankful to Ms Kathryn Earle, Ms Anna Wright, Ms Abbie Sharman,
Miss Noa Vázquez, Ms Kim Muranyi, Ms Chloe Darke, Ms Emily
Ardizzone, and especially Ms Hannah Crump.
I am grateful to Ms Hitomi, Mr Shingo Yasuda and especially Mr Kenji
Hiraoka of Milkboy for allowing me to use the splendid images for the
cover and inside illustrations. My thanks also go to Ms Kaori Hayashi
(Hearst Fujingaho Co., Ltd), Mr Ide (Adams), Mr Rui Ishizu, Ms Rikako
Nakahara (Himawariya Co., Ltd), Mr Daisuke Ota (Kyodo News
International), Ms Mariko Sato (Suzuki), Ms Mai Sakamoto (Innocent
World), Ms Asako Takabatake (The Kasho Museum) and Ms Shizue
Uchida (The Yayoi Museum), for their generosity in sourcing wonderful
images for this book.
Lastly, I wish to thank my family, particularly my grandparents Noriko
and Masaichiro, my mother Kazuyo and my sister Izumi for always
believing in me. This book is dedicated to Lino, Alise, Claire, Luca, Marius
and the one and only Norina. My new journey has just begun, and I am very
excited about what the future holds for me.

M.M. July 2014

Sydney

Note
A portion of Chapter 2 was published in Joanne Eicher (ed.), Berg
Encyclopaedia of World Dress and Fashion (2012). A portion of Chapter 3
appeared in Fashion Theory (16(3), 2012). Parts of Chapter 4 appeared in
the journal Japan Forum (Taylor and Francis, 2014), and parts of Chapter 5
were published in Fuyubi Nakamura, Morgan Perkins and Olivier Krischer
(eds), Asia Through Art and Anthropology (2013). An earlier version of
Chapter 6 appeared in Patricia Mears (ed.), Ivy Style: Radical Conformists
(Yale University Press, 2012).
 1
INTRODUCING JAPANESE
FASHION, PAST AND PRESENT

There is a certain enigmatic air surrounding the images of Japanese fashion

culture conceptualized by those ‘outside’. On one hand it is a culture ruled
by regimental uniformity and patriarchal values, perhaps best exemplified
by the figures of the ‘salaryman’ or the ‘high school student’, where
freedom of individual expression is a luxury.1 On the other hand, however,
there is a recurrent flowering of youth adorned in vivid, flamboyant fashion
styles, showcasing their creativity and individuality in such fashion
magazines as FRUiTS. The kaleidoscope of these enthralling images might
mirror certain aspects of Japanese culture. But understanding the culture
only through such extreme binaries signals a danger of creating and
sustaining an imagined ‘distance’. They are so different that they seem to be
of no relevance to non-Japanese culture. Is a fleeting trace of Orientalist
ideas, which predominantly appreciate the ‘exotic’, the ‘authentic’, and by
implication, the ‘different’ qualities of foreign culture, still present? Or are
these images and perceptions fruit of Japan’s conscious construction of pure
‘Japaneseness’ in order to differentiate the culture from any non-Japanese
cultures?2 Even as far back as 1891, Oscar Wilde wrote that ‘[t]he Japanese
people are the deliberate self-conscious creation of certain individual
artists’ and thus ‘the whole of Japan is a pure invention’.3 In either case,
clothes play a crucial role in the construction of such images and the
workings of visuality.
 In our contemporary world with its advanced media technologies, the
increased presence of Japanese popular culture outside Japan is evident. A
number of excellent studies of Japanese fashion and beauty practices have
also been published. Works such as Brian J. McVeigh’s Wearing Ideology:
State, Schooling and Self-presentation in Japan (2000), Laura Miller’s
Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics (2006),
Toby Slade’s Japanese Fashion: A Cultural History (2009) and Valerie
Steele’s Japan Fashion Now (2010) are scholarly indications of a growing
desire for a more accurate picture of the intellectual history of the subject,
while Tiffany Godoy’s Style Deficit Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion
(2007) offers a vivid picture of what is happening in the streets of Japan’s
most dazzling fashion district. Despite this notability, however, only a
selected portion of the cultural and art objects of everyday Japan have
received comprehensive scholarly attention in the English-speaking world.4
How clothes are represented in contemporary Japanese culture, such as
films, magazines and music videos, for example, remains to be studied in
great detail. This ‘absence’ has contributed to the further flow of the clichéd
images of the culture mentioned above.
With the intention of ameliorating this situation, what I demonstrate
through this book is that individuals in Japan engage with fashion in
culturally significant ways. These ways might differ from how individuals
are assumed to engage with clothes in European and American mainstream
cultures. Not only that, I argue that using the lens of fashion reveals the
complexities of gender relations in Japan. Four contemporary case studies
position this argument: young men’s fashion publications, female
performers’ use of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in music videos, Lolita fashion
and Tetsuya Nakashima’s film Shimotsuma monogatari (Kamikaze Girls,
2004), and the continuing remarking of ‘Ivy League’ style in Japan. These
four examples are notable for their adoption of historic European and
American clothing forms. Their relatively ‘mainstream’ stature in
contemporary Japanese culture comes with a ‘twist’ or unconventional
characteristics. The ‘mainstream’ standing of these types of popular culture
indicates their reach, consumed by a great number of individuals within
Japan. Certain qualities they manifest, on the other hand, impose a subtle,
almost delicate kind of revolt against a set of idées fixes surrounding the
relationship between clothes and gender. Sociologist Diana Crane has
argued that mainstream texts, which are generally directed toward large and
heterogeneous audiences, tend to be stereotypical, unlike texts with smaller
audiences. This is because ‘more stereotyped products are communicated
more readily to heterogeneous audiences with diverse backgrounds and
outlooks’.5 The subtle combination of mainstream and atypical
characteristics of the selected texts for this research is thus significant.
What needs to be recognized here is that we should avoid falling into a
simple orientalist idea that ‘they’ are ‘different’ and hence are of minor, if
any, importance to non-Japanese culture. This is because, as global
anthropologist Jan Nederveen Pieterse has convincingly argued, an
anthropological definition of culture narrates that there are no territorial
limitations of culture. It is both sharable and learnable. According to him:

Culture refers to behaviour and beliefs that are learned and shared: learned so it is not ‘instinctual’
and shared so it is not individual. Sharing refers to social sharing but there is no limitation as to the
boundaries of this sociality. No territorial or historical boundaries are implied as part of the
definition. This understanding of culture is open-ended. Leaning is always ongoing as a function of
changing circumstances and therefore culture is always open. To sharing there are no fixed
boundaries other than those of common social experience, therefore there are no territorial
limitations to culture. Accordingly culture refers as much to commonality as to diversity.6

Perhaps more cautiously than Nederveen Pieterse, dress historian Margaret

Maynard argues that, to a certain extent, clothes are ‘a form of
informational exchange’.7 If clothes operate as a form of informational
exchange, certain experiences and aesthetics of dress might be transmitted,
shared or understood cross-culturally. Japanese fashion is a good example
for looking at this hypothesis because this is where, particularly since the
country’s re-engagement with Euro-America in 1868, European sartorial
styles have been actively promoted, both politically and aesthetically.8
Consequently, Japan has become an ethnographically unique space where
the subtle marriage of European dress style and Japanese aesthetics has
taken place.
The theory of ‘format’ and ‘product’, as articulated by sociologist Keiko
Okamura, also reinforces the relevance of the study of Japanese fashion to
other cultures. This theory allows a cultural form to be seen as a ‘format’
when becoming transculturally accepted.9 This standardized ‘format’
becomes a carrier of a local culture, making its qualities visible and hence
comparable with those of other cultures. This theory, when applied to the
study of Japanese fashion, demarcates characteristics both culturally
specific to and shared by Japanese and non-Japanese cultures. In other
words, a critical examination of a range of cultural representations of
fashion and gender identity in contemporary Japan can underscore how
conceptions and representations of fashion and gender identities are
circulated in other cultures, including those of Europe, North America and
Australia. As illustrator Kazuo Hozumi states in his now classic IVY
Illustrated (1980), there is a certain degree of universality ascribed to
fashion and clothes.10 Thus, how clothes are worn, represented and
understood in the Japanese cultural context is important for understanding
non-Japanese cultures, and vice versa.
One of the prominent aspects of dress as an object of study is its ability to
amalgamate with other research matters. It could be used in order to
calibrate the ways in which our conceptions of gender manifest, or to
interpret the psychological state of a character in literature. The significance
of academically examining fashion is enhanced by ‘the cultural stereotype
that suggests that fashion has always been more closely connected with the
domain of women’.11 This cultural stereotype then renders fashion to be
‘almost automatically judged as less important, less worthy, less “great”
than more “masculine” kinds of art’.12 However, dress is, as feminist
scholar Elizabeth Wilson beautifully puts it, ‘the cultural metaphor for the
body, it is the material with which we “write” or “draw” a representation of
the body into our cultural context’.13 Indeed, representations of gender
within the four cultural arenas that this book analyses largely manifest
through, and are intertwined with, clothes. The discourses of dress in the
case studies selected for this book are, then, a vehicle for understanding
constructions of gender, identity and the Japanese cultural milieu.

Layers of Japanese aesthetic history

Dress is a useful instrument in order to calibrate Japanese cultural and
aesthetic history. For example, in the Heian court (794–1185), the art of
matching colours was especially important in men’s and women’s dress,
and a woman’s skill in selecting clothes, and particularly in combining
colours, was considered a fundamental measure in determining her
character and charm, much more important than the physical features with
which she was born.14 The colour combination of layers called ‘cherry
blossom’, for instance, was created by wearing a white kimono over a red
kimono, the layers of ‘rose plum’ consisted of a pink kimono over a
lavender or crimson one, and the layers of ‘lavender’ had a light-green
kimono beneath a pale lavender kimono.15 This cult of beauty is well
narrated in Lady Murasaki’s The Tale of Genji (eleventh century), often
noted as one of the oldest romance novels in the history of literature. In one
scene, Prince Genji becomes the centre of attention when he attends a
flower festival and demonstrates his immaculate sense of fashion:

He went to his apartments and dressed. It was very late indeed when at last he made his
appearance at the party. He was dressed in a cloak of thin Chinese fabric, white outside but lined
with yellow. His robe was of a deep wine-red colour with a very long train. The dignity and grace
with which he carried this fancifully regal attire in a company where all were dressed in plain
official robes were indeed remarkable, and in the end his presence perhaps contributed more to the
success of the party than did the fragrance of the Minister’s boasted flowers.16

Fusae Kawazoe, the scholar of Japanese literature and expert on The Tale of
Genji, writes that it would have been as mesmerizing as a beautiful young
man making his attendance to a social event wearing a pale pink dinner
jacket while the other men were dressed in sober black.17
In more recent times, schoolgirls in urban areas came under intense
attention when they started commuting by bicycles or trains to newly
established women’s schools at around the turn of the twentieth century.
With their long-sleeved arrow-feathered patterned kimono, maroon-
coloured hakama, European-style boots, and their long hair swept back and
tied with single big ribbons, these young women were dressed in a typical,
privileged schoolgirl style.18 Both the hakama and European-style shoes
were regarded as masculine items at the time, and while the government
issued an edict to prevent women from wearing men’s clothes, the modified
version of this odd combination of Japanese and European men’s attires
became the ‘uniform’ of schoolgirls in that era.19 Most of the schoolgirls of
the beginning of the last century were wealthy daughters of elite families,
and like schoolgirls today, they were typified as personifications of purity
and blossoming sexual maturity.20 On the one hand, these ‘social
princesses’ were the symbols of ‘ethereally sweet and innocent’ girlhood.
On the other hand, however, they were criticized for being embodiments of
‘moral degeneracy’, ‘sexual promiscuity’ and ‘unfavourably masculine
attitudes’.21 The latter conception was largely predicated on their
progressive and liberated behaviours, which gave them the name haikara-
san, Miss High-collar.22 Her deployment of onna-bakama (female hakama)
moreover gave these women a sense of mobility adequate for them to ride a
bicycle or play tennis without compromising their modesty.
In the Meiji (1868–1912) and Taisho (1912–26) periods, it is argued that
adoption, appropriation and restyling of European-style clothes ‘remade’
the Japanese people.23 This imposes a series of questions: can clothing
‘perform’ a particular role in contemporary Japan? Does it represent
‘identity’, as art philosopher Llewellyn Negrin proposes – ‘the way one
adorns oneself should reflect one’s values and beliefs’?24 Historians like
Ken’ichiro Hirano and Toby Slade have suggested that Japanese women
and men in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries adopted
European-style clothes at different rates. Does this suggest, then, that
Japanese women and men have profoundly different relationships to
fashion? This book implies something more subtle than simple yes or no
answers to these questions.

Dress and gender

Fashion defines and redefines the boundaries between two gender
categories, ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’.25 Clothes can also be understood
‘as the boundary between body, self and society’ and they can be used to
show acceptance, conformity to, and refusal to social expectations of
gender.26 In this reading, not only ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ clothing styles,
but ‘genderless’ or ‘androgynous’ styles, too, are placed on the poles of a
continuum of ‘gendered’ looks, for they are defined against the two gender
categories.27 In a converse reading, this points to the ‘constructed’ and
‘crafted’ nature of what we come to understand as ‘masculinity’ and
‘femininity’. The theory of gender performativity, made famous by post-
structuralist philosopher and scholar Judith Butler, comes immediately to
mind. Gender, this theory argues, is not a stable fact but something we
imagine and construct. Butler considers gender as a collective performance
that is designed primarily to sustain the legitimacy of heterosexuality,
punishing those who fail to perform their ‘gender’ roles correctly.28
Conventional masculinity and femininity, or the ‘gender reality’ as Butler
calls it, are therefore created through sustained and repeated social
performances. This means that:

[t]he very notions of an essential sex and a true or abiding masculinity or femininity are also
constituted as part of the strategy that conceals gender’s performative character and the
performative possibilities for proliferating gender configurations outside the restricting frames of
masculinist domination and compulsory heterosexuality.29

The theory of gender performativity therefore denounces the absolute

distinction between the two gender categories. It might be too extreme, and
in a sense too simplistic, to reduce the whole existence of gender identity to
a construction and fabrication. Biological differences between men and
women, for example, should not be disregarded when examining gender.30
In relation to socio-biological perspectives on ‘masculinity’, social work
scholar Bob Pease also states that ‘[i]n rejecting biological determinism, we
have to be careful not to replace it with cultural determinism’. Thus, gender
identity could be much more complex than either thoroughly biologically
determined or culturally constructed. Accordingly, dress anthropologist
Joanne B. Eicher is right in saying, ‘[o]bviously, both men and women have
sexed bodies and gendered dress in every society.’31 That being said,
Butler’s idea that (the conventional ideas of) gender is largely performative,
and indeed relies on collective performances, is highly useful. This is
particularly so when we consider that in reality, not every male acts or
behaves strictly according to the conventional idea of ‘masculinity’, while
not every female acts or behaves accordingly to the conventions of
‘femininity’. Dress is, quite patently, one of the most crucial elements both
supporting and revealing the performance of gender.
Clothes are a fundamental component in the sustenance of ‘gender’
performance because they are ‘one of the most immediate and effective
examples of the way in which bodies are gendered, made “feminine” or
“masculine”’.32 Indeed, children and even adults tend to distinguish gender
not by individuals’ actual biological gender, but by their dress or
appearance.33 The sartorial distinctions between men and women are
moreover not always kept transparent in the European history of dress.34
Modern sartorial distinctions between men and women in Europe were
increasingly accentuated in the Victorian period, when ‘the renunciation of
decoration on the part of men is contrasted with the increasing fussiness of
women’s dress’.35 Anne Hollander offers a possible explanation – that the
early nineteenth century witnessed the emergence of the Romantic
movement, which required patent differences between the two gender
categories. She also suggests that fashion in the periods when male and
female sartorial styles were kept distinct from each other (e.g. in 1380 or
1680, 1850 or 1950), illuminates two points.36 Firstly, men and women in
such periods were compelled to express ‘a very clear sense of distance from
the other one’, which was often endorsed by laws and penalties.37 Secondly,
and more importantly, this would usually emerge ‘when the visual
differences between men’s and women’s clothes [were] actually in a new
state of confusion, and fashion [was] beginning to bring the sexes closer
together after having sharply divided them’.38
Hollander’s theory endorses the cultural and socio-psychological
proposition that gender is a cultural or social construction, an imaginative
necessity for which clothes are used as a primary device to demarcate such
differences. Since the subjects of this book are Japanese, it is useful and
logical to see how sartorial distinctions between the two gender categories
have been manifested in the history of Japanese clothing. The Japanese
history of dress before the country ‘reopened’ to Euro-America in the 1860s
also demonstrates the instability of gender differences. The rich history of
Japanese clothes would require no less than a whole book to explore fully,
and thus I refer briefly to only a portion of it in the present setting.39
Wearing gender in Japan
The Chinese-influenced clothing styles for men and women in the seventh
century did not differ significantly. ‘Men and women wore a similar upper
body garment and ceremonial skirt. Beneath this skirt, men wore trousers,
while women wore another long skirt that Japanese call a mo.’40 In the
Heian court when Japan closed its door to Chinese influences, sartorial
differences between noble men and women, let alone between social classes
and ranks, became relatively more visible.41 Although sartorial sensibilities
were a requirement of both men and women in the period, men’s clothes
were less elaborate in shape than women’s.42 Court ladies’ ceremonial
robes consisted of several layers of unlined kimono worn one over the
other, taking great sensitivity to ‘match and contrast the colors of each
layer, which were visible at the neck, sleeve ends and lower skirt … Worn
underneath were an under-kimono and a hakama.’43 Further difference was
marked by the great length of women’s hair.
Anthropologist Liza Dalby’s work on kimono still gives some useful
insights into the intricate relationship between gender and kimono. Dalby
argues that the most significant historical change in the kimono form
occurred during the Muromachi period (1336–1573), when women ceased
to wear trouser-like hakama altogether, triggering the refashioning of
kosode from calf-length to ankle level.44 Once a Japanese version of
chemise, kosode now became a prototype of today’s kimono. The shape of
kosode in the early Edo period was identical for both sexes.45 But the first
stylistic ramification of kosode seemingly occurred in the late 1660s, when
the sleeves of women’s kosode grew longer. A sleeve of eighteen inches
(approximately 46 cm) was considered furisode (women’s kosode with long
‘fluttering’ sleeves) in the late 1660s. They reached more than thirty inches
(75 cm) long in the Genroku period (1688–1703), after only two decades
since the lengthening of the kosode’s sleeves began, possibly showcasing
the luxurious aspects of life in this period.46
It seems that the Japanese history of kimono per se tells the defining and
redefining process of gender boundaries, sometimes closing and sometimes
demarcating the distinction. Significantly, sartorial distinctions between
social class and age were as important as gender in the Japanese history of
kimono. These distinctions were manifested through not only forms but also
colours, patterns and textiles. Fabrics seem to have attracted the strongest
interest throughout Japanese history.47 In the Edo period, however, people
in the merchant class would incorporate the styles embraced by either court
people, kabuki actors or courtesans, making dress further complicated. Any
discussion of dress in the Edo period needs to take into account the
existence of sumptuary laws, which were issued primarily to maintain status
distinctions in the period, especially in order to distinguish the samurai
class from chōnin (townsmen, often used to describe both artisans and
merchants), who were often richer than but socially inferior to samurai.48
The laws were difficult to enforce. Scholar of Japanese literature and
culture Donald H. Shively notes that the sumptuary laws in the early Edo
period possibly received respect only for a short period after their issue, and
that infractions slowly became more patent and more radical.49 Apart from
overtly infracting the laws, it was a secret pleasure for both men and
women to wear fancy, expensive loincloths throughout the Edo period, and
for merchants to use finer silk materials for the linings of otherwise simple
kimono, as ways of subterfuge.50
Dalby alludes to a significant aspect of the relationship between garments
and gender in the Genroku period. According to her, the mixing of male and
female in the world of fashion was a facet of Genroku culture, where ‘men
borrowed styles from women just as women copied fads from men’51 – for
example, the on-and-off stage styles of kabuki actors specializing in
women’s roles:

served as showcases for original kosode patters, hairstyles, and ways of tying the obi.52 These
styles in turn inspired the wardrobes of townswomen. In effect, women strove to copy men who
were mimicking women. Furthermore, certain female dancers … and a specialized subset of
prostitutes called wakashū jorō played on the popularity of the stylish young men by reproducing
their mode as faithfully as possible. These creatures were women taken for men who wished to be
taken as women.53

Dalby assures us that there would have been subtle cues for the
contemporary Genroku dwellers in order to distinguish the gender of these
people. This also indicates that as in the European history of dress, the
Japanese history of fashion has alluded to the rather precarious affairs of
gender and fashion.
Keeping in mind this delicate relationship between gender and clothes,
this book poses a series of arguments, namely: that the sense of
ambivalence attached to the relationship between men and fashion reflects
the unstable nature of ‘masculinity’; representations of (young) women
through established multiple binaries of sexualization, subservience and
(masculinist) assertiveness allude to the regulation of women’s fashion; and
that senses of autonomy and independence are likely to be woven into
female sartorial ornamentation, thus repudiating the idea that such a style is
symbolic of dependency and subservience. Through reviewing these points,
I hope to unearth a set of paradigms concerning gender and clothes, which
might invert or even subvert these preconceptions.
Cultures concerning Japanese youth are an ideal site to investigate this
proposition. This idea is reinforced by a survey conducted by the Japan
Youth Research Institute in 2004, in which around 1,000 high school
students each from China, Japan, South Korea and the United States
participated.54 This survey indicated that contrary to participants of the
other nations, about 40 per cent or less of Japanese participants answered
either ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ agree to the questions of ‘Do you think
women should be feminine?’ and ‘Do you think men should be
masculine?’.
It is too early to draw a conclusion from one survey, and the aim here is
not to read this survey result as reflecting general social attitudes. What
‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ attributes connote could moreover be different
across cultures. However, the results seem to suggest that Japanese young
people may be affected by conventional gender expectations and
restrictions, perhaps much less significantly than they are assumed to be.
Representations of gender in aspects of mainstream Japanese culture further
endorse this perspective.
In their studies of girls’ manga culture, Japanese literature and cultural
studies scholars Susan J. Napier and Anne Allison articulate a possibility
that (girlish) femininity, asexuality and agency could be compatible. Napier
suggests that ‘all aspects of the female persona have a far wider play in
Japanese popular culture than they do in the West’.55 As for young men,
linguistic anthropologist Laura Miller, in her observation of male beauty
practice in contemporary Japan, finds that they appear considerably
‘androgynous’ and are sensitive towards the female gaze and evaluation of
their appearance.56 Although they may not automatically indicate the
flourishing of gender egalitarianism in Japan, such interpretations of gender
representations should contribute to our picture of the culture. If
contemporary Japanese popular culture can offer ‘innovative’
representations of gender, as authors such as Napier and Miller have
demonstrated, can they also offer new ways in which clothes and gender are
represented?

Table 1.1 Data from the Survey of the Lifestyles and Consciousness of High
School Students by the Japan Youth Research Institute (2004, Survey
period: September to October 2003)
Women should be feminine
Japan USA China South Korea
Completely agree 5.8 17.3 34.0 16.5
Somewhat agree 22.6 40.7 37.4 31.2
Somewhat disagree 45.0 28.1 21.2 36.9
Completely disagree 26.5 6.4 5.8 15.0
No Response 0.1 7.5 1.4 0.6
Men should be masculine
Japan USA China South Korea
Completely agree 13.2 21.2 44.8 21.6
Somewhat agree 30.2 42.4 36.3 33.3
Somewhat disagree 35.0 24.6 13.1 31.1
Completely disagree 21.6 4.6 4.0 13.6
No Response 0.0 7.3 1.7 0.5

Interlaced flows of culture: seeing Japanese

fashion globally
The book pays particular attention to the relationship of past and present. It
examines contemporary Japanese fashion trends that adopt and restyle
European and American historical clothing forms: the Edwardian dandy
style, Victorian little girls’ dresses, the rococo and Romantic dress typical
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Ivy style. It needs to be
acknowledged that there is another important way of looking at the
Japanese adaptations of those styles. For instance, these clothing forms may
refer to Japanese cultural texts such as manga and animation, which are
already circulating within Japanese cultural discourse, rather than directly
to specific period and clothing models of European and American histories.
It is arguable, however, that these cultural examples per se indicate, at least
to a certain degree, the influences of these Euro-American clothing styles.57
This highlights the importance of investigating the relationship between
Euro-American clothing forms from the past and contemporary Japanese
fashion culture. Looking at the appropriation process of European and
American clothing styles in a Japanese cultural context, it is almost
inevitable that the issue of cultural globalization arises. This is a diverse and
complex area of study, needing dedicated research that I cannot offer here.
Thus, my reference to it in this present book is rather limited.
When the presence of Japanese culture becomes known outside the East
Asian context, its ‘Japanese’ qualities are often emphasized. This is
particularly visible in the world of high fashion, as dress curator Patricia
Mears highlights. In her study of Japanese designers Rei Kawakubo and
Yohji Yamamoto, Mears writes that when they address international
audiences, Japanese designers tend to be perceived as sharing identical
aesthetic visions, for ‘modern Japanese fashion has often been viewed less
as the result of individual designers’ efforts than as a form of collective
expression’.58 This emphasis on the ‘Japaneseness’ relates to the process of
‘othering’. By articulating the complexity of cross-cultural influences
present in high fashion scenes, fashion sociologist Lise Skov argues that:

It is especially ironical that the ‘Japanese fashion’ has been interpreted with reference to simplistic
ideas of Japanese culture, because of the way the style was worn, exactly as a marker of
individualism. Hence, one of the meanings of ‘Japan’ in Western consumer culture seemed to be
an ‘otherness’ inside people’s minds, made visible through austere dress.59
This ‘othering’ theory is closely associated with the field of postcolonial
theory. Leela Gandhi, in her postcolonial studies, argues that ‘othering’ of
culture is important for Orientalist theorists. Those theorists often accuse
formerly colonized countries of being too ‘modernized’ and ‘Westernized’.
This is because these countries are, for them, no longer ‘otherable’.60 Japan
is another culture that is frequently subjected to this ‘othering’ process by
Euro-American perspectives. This is because Japan has frequently been
regarded as the first ‘non-Western’ culture to have achieved a degree of
‘modernity’. Modernity is generally believed to be only achievable by ‘the
West’, and ‘if the Japanese are able to achieve modernity, then the
distinction between “the West” and “non-West” will disappear’.61
Therefore, Japan ‘can no longer be handled simply as an imitator or mimic
of western modernity’.62 Needless to say, the ‘othering’ process may also
be initiated by ‘non-Western’ cultures, too.63 In any case, this ‘us’ versus
‘them’ logic is often constructed in order to serve a particular purpose, to
define their identity and achieve a feeling of ‘superiority’ over other
cultures. As the works of Mears and Skov suggest, the difficulty of ‘non-
Western’ cultures in being understood and accepted globally without a
sense of ‘otherness’ is highlighted.
As theorists of social-cultural approaches have indicated, ‘global’ and
‘local’ cultures interact instead of one infiltrating the other.64 Cultural
globalization is about cross-cultural interaction, appropriation and
hybridization where transcultural forms circulate in more than one
direction. This book builds upon and enhances that idea. When a
transnational cultural form is appropriated and restyled, it might involve a
creative process of engendering a novel form. Rather than merely being a
substandard imitation of the ‘original’ global culture, this restyled form can
be both creative and refined. Japanese adoption of European dress forms,
then, can be much more complex than an allusion to uniform, global
culture. In order to calibrate this idea effectively, I refer to the theory of
‘format’ and ‘product’ at various stages in this book.
The important point to consider in this argument is that the ‘format’,
which becomes transnational, does not always originate from European and
American cultures.65 This becomes a persuasive idea when one thinks about
‘Third World Music’. Different music genres, which have originated from
the non-West, ‘may become world city music, and then world music’ as a
consequence of being played by local musicians around the world with their
own arrangements and interpretations.66 Thus, theoretically, a transnational
culture can originate from any culture. These intellectual concerns will be
addressed through examining the cultural uses of fashion within Japanese
cultural texts, namely films, publications, blogs and music videos. What is
the relationship between reality and representation? Since this book
concerns analysis of representations of gender and clothes in cultural texts,
it is logical to pose this question.

Reflections and distortions: representations as a

source for study
The accuracy and effectiveness of cultural forms as a source for research
might be debatable. Art and dress historian Christopher Breward has noted
that:

until very recently, social and economic historians have retained a profound suspicion of fiction
and artistic representation as a source, while dress historians have plundered the surfaces of novels
and paintings too uncritically for depictions of historical appearances.67

Likewise, fashion and design historian Peter McNeil, in relation to dress in

art, warns that art does not express straightforward truths, and thereby we
should not seek in art depictions of historical appearances too uncritically.68
Needless to say, neither fictional art objects such as films nor fashion
merely mirror the actual world that first gave birth to them. According to
the scholar of English literature Elisabeth Bronfen:

One cannot speak of an ‘essential’ self preceding the social and cultural construction of the self
through the agency of representations. Cultural practices are defined as signifying systems, as sites
for the production of representations which are not to be equated with beautiful things evoking
beautiful feelings. The word representation, Griselda Pollock notes, ‘stresses that images and texts
are no mirrors of the world, merely reflecting their source. Representation stresses something
 refashioned, coded in rhetorical, textual or pictorial terms, quite distinct from its social
existence’.69

It can be deduced from these authors that representations do not merely

mirror the actual world that first gave birth to them; they also reflect
refashioned images, intertwined with consciously constructed or
manipulated ideals of the world. Moreover, mediated productions often
provide a selective representation of a certain society and its multiple
ideologies.70 This means that the representations of a society in media and
cultural texts could possibly be selected and distorted, mirroring both the
reality and ideology of that certain society. This sentiment is also found in
the scholarship of dress. For example, art historian and philosopher Ulrich
Lehmann states that:

we cannot expect to ascertain historical facts merely from looking at clothes. This is not to say that
no factual interpretation is possible; yet fashion will always remain too transient and ephemeral to
simply explain historic causality—though its changes are very often anticipated. Obviously, a
sartorial style at, for example, a certain point in the nineteenth century might be regarded as a
reflection of contemporary society. But because of its transcendent autonomy it can never be seen
as simply mirroring that society; instead, it projects forward.71

In this book, I concur with what sociologists Crane (1992) and Robert C.
Bulman (2005) assert. Crane argues that what the media portray is not
merely a reflection of real life in society or how people perceive it, but
instead ‘cultural producers in each medium shape content as a function of
the ways in which they continually define and redefine their audiences’.72
In other words, the intentions of the creators and producers to attract and
capture the attention of their ‘target’ audiences, which Crane argues are the
fundamental force of media representations, are (at least partially) reflective
of a real life in society where their audiences dwell. Acknowledging these
intellectual concerns that are suspicious of the adequacy of cultural forms as
a source for research, Bulman also suggests that it is nevertheless
worthwhile to examine representations of society, and hence reality through
cultural productions, in his case films. He suggests that although films do
not present a whole reality, they ‘[b]oth reflect and shape culture’.73 Films,
he argues, have ‘the cultural power to influence how members of a society
make sense of social life … Films teach us who we are as much as they
reflect who we are’.74 In this sense, the compound of the constructed ideals,
biases or distortions demonstrated in cinema themselves are part of the
society or culture that first produced them. If this sentiment can be read as
reflecting cultural texts in general, then I assert that studying clothes and
gender identity through such texts is legitimate.
The significance of clothes in literary texts is moreover endorsed by the
idea that clothes themselves are nearly always animated and understood by
a body. In other words, fashion and its aesthetic existence cannot be
understood as an isolated product or cultural form unless it is actually being
worn.75 It might be extreme to argue that clothes have no significant
aesthetic existence unless they are being worn. But since ‘the clothes
themselves are only complete when animated by a body’, they are always
animated and understood through other genres from literature to film, from
music video to magazine, from classical ballet to museum-going.76 For that
reason I would argue that it is worthwhile to observe dress through cultural
texts rather than, for instance, to study it through the garments themselves.
In so doing, I attempt to bring cultural and media studies sensibility to a
fashion studies tradition and to bring the rich empirical data of cultural texts
into the realm of fashion history.
One of the limitations of this book is that it has focused on a very small
portion of contemporary Japanese popular culture. There are a variety of
styles present in contemporary Japan; some of them might suggest opposite
arguments to the ones this book deduces. Furthermore, since this book
focuses solely on representations of clothes in Japanese popular culture, I
state that it is neither a work of ethnography nor a comprehensive study of
lived experience. Rather, I choose certain texts that have resonance among a
wide cross-section of Japanese youth. Therefore, I do not profess that the
ways in which Japanese individuals or styles are represented in the given
cultural forms might be representatives of other individuals in the culture. It
is nonetheless worthwhile to study how these particular groups of
individuals and art forms have been represented within the given narrative
texts. This is because they are likely to represent a particular part of the
whole reality.
 One might also wonder why I use theories predominantly developed in
the canons of European and American intellectual tradition, when this
book’s subjects are first and foremost Japanese. It is part of my aim to
calibrate how these theories do or do not apply to the Japanese cultural
context. As mentioned previously, the anthropological definition of culture
is both sharable and learnable across cultures. Likewise, greater historical
affinities between, for instance, Europe and Asia than Europe and North
America are also noted.77 Apparently Wilde was right by, quite ironically,
saying: ‘[t]he actual people who live in Japan are not unlike the general run
of English people.’78 My aim to study contemporary Japanese clothing
culture by using the theories of European, American and Japanese
scholarship is thus justified. A brief guide to the journey of this book is as
follows.

Tracing chapters
Chapter 2, ‘Lost in a gaze: young men and fashion in contemporary Japan’,
focuses on a group of contemporary fashion magazines targeted at young
men in Japan. It offers content analysis of three magazines, with particular
attention to their prioritization of fashion over lifestyle contents and the
specific age demographic of the readership. This chapter seeks to establish
the idea that these magazines’ emphasis on the necessity of taking care of
one’s appearance endorses, for the male readership, the importance of being
subjected to other people’s gaze.
Chapter 3, ‘Boy’s elegance: a liminality of boyish charm and old-world
suavity’, examines men’s fashion publications further, with particular
attention to the magazines’ deployment of non-Asian models, alongside
Japanese and Eurasian models. By using the theory of ‘format’ and
‘product’, this chapter focuses on the transcultural difference in the manners
of conceiving modes of preferred male aesthetics, which these models
highlight. With short case studies of the boyish reinvention of the ‘Neo-
Edwardian’ dandy style in Japan, and renowned menswear label Milkboy,
the chapter also seeks to establish the idea that stylishly elegant, youthful
and sophisticated styles serve as an alternative to the established,
‘hegemonic’ mode of Japanese masculinity.
Chapter 4, ‘Glacé wonderland: cuteness, sexuality and young women’,
explores a group of music videos in which female Japanese pop singers
adapt and appropriate the imagery of Lewis Carroll’s famous heroine,
Alice. The emphasis in these videos is on the singers’ girlish, cute, almost
infantile appearances, mostly constructed through their choices of clothing.
I argue that these performers offer an innovative representation of youthful
femininity in terms of a negotiation between ‘infantile’ cuteness (kawaii)
and forceful independence. This chapter also shows that these Japanese
performers enact this innovation through an implicit parody of the sweet
and innocent mode of girlish femininity once ascribed to Japanese female
pop idols. Further, I explore how the ‘cute’ fashion displayed in these music
videos possibly problematizes the established multiple binaries of
sexualization, assertiveness and subservience in which women tend to be
represented, particularly in (but not exclusive to) Euro-American cultural
contexts.
Chapter 5, ‘Ribbons and lace: girls, decorative femininity and
androgyny’, deals with Tetsuya Nakashima’s film adaptation of Novala
Takemoto’s novel Shimotsuma monogatari (2004) and its representation of
Japanese Lolita style, a lavishly flounced and self-conscious girlish fashion
with references to European rococo and Romantic traditions. This chapter
argues that Shimotsuma monogatari, via its predominantly positive
representation of Lolita fashion, offers an alternative to the somewhat
monolithic idea that amalgamates decorative girlish fashion and
unfavourable passivity. This in turn reinforces one facet of the theory of
gender performativity, that a young woman can ‘perform’ both ‘masculine’
and ‘feminine’ acts alternately, while being clad in the same dress adorned
with flounces and ribbons. Indeed, this ‘androgynous’ representation
renders the very idea of performative gender effectively and credibly.
In Chapter 6, ‘An Ivy boy and a preppy girl: style import-export’,
through a short study of the ‘Ivy style’, I try to unite the two principal
arguments made in this book: that transnational appropriation of culture
reflects local characteristics and the presence of reverse flows of culture,
and fashion acts on both men and women equally. It re-emphasizes the
importance of recognizing the fluid nature of fashion, as well as its ability
to affect individuals regardless of their gender and nationality.
‘Concluding Japanese Fashion Cultures, Change and Continuity’
summarizes and rounds up the main arguments.
 2
LOST IN A GAZE: YOUNG MEN
AND FASHION IN
CONTEMPORARY JAPAN

‘Do you understand muslins, sir?’

‘Particularly well; I always buy my own cravats, and am allowed to be
an excellent judge; and my sister has often trusted me in the choice of a
gown. I bought one for her the other day, and it was pronounced to be a
prodigious bargain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard
for it, and a true Indian muslin.’
Mrs Allen was quite struck by his genius. ‘Men commonly take so little
notice of those things,’ said she: ‘I can never get Mr Allen to know one of
my gowns from another. You must be a great comfort to your sister, sir.’
‘I hope I am, madam.’
‘How can you,’ said Catherine, laughing, ‘be so—’ she had almost said,
strange.
—JANE AUSTEN, Northanger Abbey, 1818.1

Written nearly two centuries ago, Jane Austen’s delightful parody of gothic
novels implies two important strands of the debates surrounding dress and
gender, which are significantly current to this day. As the quoted dialogue
that opened this chapter outlines, a young man of twenty-six, as embodied
by Henry Tilney, could have a keen eye for fashion and clothes. Such an
open demonstration of a man’s fashion consciousness, however, might be
perceived as rather unusual even in the Regency period where Austen’s
imagination operated. This is because, in the words of Mrs Allen, ‘men
commonly take so little notice of those things’. Have our conceptions of
gender and clothes radically been revised after 200 years? The answer, I
believe, is rather mixed. It is common knowledge that men can be as
fashion-minded as women, and most scholarly examinations of dress and
sociology have proved this. Histories of dress, including European and
Japanese, suggest that in some periods, sartorial distinctions between men
and women were rather subtle. In other periods, men could be adorned with
ornaments as much as women were. Yet in modern times, men’s
fashionability comes with a sense of suspicion and ambivalence,
particularly in mainstream popular culture. Not only that, there is a set of
widely circulated preconceptions regarding ways in which men are assumed
to engage with fashion. That is, men display less interest in fashion then
women do, and they dress for functionality over aesthetics. The
overflowing presence of Japanese men’s magazines almost purely dedicated
to concerns on fashion, we might think then, certainly gives a different
picture of the relationship between men and fashion.
Readers unfamiliar with contemporary Japanese media might be puzzled
by the appearance of men in fashion magazines. This is particularly the case
for images of young men whose almost narcissistic concerns over their
appearance and slender physicality are seemingly presented as requirements
for romantic desirability and attractiveness.2 Since Japanese men’s fashion
magazines offer significantly lavish sources for the study of images of
contemporary Japanese masculinity, I dedicate two chapters to the subject.
In this chapter I argue that a complex and overlapping series of aesthetic
priorities and interests captivate young male consumers in contemporary
Japan. A rich study of subjectivity and aesthetics might be made via these
Japanese men’s magazines, where male aesthetic sensitivities at a cultural
level and ‘the self’ might be understood in different terms than they are in
many Euro-American cultures. This is particularly evident in these
magazines’ acceptance of and even a pedagogy around men becoming the
object of the appraising gaze, a status that has conventionally been assigned
to women in Euro-American cultural contexts, regardless of their will.3 On
the contrary, in Japanese culture, not only women but men too have been
regarded as the object of the gaze.4 This chapter draws upon that
hypothesis. I argue that these magazines illuminate a group of Japanese
young men who are in the position to be the object of the gaze. Importantly,
positive evaluations of their appearance can enhance these young men’s
self-assurance.
This chapter is divided into three sections. The first section gives a
general overview of contemporary Japanese men’s fashion magazines, with
particular focus on three selected magazines, Popeye, Men’s non-no and
Fineboys. The second section offers a content analysis of three Japanese
men’s fashion magazines, with particular attention to their prioritization of
fashion over lifestyle contents and the specific age demographic of their
readerships. This section also looks at characteristics such as amateur
models (dokusha models) and fictional narratives, which help maintain an
extreme sensitivity to social change and trends as well as a social affinity
between the readership and the contents that the magazines endorse. The
final section seeks to establish the idea that these magazines’ emphasis on
the necessity of taking care of appearance, which is a requirement to render
a fine impression, endorses for men the importance of looking pleasant to
others and for themselves.

Reading men’s fashion: a brief history of Japanese

men’s fashion magazines
A young man, about the age of eighteen, is sitting at the poolside, dipping
his willowy right foot in the glistening emerald-green water. His delicate,
boyish face with a faint smile is also slightly turned away, again with the
gaze drifting far into the distance. He is attired in a short-sleeved, grey
check shirt with white collar, buttoned up to the neck, and a pair of tight-
fitting, knee-length black shorts. A black-and-white striped tie cascades
gracefully down his beautifully pressed shirt. The genres of young women’s
fashion magazines or romantic Hollywood cinema are where we might
assume these suave men dwell. Yet these images, just like the cover of this
book, are what you encounter when looking at a group of Japanese fashion
magazines targeted at young men, predominantly heterosexual.
 As elsewhere, clothing and cosmetic regimes are recurrent interests in
Japanese fashion magazines. A shade of uniqueness is added, though, to the
‘gendered’ distribution of the contents – that is, these interests are located in
magazines targeting both women and men. Sociologist John Clammer, in
his study of contemporary Japanese print media and representations of the
female body, briefly refers to men’s magazines as follows:

Interestingly, men’s magazines such as Fine Boys [sic] are the almost exact masculine counterpart
of female fashion magazines, full of images of the young male body, advice on hair, clothes, skins,
diet, and accessories. And all this, almost absent in the western media, is aimed at decidedly
heterosexual men. The parallels in the print media for women and for men are remarkable.5

It should be noted that Clammer’s comments are now more than fifteen
years old, and the validity of his comparison between Japanese and
Anglophone magazines may no longer apply. That being said, Clammer’s
quote illustrates the particularity of Japanese men’s magazines. This is
especially notable in relation to their approaches to men’s fashion and
beauty consumption, which, I contend, reflect the images of the highly
fashion-conscious men widely circulated in contemporary Japan.
Throughout this chapter, I argue that a group of Japanese men’s fashion
magazines offer a firm example that male fashionability can be interlaced
with ‘masculine’ identity. The significance of analysing magazines
targeting male readership lies in the possibility that representations of
‘masculinity’ found in magazines might both reflect and shape certain
ideals and ideas of fashion and gender. Further research on the readership
and their reception would surely be necessary in order to argue how these
representations are actually consumed and interact with the male readership
of the magazines. However, from this it can also be deduced that a
collection of Japanese men’s fashion magazines at least allow calibration of
the ways in which Japanese conceptions of male fashionability are
manifested.

Japanese men’s fashion periodicals: past and

present
Although there has been a decline in magazine sales recently,6 the Japanese
magazine market is known to be very dynamic.7 A category of fashion
magazines targeted at men, for instance, exemplifies this crowdedness;
currently about 40 fashion magazines targeted primarily at men are sold
monthly in Japan.8 Since market categorization, by gender, interests, tastes
and age, is very specific in Japan: ‘the Japanese magazine market is
overclassified’.9 Accordingly, only a tiny selection of magazines has been
selected for the primary subject of this chapter: Popeye, launched in 1976;
Men’s non-no, launched in 1986 first as a special, male edition of non-no, a
fashion magazine for young women still popular now; and Fineboys,
launched in 1986. These three monthly magazines are selected via four
commonalities.
Firstly, they have an established, mainstream stature. Popeye has been on
the market for more than thirty-five years, while Fineboys and Men’s non-
no maintain their popularity. As of 30 September 2013, the three magazines
occupied seventh (Men’s non-no), eighth (Popeye) and eleventh (Fineboys)
place in the category of men’s business magazines in Bunkyō-dō’s online
magazine ranking, competing with other men’s fashion and non-fashion
magazines alike.10 The three magazines had average readerships of 173,334
(Men’s non-no), 114,100 (Fineboys) and 49,084 (Popeye) respectively in
2011–12.11
Secondly, they target young men in their late teens to early twenties,
particularly those who are in college. According to Fineboys’ own survey
conducted in 2007, 69 per cent of its male readers are aged between
eighteen and twenty-one, 55 per cent are university students and 10 per cent
are vocational college students.12 It has also become an annual convention
for Men’s non-no and Popeye to include a feature about business suits in
their April issues, clearly intended for those who are finishing school and
about to enter the next stage of their career, assumedly as office workers.
Thirdly, they focus on similar neat and conservative styles of kireime
(neat) or high-casual fashion; and fourthly, they have an almost complete
absence of images of eroticized women, or sexually explicit materials.
I will return to look at all of these characteristics in more detail. My
analysis of these magazines is primarily based on the issues released
between May 2007 and June 2008. However, in order to keep abreast of the
currency of these magazines, newer editions of the magazines have also
been acquired and are analysed where possible.
The history of contemporary Japanese men’s fashion magazine began
with Otokono fukushoku (Men’s Fashion, later renamed Men’s Club, Figure
2.1).
The magazine was published in 1954 by Fujingahou-sha, as the first
Japanese young men’s magazine for prêt-à-porter clothes as opposed to
Danshi senka (Men’s Special Course, 1950–93), a magazine predominantly
focused on bespoke clothing, which was targeted at tailors.13 Still popular
as a chic and sophisticated men’s fashion magazine, Men’s Club at its
beginning was particularly well known for its close ties with the Japanese
version of ‘Ivy League’ style, a fashion style inspired by students of
American Ivy League universities in the 1950s and 1960s, and the Japanese
brand VAN. The current form of Japanese fashion magazines targeted at
young individuals is said to have begun with an an, a young women’s
lifestyle magazine published by Heibon-sha (now Magazinehouse). The
magazine was launched in 1970, initially targeting Japan’s first baby-
boomers.14 This young women’s lifestyle magazine was born as a female
equivalent of Japanese men’s lifestyle magazine Heibon Punch (published
from 1964 until the late 1980s) and as a Japanese edition of Elle magazine.
an an, along with its follower and competitor non-no (launched in 1971 by
Shūei-sha), marked a shift from young women’s main roles as housewives
and mothers ‘towards a focus on women as consumers of fashion and
luxury items’.15 Its consumption and visual-oriented contents, with a
significant emphasis on advertisements, have set various trends relevant not
only to women’s but also to men’s magazines.16
Popeye, a magazine for ‘city boys’ with an emphasis on subcultural
lifestyle with neat, sporty West Coast American fashions, was launched in
1976 by Magazinehouse. Popeye boys, who were believed to be influenced
by the magazine and the styles it offered, came to symbolize the Japanized
‘Ivy’ style in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with a polo shirt and a pair of
golf trousers as their signature look.17 1986 saw a boom in young men’s
fashion, which coincided with the launches of such men’s fashion
magazines as Men’s non-no (Shūei-sha) and Fineboys (Hinode-shuppan).18
 After the launch of these magazines, Japan witnessed the rise and fall of
many men’s fashion magazines: Hot-Dog Press (Kōdan-sha, 1979–2004),
Mr. High Fashion (Bunka-shuppan, 1980–2003), smart (Takarajima-sha,
1995–), BiDAN (Index communications, 1996–2010, renamed B-St. in
2010), Street Jack (Bestsellers, 1997–), men’s egg (Taiyou-tosho, 1999–
2013), Choki Choki (Naigai-shuppan, 2000–), Men’s Joker (KK bestsellers,
2004–), Men’s Knuckle (Million-shuppan, 2004–) and so forth. These attest
to Japanese men’s high degree of interest in appearance and fashion
consumption.
As we have seen, Clammer has noted that magazines targeted at
heterosexual men that are filled with appearance-related images and other
content are rare in Western media. It might be a debatable statement today,
but in Anglophone culture, there is still a sense of ambivalence shown when
appreciating male beauty.19 Actually, the emphasis of these Japanese
publications is highlighted by the prevalent assumption in contemporary
Anglo-Western culture that men prioritize functionality over aesthetics. In
other words, men are assumed not to be affected by the ‘frivolity’ of
fashion, but only dress for necessity. A considerable number of scholars
such as Elizabeth Wilson, Joanne Entwistle, Sean Nixon and Christopher
Breward have challenged this idée fixe, claiming that men have been
affected by fashion as much as women. Arguably, the recurrence of such a
debate implies the persistence of the idea that men’s ‘lack’ of concern with
clothes defines their ‘masculine’ identities.
Figure 2.1 The cover of Men’s Club no. 31, published in 1963 by Fujingahosha, currently Hearst
Fujingaho Co., Ltd. Courtesy of Ishizu Office/Masakatsu Ide.

Breward has proved that even during the time of ‘the Great Masculine
Renunciation’ around the beginning of the nineteenth century, when men
were supposed to have relinquished sartorial flamboyancy or ornamentation
in favour of more ‘austere’ clothing, British men continued, albeit being
largely ignored, to be loyal and active consumers of sartorial items.20 For
instance, the forms of men’s dress associated with leisure pursuits such as
weekend or holiday clothing in the late nineteenth century allowed more
opportunities for the display of individual taste based on the choice of
accessories, textures and colours.21 Breward sees this ‘concealment’ of
men’s affairs with clothes, which was still sustained even in the 1990s, as
deliberate. In accordance with the view of fashion as an entirely feminized
phenomenon, male fashionability in late-nineteenth-century England was
unjustly reduced to functional utility and to the role of distant observer of
female fashion consumption.22 Thus, the preconceptions that a fashion
sensibility is a ‘feminine’ trait and that men primarily dress for
practicability are seemingly crafted and sustained.23 One only needs to
think about a tie, of which maestro of men’s fashion journalism G. Bruce
Boyer writes, ‘today serves no other purpose than pure decoration’, to
question the whole legitimacy of the above preconception.24 In
contemporary times, the increase in visibility of fashion-consciousness
among men is also evident.25 Men are increasingly viewed as consumers of
fashion, especially in the cases of generation Y males (those born between
1977 and 1994) or younger.26 However, even today it seems fashionable to
claim that men are less concerned with clothes or fashion than their female
counterparts. Many men’s magazines with a notable amount of fashion
contents, for one thing, are still called ‘lifestyle’ or ‘style’ rather than
fashion magazines.
Is fashion truly ‘feminine’? Indeed, some men are as fashion-minded as
the most ‘fashionable’ women, while some women can be as careless about
their appearance as some men are, and the motivations behind fashion can
be complex. Entwistle convincingly argues that ‘at different times we dress
for different reasons and on some occasions women may dress for status
and men to attract admirers’ and vice versa.27 In fashion and socio-cultural
analysis, fashion is therefore not fundamentally ‘feminine’, but more likely
labelled as such and ‘othered’ by a certain group of men (and women) in
order to accentuate visually the distinction between the two gender
categories.
It is important to refer to psychologist Sandra L. Bem, who argues that
since ‘conventional’ masculinity is intertwined with power and privilege,
the majority of men who are, quite inevitably, neither powerful nor
privileged, would feel insufficiently masculine. Indeed, fully attaining
conventionally defined ‘masculine’ qualities, which in their extremities are
‘characterised by aggression, competitiveness, emotional ineptitude and
coldness, and dependent upon an overriding and exclusive emphasis on
penetrative sex’, is next to impossible.28 Hence ‘[t]raditional masculinity
began to be regarded as a “neuro-muscular armour” that forced [men] to
suppress tenderness, emotion and any signs of vulnerability’.29
In order to feel, at least marginally, a sense of belonging for ‘real men’,
these men with neither power nor privileges are believed to exclude women
from positions of public power and authority, and culturally marginalize
male homosexuality.30 In this sense, women and homosexual men are
required for certain men as their ‘others’. The significance of Bem’s theory
is further highlighted by the persistence of the misleading assumption that
fashion or dress is ‘feminine’, and thus not ‘masculine’ even today.31 In
other words, man’s lack of concern with the ‘feminine’ interest in dress
would (deliberately or otherwise) define his ‘masculine’ identity. The
cultural stereotype assuming that it might not be appropriately ‘manly’ for
men to show a notable degree of interest in their own appearance is thus
sustained.
Although some men dress in such a style simply for their stylistic
preferences, strongly ‘masculine’ clothing is a simple way of achieving this
sense of belonging. As a result, ‘[v]ery remarkable and fantastic male
modes of dressing … are continuously adopted chiefly by the powerless,
those not in the main stream of action’.32 The suit is one such sartorial
example closely identified with ‘masculinity’, both stylistically and
symbolically. It not only emphasizes the male physical form (such as broad
shoulders, chest and a phallic symbol in the form of ties) but the business
suit has also been associated with ‘masculine values of reserve, stature and
efficiency’.33 In a culture where pecuniary strength and status equals
masculinity, the business suit is therefore a supremely potent source of male
sexual appeal.34 A sense of irony is created with this reading, for these men
would ‘other’ fashion as a ‘feminine’ trait but attempt to maintain their
‘masculine’ identity through clothes nevertheless. If there is a sense of
ambivalence attached to the relationship between clothes and the idea of
masculine identity, how does Japanese men’s fashion culture perceive such
a relationship? Do Japanese men’s fashion magazines offer representations
of young men and their ways of engaging with clothes and fashion
differently? One of the striking features of such men’s magazines is the
domination of fashion over lifestyle contents. I examine these points
through three selected magazines: Popeye, Men’s non-no and Fineboys.

Neat, fresh and smart: Popeye, Men’s non-no and

Fineboys
The three magazines that I have chosen enjoy a mainstream status in Japan,
and, arguably, correspond to the widespread and accepted male
fashionability, taken up by (ordinary/common) young men. Issues regarding
fashion comprise more than 60 per cent of the total features in each of the
three magazines.
This is especially true for Popeye, where more than 70 per cent of its
contents are about clothes, bags, shoes and accessories. Most of these
fashion photo pages provide details such as the name of the brand and its
price, thus serving the dual functions of fashion catalogue and
advertisement.
If we combine the numbers of fashion advertisements and fashion
features, 78.80 per cent of Popeye, 68.50 per cent of Men’s non-no and
65.56 per cent of Fineboys are comprised of fashion and appearance-related
images. Only a few decades ago, British Arena and GQ magazines, with
approximately 30 per cent of the editorial space dedicated to fashion, were
considered to be significantly extensive.35 Indeed, a ratio of fashion-related
materials in these Japanese magazines is significantly higher than Euro-
American men’s ‘lifestyle’ magazines where fashion comprises about 35
per cent or less of their contents.36 Calling these Japanese men’s
publications ‘fashion magazines’ is thus justified.

Table 2.1 Content analysis of the three men’s magazines

Popeye Men’s non-no Fineboys
Advertising: Fashion 8.06 7.61 5.35
Technology 0.92 1.73 1.77
Automobile 0.53 0.74 0.26
 Sexual Health, Cosmetic Surgery, etc 0.96 3.42 5.87
Cigarettes 1.46 1.44 0.00
Other 2.06 4.05 3.11
Total 13.99 18.99 16.36
Features: Fashion 70.74 60.89 60.21
Beauty 0.71 1.66 5.40
Sport 0.07 0.35 0.26
Automobile 0.82 0.35 0.95
Technology 1.56 0.35 1.77
General Articles 2.34 5.92 3.24
Horoscope 0.43 1.02 0.52
Stock Listing 0.25 0.35 0.52
Girls 0.78 0.81 1.64
Culture/Interviews 4.83 4.69 4.66
Other 3.48 4.79 4.49
Total 86.01 81.18 83.66
Total number of pages 284.00 235.00 193.00

Note: Results based on the average of 12 issues between May 2007 and June 2008. All figures except
the total page numbers are given in percentages.

The price of Fineboys is the lowest of the three (520 yen in 2013, or
approximately US $5) whereas both Popeye and Men’s non-no are priced at
720 yen or $7. Perhaps corresponding to this, the fashion brands featured in
Fineboys tend to be slightly more affordable, Japanese-oriented brands
(although it also features foreign brands including Nike, Gap and Lacoste).
In addition to featuring famous Japanese brands such as Milkboy, Journal
Standard, Hysteric Glamour and Nano Universe, Popeye and Men’s non-no
are seemingly fond of such medium to high fashion European brand names
as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana, Paul Smith,
Burberry, Christian Dior and Vivienne Westwood, among others. Choki
Choki further supports this hypothesis about the relationship between the
prices of the magazine and its endorsed items. The magazine predominantly
features ‘domestic’ brand items and is lower priced than Popeye and Men’s
non-no.
 In contrast to fashion, such ‘traditionally men’s interests’ as sports, cars
and alcohol are rarely featured in Popeye, Men’s non-no and Fineboys. Each
magazine devotes approximately one page each to technology and
automobiles, but Popeye does not have a single regular feature page
specifically dedicated to sports. As for representations of women, each
magazine has one or two regular pages introducing a young female model,
singer or actress (such as Men’s non-no Girlfriend). However, as the titles
indicate, these women tend to be presented as pseudo-girlfriends of the
reader, and are interviewed in such a friendly manner that they might be
objectified but are seldom eroticized. Their pictures accentuate their sweet
and lovely qualities rather than their sensuality, thus reinforcing this idea.37
Occasionally these magazines run feature articles on sexuality and
relationships. But they are concentrated within the black-and-white middle-
section pages, which might indicate their less-important stature compared to
clothes. These contents are, moreover, focused on the purpose of instructing
how to become accepted by and hence popular with girls through adopting
certain sets of manners and styles. Arguably, this defines the intended
readership of Popeye, Men’s non-no and Fineboys as educated middle-class
and their intention to present themselves as ‘fashion’-oriented publications.
Again, these aspects illuminate the particularity of these Japanese men’s
fashion magazines, making a contrast to Anglophone men’s lifestyle
magazines, where the assumed and traditional ‘men’s interests’ such as
cars, alcohol and women still dominate.38
One notable characteristic shared by these Japanese magazines is the
presence of advertisements for cosmetic surgery and sexual health clinics,
attempting to bank on young men’s anxieties about masculinity.39 These
advertisements are found towards the end of the magazine, and Men’s non-
no and Fineboys devote approximately ten or eleven pages to this kind of
advertising. Importantly, male fear of negative female evaluation of their
physicality is frequently exploited by such advertisements, suggesting the
influence of women on male appearance consciousness.40 I shall address
this point in Chapter 3. Significantly, Popeye only includes one page of
such an advertisement, just three or four pages before the back cover. This
might imply the magazine’s intention to present itself as slightly more
‘sophisticated’ and fashion-oriented. Popeye’s frequent deployment of
international-based, professional models in contrast to the semi-professional
or amateur models hired for other men’s fashion magazines also
corresponds with this quality. Another striking aspect of these Japanese
magazines is the age of the target readership. They are significantly younger
and more specifically defined than the estimated readership of Anglophone
men’s lifestyle magazines.

The age of sensibility: men’s fashion magazines

and defined age demographics
Sociologist Susan M Alexander’s analysis of American Men’s Health
magazine revealed that the median age of the male readership is thirty-six,
and men aged eighteen to forty-four comprise 71 per cent of its
readership.41 A wide age demographic of readership in Anglophone men’s
lifestyle magazines is reflected in magazine contents, where casually attired
male models with youthful appearances (possibly in their twenties) feature
in fashion spreads alongside sections about grooming, occupied by
concerns to do with anti-aging and greying hair. By contrast, Japanese
culture, including magazines, demarcates more specific age demographics.
It is estimated that those aged sixteen to twenty-four comprise 84.3 per
cent of Men’s non-no readership, 64.3 per cent of Popeye readership and 74
per cent of Fineboys readership.42 High school, university and vocational
college students consist of 61.6 per cent of Men’s non-no readership, more
than 41.7 per cent of Popeye readership, and 68.7 per cent of Fineboys
readership. Further, the guidelines for Men’s non-no’s annual model
audition stipulates that only men under the age of twenty-three are eligible
to apply, while Fineboys limits applicants to between the ages of fifteen and
twenty-two. The median age of the former magazine’s male models is
twenty-three years old, but the age of twenty is highest (14.6 per cent),
followed by twenty-two years old (12.5 per cent).43 The presence of a group
of fashion magazines targeted at older males further emphasizes the
specificity of age demographic in Japanese publications.
Men’s Joker (est. 2004) is seemingly targeted at men in their late
twenties. Men’s Club (est. 1955), and Gainer (est. 1990) might appeal to
men in their thirties, while Uomo (est. 2005) is targeted at men in their
forties who prefer neat and elegant styles. Leon (est. 2001) is a magazine
for wealthy, middle-aged men who cultivate a wild, sensual look and a
degree of ‘bad boy’ (choiwaru) attitude. Needless to say, the possibility of
modest cross-readership between these magazines should not be
disregarded. It is also noteworthy that men’s fashion magazines targeted at
older males tend to deploy older celebrities for their ‘faces’.44 Crucially,
there is an obvious correlation between the three magazines’ specific focus
on young men between their late teens and early twenties as their main
readership, and the age of the models they hire.
What does the specific age demographic of these magazines convey? It is
widely believed that youths, particularly adolescents, manifest distinctive
behaviours and consumption patterns.45 Adolescence is not merely a
chronological age; it is also a socially constructed category. Cultural
anthropologist Merry White, for instance, points out that:

Teenagers in any modern society are a composite construction: they are the products of biological
development, of institutions (educational and occupational) preparing them for economic and
social participation as ‘appropriate’ adults, and of their own negotiations with their environment,
themselves creating new cultural models and goals.46

White suggests that the concept of ‘teenager’ is defined by interactions

between adolescents and the biological, economic, and social forces and
expectations imposed upon them. Since half or more of the readership of
these Japanese magazines are students, their assumed prolongation of
financial dependency and leisure time might allow them to engage in
lifestyle and consumption patterns more similar to teenagers than to adults.
These are trends on which these magazines wish to capitalize. The well-
defined demographic category these magazines articulate renders this
objective more achievable. While contemporary Japanese culture has
recognized and capitalized on the benefit of narrowing consumer segments
for quite some time, it is a comparatively recent phenomenon in places like
the United States.47 Whether or not there will be a similar segmentation of
the men’s magazine market in Anglophone culture remains to be seen.
There is also a trend in Japanese fashion magazines to use readers and
other amateur models. Amateur or dokusha models are most common in
magazines intended for young women.48 Nevertheless, they are also found
in men’s magazines such as Choki Choki, Men’s non-no and Fineboys,
among others.49 Compared to the professional models, reader models tend
to be more personalized, with their names and occupations or college names
supplied. Also, these magazines regularly feature snapshots of apparently
young men, found in the streets, who have a keen fashion sense. The
significance of these Japanese magazines’ attention to comparatively more
‘ordinary’ male images stands in contrast to the ideas of rather ‘unordinary’
male beauty prevalent in the Euro-American high-fashion culture. As
theorized by Entwistle, ‘[t]he lack of correspondence between the male
fashion model’s “beauty” and ideas of male beauty outside’ is often evident
in Euro-American fashion scene.50 This implies a distance, or a gap,
between the images the fashion world offers and actual consumers. While
these ‘ordinary’ Japanese male figures featured in magazines may reflect
the interventions, selections and even manipulation of editors, they may
well also reflect the magazines’ intention to maintain extreme sensitivity to
social changes and trends, and to create a social affinity between the target
reader, the models, and the contents of the magazines.
The sense of social affinity crafted between the models and the
readership of these Japanese magazines points to the precarious balance
upon which fashion is motivated, namely integration and individuality.
Sociologist Georg Simmel notably contended in the early twentieth century
that fashion is motivated by the balance between two opposing forces: the
desire to express both individuality and uniformity through the clothes we
wear. For him:

If one of the opposing forces is absent, or has been almost ‘overcome’ by its other … fashion will
cease. If the desire for uniformity and imitation could reach fulfilment there would be no such
thing as fashion, only mass similarity … an exacerbated individualism would also spell the end of
fashion since ‘the desire for integration’ must be absent in a situation where self-assertion is so
dominant.51

Thus, ‘the fashioning of one’s appearance in modernity has been a

precarious balancing act between individuality and conformity’.52 Simmel’s
theory of fashion is, quite straightforwardly, present in these Japanese
magazines, and it is particularly evident in the fictional narratives these
publications craft, which I discuss in the next section.

A boy’s life
Creating fictional narratives to balance conformity and
individuality

Because most readers are presumed to be young and lacking disposable

income, these magazines frequently feature different ways to coordinate a
few trendy items. To do so, they conventionally create a narrative about an
ordinary but stylish young man with whom readers can identify. This type
of feature is most notable in Fineboys, whose target readership includes
fashion beginners. For instance, the April 2010 issue of the magazine ran an
eight-page story on how to coordinate fifteen items, the total value of which
is under 30,000 yen (approximately US $320 as of April 2010), to create
outfits for ten days.53 This story is synchronized with a narrative in which
an actor and one of the magazine’s exclusive models Tōri Matsuzaka
appears as a college freshman recently arrived in Tokyo. The first ten days
of his life in Tokyo correspond with the ten aspects of coordination of the
nominated items.54
The February 2008 edition of Men’s non-no offers a similar feature.55
Models Jun Yamaguchi and Takeshi Mikawai play the roles of two
fashionable eighteen-year-olds who have recently come to Tokyo for
employment (Mikawai) and education (Yamaguchi). Thirty days of their
lives in Tokyo correspond with thirty combinations of ten items each, with
Mikawai dressed in the ‘casual style’ while Yamaguchi is identified with
the ‘European, chic-mode’. Men’s non-no also runs a somewhat simplified
version of this type of feature, following the fashion outfits over a short
period of time of popular fashion brand publicists, stylists or actual college
students.56 As one would expect, this type of feature is intertwined with
marketing, as often second-hand clothing shops or low budgeted clothing
brands are introduced as the reader’s saviours. Yet these instructions can
also easily be applied to the reader’s own already existing wardrobes. This
concurs with what social anthropologist Brian Moeran argues about
Japanese high-fashion publications. He notes that magazines that include
high and renowned brands, such as the Japanese edition of Vogue, aim to
appeal to and acquire international recognition. At the same time, they offer
their readership advice on ‘how to coordinate clothes and how to make a
limited wardrobe go a long way’.57 Rather than merely promoting
consumption habits and desires, these Japanese men’s magazines offer
practical advice and encourage engagement with down-to-earth, everyday
fashion.
The deployment of fictional narratives in these Japanese men’s
magazines can be interpreted in several ways. One of the most prominent
ones, I argue, is that clothing is about both self-assertion and integration,
reinforcing the applicability of Simmel’s theory of fashion. Through the
fictional narratives of young models and, less explicitly, of older stylists and
publicists, these magazines instruct the readership about to dress
stylistically and impressively, and hence to stand out among their peers. At
the same time, the readership is integrated into society by conforming to
‘acceptable’ coordination of sartorial items on the market. The popular
narrative themes these magazines use, such as young men newly arrived in
a ‘global’ city, anxiety about graduation and the future ahead, friendship
and romance, all involve a degree of integration. The assumed similarity of
age between models and the readership further enforces the efficacy of the
‘identification’ process between models and the readership. In other words,
these magazines enable the readership to assert themselves through being
dressed immaculately, which also integrates them into society. And this is
done in economically feasible ways.
In the next section, I proceed to look at the visual messages these
magazines convey, with particular attention to their cover images. My
intention is to examine how images of masculinity are represented in these
periodicals, and to determine the modes of masculine images they are trying
to convey to their readership. I would also argue that the variety of ways in
which male figures are captured reflect the magazines’ relatively flexible
perception of masculine images.
The face of the magazines: first impressions of the
encounter
What visual images do these magazines offer? One of the purposes that
magazine covers accomplish is that ‘they are themselves advertisements
that increase the publisher’s sales and, perhaps more important, the sale of
products and services promoted inside’.58 The roles that covers play may be
particularly important for Japanese magazines. This is because, unlike
Anglophone magazines which tend to rely heavily on subscriptions, in
Japan ‘a very large number of readers buy a magazine on the basis of what
they read each month while standing in a bookshop or convenience store
(called “stand-reading” or tachiyomi, in Japanese)’.59 Magazine covers are
thus essential in attracting the audience and in introducing what the
magazine conveys. One of the most notable qualities of the covers of
Popeye, before its editorial renewal or change in the June 2012 issue, is that
it regularly features a non-Asian male model, approximately in his early
twenties. Generally these cover models are photographed in a close to
medium close shot, with a few exceptions in which the models are
photographed in a medium-long shot from the knees, at a low angle.
According to the theory of visual analysis articulated by semioticians
Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen, the direct gaze of the participant is
often read as demanding something from the viewer, while the indirect gaze
can indicate that the participant is the object of the viewer’s gaze.60 The
direct gaze of a male model in a men’s style magazine, for instance, can be
read as persuading the reader of ‘identification with the look of the male
model’, thus making them wish to purchase the products the model is
endorsing.61 A few models on the covers of Popeye wear a faint smile or
gaze into space, sitting with chin in hand. The majority of them, in contrast,
gaze straight at the reader, which arguably alludes to what feminist scholar
Susan Bordo refers as ‘face-off’ masculinity, a pose displaying a ‘martial
rather than sensual’, traditional masculinity.62
These ‘armoured’, sturdy masculine images are somewhat diminished by
the neatly coordinated hair and dress, and particularly by the use of colour.
In each issue, the title appears in different colours, including delicate, pastel
colours such as light blue, yellow and (perhaps surprisingly) pink. The
combination of the direct gaze of the models and the close-to-medium shot
can be read as demanding that the reader look at the models, and thereby
enter into a relationship of affinity with them. Reinforcing this reading is
the size of frame, as close-to-medium shots signify intimate-to-close
personal distance.63 Yet as their ‘face-off’ posture suggests, the relation
might not be entirely sensual.
For their covers, Men’s non-no and Fineboys both feature young male
celebrities. Many of them belong to Johnny’s & Associates, a Japanese
talent agency that specializes in male pop idols. But the covers also feature
young actors such as Osamu Mukai, Masaki Okada and Junpei Mizobata.
Men’s non-no originally featured its own model on the cover when it was
launched.64 With few exceptions, celebrities are featured in medium shot,
gazing directly at the viewer. The size of the frame indicates that the
celebrities are familiar but not too personal. They are objects of appraisal,
but their direct gaze prevents them from being too passive. Apart from a
few recognizable settings such as the Eiffel Tower (Fineboys, December
2007), the background of the cover image is generally white, and
undefined. This is one aspect of the magazines that parallels their female
counterparts, for ‘[t]he lack of context means that the models are not doing
anything other than posing for the viewers, a pattern typical of women’s
magazine images’.65
The use of celebrities has, I suggest, two possible interpretations. Firstly
it might help attract readers because of familiarity, physical attractiveness
and the cultured currency these celebrities carry. The presence of Japanese
celebrities in such magazines as Men’s non-no ‘helps position them as
representatives of contemporary Japanese popular culture’.66 Secondly, the
magazines also attract the fans of these celebrities, most of whom are
(young) women, resulting in an increase of their circulation figures and
revenue. As Merry White notes in The Material Child: Coming of Age in
Japan and America, Japanese teenage girl fans are particularly keen for any
information about their favourite stars, including magazine interviews.67
Although monthly ‘idol’ magazines were in White’s mind when she stated
this, it could easily be extended to these young men’s magazines, with their
favourite stars either on the cover or inside the magazines. The magazines’
careful avoidance of eroticized images of women also enhances this
hypothesis. This idea holds in relation to Popeye and Men’s non-no, where
traditionally the female readership comprises 17.1 and 18 per cent
respectively. Fineboys, on the other hand, enjoys predominantly male
readership, as only 2 per cent of its readership is accounted for by
females.68 The presence of women is also evident in editorial sections of
the magazines.69 The high percentage of female readership might also point
to the possibility that they get these men’s magazines either for their
boyfriends or for their own fashion interests.
The covers of these magazines, with the combination of ‘face-off’
masculinity and neat appearance, correspond to the images of young,
appearance-conscious Japanese men who look comparatively ‘feminine’ yet
retain some conventional ‘masculine’ attributes. In the fashion photo pages,
young male models are presented in a myriad of poses. Apart from the
‘face-off’ position, there are at least two other main postures in which male
figures are presented in magazines and advertisements; these are what
Bordo describes as the lean position – ‘reclining, leaning against, or
propped up against something in the fashion typical of women’s bodies’,70
or smiling boyishly, manifesting ‘wholesome masculinity’ as Alexander
calls it.71 The gaze of the male model in the latter position is ‘neither
defiant nor passive; rather, the model smiles at the viewer, sometimes
broadly, sometimes shyly’, thus revealing senses of intimacy and
vulnerability.72 Some significant findings regarding my analysis of male
figures’ postures in the fashion spreads of the three Japanese magazines are
as follows: Popeye presents male figures in the lean position slightly more
than the ‘face-off’ position, while more than a half of the male figures in
Men’s non-no display ‘face-off’ masculinity. Fineboys, on the other hand,
predominantly prefers to feature its male models in the ‘lean’ position.
Nearly 20 per cent of the male models in Fineboys are moreover smiling, in
the position of intimate ‘wholesome masculinity’. Such a representation is
significantly rare in Men’s non-no.
In her analysis of Men’s non-no and its female equivalent, non-no, design
and communication studies scholar Fabienne Darling-Wolf notes that non-
no constructs a visual and verbal discourse focusing on female camaraderie
and pleasure. In contrast, Men’s non-no offers a visual discourse portraying
models as physically disconnected from or smiling at one another, perhaps
corresponding to the conventional idea of ‘hard’ masculinity.73 With a few
exceptions, my analysis of the magazines reveals that this is relatively still
the case in Men’s non-no. However, other magazines including Fineboys
and Popeye feature models enjoying each other’s company at a greater
frequency. For example, the March 2010 issue of Fineboys has a spread
titled ‘With these layered techniques, a shirt is a million times as powerful’.
In this feature, two male models are pictured as facing each other, playing
cards or walking with a smile in what appears to be a college campus. One
of the male models is also captured standing very close to a young female
model, smiling. Another male model is walking arm in arm with another
female model, although they are not gazing at each other.74 Arguably, these
elucidate the magazines’ relatively elastic perception of masculine images.

Table 2.2 Three postures of male models

Face-off Lean Wholesome
Popeye 37.65 50.62 11.73
Men’s non-no 50.18 48.77 1.05
Fineboys 14.38 67.81 17.81

Note: Results based on the October 2010 edition of the three magazines. All figures are given in
percentages.

What significances does the fluid image of masculinity in Popeye, Men’s

non-no and Fineboys have? Bordo articulates that boys and very young men
in Anglophone advertisements tend to be portrayed in ‘lean’ positions,
suggesting the social acceptability of them as the ‘object’ of the observing
and desiring gaze. Conversely, older men are almost forbidden to appear
passive. Thus, ‘somewhat different rules for boys and men’ are still
present.75 The models who appear in such magazines as Men’s Health are
estimated to fall within the twenty-five to thirty-five age groups.76 They are
slightly older than the models who appear in the Japanese magazines I have
been analysing in this chapter. Do the male models in Anglophone and
European magazines, then, elucidate to the unfavourableness of men
becoming objects of the gaze, whether the gaze belongs to men or women?
Sociologist Federico Boni writes of Men’s Health that although the
magazine promote the image of nurturing and appearance-conscious ‘new
man’ masculinity, a young, androgynous model of masculinity would be
rejected as unfavourable. The magazine, after all, aims to allow the reader
to (re)discover ‘the pleasure of being a man’.77 Nixon argues that the
interplay between the male readership’s identification with and acquisition
of visual pleasure in the male models takes place when he engages with
men’s ‘lifestyle’ magazines.78 Yet even when these male models are
presented as the object of a desiring gaze, overly ‘masculine’ qualities such
as the model’s muscular physique, rugged or hard visual qualities of either
the model or the context, or the presence of female figures, would pre-empt
him from becoming a sole object of such gaze. This sentiment is articulated
by Negrin, who writes that despite the ‘feminine’ gaze and posture
displayed by male models:

signs of traditional masculinity are still present to reassure us of their masculinity. Thus, the
models are typically well muscled, projecting an air of strength and solidity, despite their apparent
passivity. They are also well endowed, as the body hugging underwear makes clear, and their hair
is often slightly dishevelled, indicating a rugged masculinity that is not overly narcissistic.79

These can be read as reflecting the ambivalent feelings men in Europe,

Australia and North America feel, or at least are expected to feel, about
becoming an object of the gaze, whether it has a trace of heterosexuality or
homosexuality. In this sense, conventional ideas of ‘masculinity’ and the
restrictions they carry are still influencing the ways in which men and
fashionability are represented. The Japanese magazines’ elastic approach to
the representations of men, on the contrary, cultivates a possibility that
Japanese men are, at least to a certain extent, less preoccupied with
conventional gender roles and restrictions they carry. Particularly through
their notable applications of the ‘lean’ and ‘wholesome’ positions, the ways
these magazines represent men problematize the established notion that
men are the bearer, not the object, of the gaze.

The pleasurable gaze: looking and being looked at

The widespread yet largely unproven belief that men do not take serious
interest in gazing at male figures, whether their own mirror-reflection or
other men, amplifies the stereotyped assumption that it is woman, not man
who occupies the position of the one to be gazed at. Germaine Greer is by
any means not the only one who articulates the hostility still present in
Anglo-Western culture to appreciating male beauty in her book The
Beautiful Boy.80 Feminist theorist Laura Mulvey in her famous essay on
cinema and the gaze has also argued that traditional narrative films are
structured around masculine pleasure. This pleasure system is constructed
on the pattern of the male/viewer and the female/object of the gaze.
Consequently, unlike women who are displayed as erotic objects for both
the male characters in the screen and the spectator, male characters are
unlikely to be gazed upon as erotic objects, precisely because men are
reluctant to gaze at their more perfect ego.81
E. Ann Kaplan contends that the gaze in cinema is not necessarily male,
but is often based on the dominance-submission pattern, and to own and
activate it is to be in the ‘masculine’ position.82 According to her, the
dominance of the male gaze lies in its possession of power and action,
whereas women, while receiving and returning the gaze, are unable to act
upon it like men.83 Bordo argues that this conception of men as the bearer
of the ‘gaze’ and women as the objects of such a male gaze is reproduced
and distributed through the media and advertisements, which instruct us to
follow certain gendered behaviours.84 Thus, the assumption of men as
indifferent to the ‘gaze’ is likely constructed through mediated images,
among others. This assumption is also closely tied to the expected roles of
men as viewing subjects and women as the objects of their ‘gaze’. This
does not mean that men have never occupied the position of the gazed-
upon. Art historian and film theorist Kaja Silverman, for instance, has
argued that the position such as the object of the gaze, can indeed be more
powerful and pleasurable than the bearer of the gaze in cinema. This is
because the narrative is centred around the object of the gaze, and male
characters in such films as Liliana Cavani’s controversial Il Portiere di
notte (1974), Silverman argues, occupy the ‘passive’ position.85
The reverse of such roles is, however, considered to be inappropriate,
unfavourable or even interdicted. As design historian Peter McNeil and
fashion theorist Vicki Karaminas write, for many conservative straight men,
being ‘gazed at’ would be so distressing that they might even try to stop it
with violence.86 We can deduce from these authors that becoming an object
of the gaze predominantly carries a negative attribute, and this is
particularly strong for some men. Questions I wish to raise here are: must
becoming an object of the gaze automatically involve negativity? Do men
ever actively or willingly seek to be in the ‘passive’ position? I attest to the
view that the gaze can be owned by both men and women. This means that
men do not necessarily have to be controlling subjects, nor do women
always have to be passive objects, and this is particularly applicable to
Japanese culture. Laura Miller’s suggestion that Japanese women have also
occupied the position of the ‘viewer’ might be usefully deployed here. This
interpretation has largely been ignored, possibly due to established
assumptions that disregard the presence of a female ‘gaze’, as it is men who
objectify women, and not the other way around. However, as far as
Japanese visual media is concerned, not only men’s but women’s gaze has
been recognized and incorporated. Miller writes that ‘[i]n pre-Meiji prints,
for example, men are often depicted as objects for the female viewer,
particularly in erotic prints or shunga’.87 Miller’s contention is firmly
supported by scholar of Japanese literature and shōjo culture Tomoko
Aoyama, who, in relation to Greer’s work The Beautiful Boy, notes that it is
unnecessary for Japanese women to advocate for ‘reclaiming their capacity
for and right to visual pleasure’.88 This is because individuals, regardless of
gender, did and still do admire and appreciate beauty in both young men
and women in Japan.89 Also, as we shall see, Japanese magazines such as
Fineboys can be read as reflecting the presumed necessity of men to appear
pleasing to women, thus reinforcing Miller’s view.90 I contend, then, that
Japan is a significant cultural site in which to examine the presence of a
different kind of relationship between men and the gaze. This is visually
evident in the men’s fashion magazines analysed here.
The April 2010 edition of Men’s non-no offers a fashion spread under the
title of ‘Chiaopanic’s Culture Mix’ (Chiaopanic no karuchā mikkusu), in
which one of the oldest Men’s non-no models Remi (b. 1979) is attired in
Japanese clothing brand Chiaopanic. In the three pages, he is presented in a
slightly leaning yet still face-off position, in profile with an indirect gaze in
medium-long shot, and in a wholesome position in a long shot alongside
another model. Remi’s colourful clothes such as a pair of knee-length shorts
and a cap, as well as the context of the images such as a beach, connote a
seaside resort, and the casualness and leisureliness associated with it.
Although all of these are situated outside conventional, hard and mature
‘masculinity’, his abundant beard and dishevelled hair clearly accentuate
his mature and rugged masculinity. Likewise, the model’s passive gaze and
smile signify his acceptance to serve the viewer’s gaze, although perhaps
not in an overtly sensual or intimate fashion. The images’ sizes of frame –
medium-long to long shots – semiotically indicate a low level of intimacy
shared by the viewer and the pictured model.91
Two significances can be deduced by reading this series of images.
Firstly, the magazine’s portrayal of the model in various positions (i.e.,
face-off/defiant, lean/passive and wholesome/vulnerable) illustrates its
elastic approach to the representations of men. Secondly, and more
importantly, representing a man with a rugged, masculine look in passive
positions suggests that becoming an object of the viewer’s glance does not
automatically invoke the unfavourable (and sexualized) passivity and
submissiveness of the ‘gazed at’. Does this hint at the possibility that,
unlike the tendency found in Anglophone popular culture as articulated by
Bordo, not only younger men but older men could also be the ‘passive’
object of the gaze? Here it is also useful to pay attention to the Japanese
magazines targeted at older males.
Magazines targeted at maturer men such as Leon and Men’s Club tend to
deploy younger-looking models in their fashion spreads, as Anglophone
men’s lifestyle magazines do. For instance, a May 2010 fashion spread of
Men’s Club titled ‘Burberry Black Label: Seductive Monotones’ features an
Austrian model, Gerhard Freidl, who was twenty-six years old at the time
of shooting.92 But these magazines are also full of images of middle-aged
men. This is particularly notable in Leon where European-looking men who
are clearly older than those featured in the three young men’s magazines
that I focus on are featured extensively. Many of these men are presented in
a similar way to the ‘street snapshot’ features in young men’s magazines;
that is, they are pictured in the streets.
 What is noteworthy about these images is that these men are often
captured showing the indirect gaze.93 Many of them are facing away from
the camera or looking into the distance, as if unaware of being pictured. Yet
these men are also seemingly engaged in action, such as walking, talking on
the phone or smoking a cigarette. As we have seen earlier in this chapter,
semiotically having an indirect gaze points to the passive status of the
viewing subject, where the reader is in a position of power, initiating the
gaze. In most of the cases where women are depicted with an indirect gaze,
they tend to be in the ‘lean position’, reclining, seated or leaning against
something but not in obvious action, in contrast to the men featured in
Leon. Instead of being presented in the ‘lean position’, these men are
depicted in motion and therefore their senses of agency are emphasized.
It is arguable that these male images in Leon are considerably older and,
as their abundant beards and rather sturdy physiques indicate,
conventionally more ‘masculine’ than the younger, more slender male
images dominating the magazines like Fineboys. In addition, most of these
men are fully clothed, and hence there is no explicit sexual undertone.
Combined with the strong heterosexual context of the magazine, the active
stance and the masculinity and virility of the male images in Leon might
prevent them from fully being in a ‘passive’ position.94 A converse reading,
however, suggests that magazines like Leon tell us that even with certain
conditions and limitations, older men can also appear in less than
‘controlling’ positions, serving someone’s objectified gaze in Japanese
culture. This points to the possibility that these Japanese men’s fashion
magazines might encourage their male readership to at least acknowledge
the pleasures of being gazed at and appreciated, particularly but not
exclusively by women. This in turn raises the issue of vanity, another
concept that has been deemed ‘unmasculine’ in our contemporary society.

Through the magic looking-glass: men and vanity

The image of a young man looking at his own reflection in a looking glass
is not uncommon in Japanese men’s fashion magazines like Popeye. Indeed,
the March 2008 issue of Popeye ran a fashion story titled ‘Magic Mirror’, in
which TV personalities and actors Keita and Shōta Saito (twins) are
presented as a young man and his mirror reflection, wearing identical brand
clothes but in different colours. In a similar fashion, the May 2008 edition
of Popeye featured an image of the pop star Takuya Kimura with his mirror
reflection. What do these images tell us about contemporary Japanese men
and their relationship to appearance? Gazing into a mirror traditionally
symbolizes vanity. The practice has predominantly been associated with
beautiful women, particularly in modern European art history where ‘[t]he
vanity mirror, in particular, conjures up the traditionally feminine trait of
narcissism, or the act of contemplating one’s self as a work of art’.95
Paradigms of such operas as George Frideric Handel’s opera Semele (1744)
and Charles Gounod’s operatic adaptation of Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe’s Faust (1859) give memorable examples that connect a beautiful
woman, a mirror and vanity.
In Euro-American culture, the idea of men gazing into mirrors is usually
thought to be decidedly ‘unmanly’.96 This is largely because mirror-
imagery is considered a positive danger to mainstream heterosexual
masculinity by way of being connected to homosexual ‘self-love’.
Narcissus, a beautiful male figure in Greek mythology who loved his own
reflection, represents perhaps the strongest link between homoeroticism and
narcissism. Such a link between men, mirrors and homo-narcissism often
relates to a sense of fatality, as exemplified in such films as Jean Cocteau’s
Orphée (1950), René Clément’s celebrated film Plein Soleil (1960) – a
cinematic visualization of Patricia Highsmith’s classic The Talented Mr.
Ripley (1955) – and Martin Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver (1976). According
to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, homo-narcissism occurs when an
individual locates the ego ideal and object of desire in a single sex, as in
Plein Soleil’s portrayal of the mirror sequence.97 According to this reading,
then, appreciating one’s own mirror-image can be interpreted as connoting
homoeroticism and homosexuality.
Indeed, male narcissism and homosexuality are closely connected in
psychoanalytic theory. This is based on the assumption that heterosexuality
is about distinguishing self and other (his or her object of desire). For the
male subject, women are their ‘others’ while other men are the ‘same’ as
themselves. Consequently, both homosexuality and narcissism ‘are seen as
essentially an interest in self rather than in the other’.98 According to this
Freudian reading, the homosexual is not attracted to another individual of
the same sex, but to ‘himself’ in another’s disguise.99 Unlike the ‘primary
narcissism’ where ‘a child cathects itself in a vanity with its parent, without
differentiation, without a developed ego’, homosexual narcissism comes
about in the later stage.100 This occurs when:

the individual seeks in another some ideal excellence missing from his own ego. And this is the
type of narcissistic choice made by the homosexual, by which Freud generally means the male
homosexual: the choice of what he himself would like to be.101

French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s famous work The Mirror-phase as

Formative of the Function of the I (1966) is also important when
considering the relationship between man and his visual identity conceived
in the mirror. Although his work is too complex to include properly here, it
is appropriate to mention that Lacan contended that humans acquire the
sense of ‘I’ first through identifying themselves with their mirror-
reflections. The visual identity obtained from the mirror, for Lacan, can be a
metaphor of the other humans:

We have only to understand the mirror-phase as an identification in the full sense which analysis
gives to the term: namely, the transformation which takes place in the subject when he assumes an
image – whose predestination to this phase-effect is sufficiently indicated by the use, in analytical
theory, of the old term imago.102

In this sense, the mirror-reflection of the self bestows on them a sense of

visionary ‘wholeness’ to their ‘fragmented’ identity. The gloominess
surrounding these psychoanalytic readings of the mirror-image and
narcissism is the negative connotations they offer. For Lacan, the mirror-
phase connotes immaturity. The child’s process of identification through the
mirror image, he argues, starts at sixteen months and lasts up to the age of
eighteen months. Leaning towards the mirror is also symbolic of infancy,
connoting the child’s motor incapacity and nurseling dependency.103
Moreover, for Freud, homosexuality, with which narcissism is deeply
intermingled, is regressive. He ‘concludes that homosexual desire reduces
to narcissism without significant remainder and hence is a developmental
misdirection’.104 Lacan, too, describes ‘homosexuality as a perversion, not
because of the contingency of morals, nor because of the supposed needs of
biology, but because of the narcissistic structure of homosexual desire’.105
Social theorist and scholar of English literature Michael Warner articulates
limitations found in these theoretical perspectives, saying that ‘[e]veryone
undergoes – and indeed requires – the kind of narcissism Freud describes’,
and hence ‘[h]omosexuality may indeed be a way of loving one’s own ego,
but so is heterosexual romance’.106
‘Vanity has traditionally (although not theoretically) been seen as
primarily a feminine trait’, says Steele.107 This does not seem to be so
different in the history of Japanese culture. Art works such as Utamaro
Kitagawa’s ‘Seven Women Applying Make-up in the Mirror’ (1790s) and
Jun’ichi Nakahara’s ‘A Young Woman through 12 Months’ (1940) are but
two examples to illustrate the association between women and mirrors,
whereas examples of the same relationship between men and mirrors are
fairly sparse. Rather than perceiving it as a magnifying glass that reflects
and grotesquely inflates vanity, however, the pictorial images of men with
mirrors in Japanese men’s fashion magazines allude to the positive quality
of mirror. Namely, the mirror can function as a device essential for
achieving the fashionable ‘look’, or perhaps even as an essential tool in the
creation of certain kinds of masculinity. ‘We assume that the mirror reflects
our real selves’, Hollander has said, ‘while using it to create a better look –
dress, make-up, etc’.108 Accordingly, in order to be successfully
fashionable, and in order to maintain that look, a considerable length of
consultation with a mirror is necessary.
This idea seems particularly true when men in younger generations who
tend to demonstrate significantly high interests in beauty consumption and
grooming practices are concerned. Marketing writer Megumi Ushikubo, in
her book on the recent increase in the visibility of young men with
significantly more candid attitudes towards such concerns as fashion and
beauty consumption than more stereotypical males, illustrates this case.109
For instance, she observes that people often complain of long queues in
men’s rooms, created by young men who are spending hours in front of the
mirror, restyling their hair.110 Here, it is fair to conclude this section by
saying that the mirror is necessary for men to craft and maintain fashionable
looks. In the next section, I look at the ways in which Japanese men’s
fashion magazines conceive male appearance as an object of the gaze. With
a short case study of Grooming/Beauty sections in GQ Australia and Men’s
non-no, I pose a question: do the two magazines manifest a transcultural
similarity or difference in their attitudes toward the relationship between
men and appearances?

Science versus the art of taking care of

appearance
Perhaps it is no coincidence that in the ‘Grooming’ section of the
April/May 2010 issue of GQ Australia, anti-aging cosmetic products are
presented in a fashion redolent of scientific laboratory. The section features
robot-like hands gripping well-known brand cosmetics like Chanel and
Lancôme alongside a beaker, and a burnt and melted product dripping onto
Lab Series age-less face cream. Against a backdrop of such images, one of
the magazine’s contributing editors Alexandra Spring writes: ‘A beginner’s
guide to the acids, peptides, oils and anti-oxidants you’re slathering all over
your skin.’111 Words such as beauty, cosmetic, radiant or shimmering are
carefully avoided in this feature. This echoes contentions made by Bordo
and Negrin that different discourses are applied to the promotion of men’s
and women’s beauty products in English.112 As Bordo has noted,
advertisements of men’s products often adopt a discourse that obscures the
fact that their function is to enhance appearance. Instead, they imply that
such products are ‘for utilitarian or instrumental purposes’.113
The extensive use of dark, metallic colours, as well as a scientific
ambience, strongly suggests that the practice of gazing into the mirror and
taking care of one’s appearance is supposed to be done for or in search of
scientific reason, without much emotional involvement. It is presented as an
inevitable routine rather than a practice in which a man might find delight.
This may be a visual endorsement of the fact that men have frequently been
portrayed as machine-like: virile, hard-bodied yet apathetic.114 This is a
representation also, quite commonly, found in contemporary Anglophone
men’s lifestyle magazines. The connotation derived from such an
instrumentalization of the male body is in line with ‘an insistence on sexual
difference and a refusal of male eroticization evident throughout the modern
period’.115 This ‘hypermasculine’ visual discourse presumably reassures its
male readers of their ‘masculinity’ while aligning with or endorsing the
conventional assumption that cosmetics and taking an interest in one’s
appearance are ‘feminine’ concerns. Hence, it mirrors the ambivalence
towards appearance-consciousness that Anglo-Western men are (imagined)
to feel.
The April 2010 issue of Men’s non-no offers a much more ‘organic’
visual approach to men’s skin care. ‘A Beginner’s Skin Care Lesson that
Improves Your First Impression’ (daiichi inshou UP no ‘debyu’ sukin kea
kouza) is aimed particularly at freshmen who make a new start in April,
either as new students or as working members of society. The feature tells
us that unlike women, men cannot rely on make-up to conceal dry, defective
skin, and uneven skin tones. The aim of this feature is to help men obtain
spotless, smooth naked skin by following a series of simple and easy
lessons, which are divided into three basic segments: facial cleansing,
toning and moisturising. Earlier in this chapter, I referred to the
characteristic strategy of these Japanese men’s magazines of creating
narratives, which help the reader to form closer identification and
engagement with the magazines’ models and the products they are
endorsing. Following this tradition, the abovementioned feature proceeds
with one of the magazine’s exclusive models Hiroto Higa (b. 1987), who
the text tells us was concerned with the increasing dullness of his
complexion, and has gone through all the lessons it introduces.
The sophisticated layout in which the products are promoted is contrasted
to the previous page in the magazine that has a series of cartoons, comically
telling why Higa is concerned with his skin and seeking advice. The
colourful cosmetic products are, according to the magazine, created
specifically for the age demographic of Men’s non-no male readership and
their skin. Some of these products are significantly less expensive than
those promoted in the GQ grooming section, and are presented in a rather
simple and clean fashion. The dominance of whiteness in the pages
arguably signifies the importance of the spotless, clean and clear
complexion that the feature emphasizes. In a stark contrast to the stylishly
scientific, almost mechanical image of GQ, Men’s non-no adds green vines
including ivy, and thin layers of white sandstone, on which the products
lean against each other. The description of one item, a bottle of toning
water, even says ‘floating inside are the flower petals of Calendula, whose
scent flows every time you splash it’.
The combination of organic plants and substances, and slightly irregular
placement of the cosmetic products connote nature. Arguably, these suggest
that the magazine sees and promotes the practice of skin care as a ‘natural’
rather than a systematic requirement of masculinity. Remarks from Higa in
speech bubbles like ‘infiltrative, smooth toner. Feels awesome!’ and ‘The
balance between moistness and refreshment is v. good’, reflect the emotive
approach the feature takes, further underlining its contrast to the scientific,
descriptive and mechanical approaches of GQ Australia. Needless to say,
Men’s non-no, too, linguistically underlines the practice of skincare as
‘masculine’, and hence does not undermine the masculine identity of the
readership. By using such gendered discourse as ‘the scent preferred by
men’ and ‘3 basic steps for men’s skincare’, male interest in skincare is
justified for the reason that men, unlike women, are unable to conceal their
complexions with make-up. Yet the feature’s reference to the model’s
positively emotive remarks on how he felt when applying these products,
combined with the pleasingly neat and simple visual discourse, also teach
the reader that skincare can be pleasurable.
Possessing an aesthetically pleasing appearance and a clear, beautiful
complexion as the foundation of such a look, is a requirement not only for
women but also for men who wish to create a good impression. That is what
the feature in Men’s non-no tells us, and this in turn endorses for men the
importance of being subjected to the gaze. Thus, the roles that equate men
as viewing subjects and women as the objects of the gaze are differently
and perhaps less rigidly defined in Japanese culture. This problematizes and
possibly subverts the often assumed ‘complete dominance of the so-called
male gaze’.116 Conversely, as my analysis of the magazines reinforces, men
could also be positioned as the objects of the gaze in the Japanese cultural
context. This approach is used, at least partially, by these Japanese men’s
fashion magazines in order to motivate fashion interests and consumption
among the group of young men at whom these publications are aimed.
Conclusion
Through the analysis of three Japanese men’s fashion magazines, this
chapter highlighted three important points. These magazines prioritize
fashion over lifestyle contents, and they cater to a specific age
demographic, which helps them to maintain sensitivity to cultural change
and trends. Their deployment of non-professional models, particularly in
Fineboys, moreover seems to help create a social affinity between the
readership and the contents of the magazines. In these ways, the magazines
emphasize the importance of appearance, fashion and scent. They tell the
readership that not only women but men can be the object of the gaze, and,
moreover, that this may be delightful if done successfully. The next chapter
offers further insight into young men’s fashion cultures analysed in this
chapter. In particular, I try to make sense of the presence of Japanese as
well as non-Asian male fashion models, and a suave, boyish and slender
male aesthetic that these models as well as fashion brands like the famous
Milkboy display. Does such a mode of aesthetic sensitivity impose a
challenge on more established, older and conservative masculinity?
 3
BOY’S ELEGANCE: A
LIMINALITY OF BOYISH CHARM
AND OLD-WORLD SUAVITY

T-shirts with voluminous scarves are now in store … the big scarf looks
lovely!
The T-shirt itself is made of fabrics with faint luster and its slightly
shortened sleeves make it a perfect item for this coming spring.
We recommend a chic coordinate, wearing it under a cardigan or a
jacket!
—Milkboy Staff’s Blog entry, 28 January 2013.1

In a photograph of a medium-close shot, a young man is facing off the

camera, showing a fleeting smile. He is wearing a loose and ‘flowing’ crew
neck T-shirt of vanilla colour. A big black scarf, which is attached at the
neck of the T-shirt, is tied in such a cute fashion that it is more rightly
described as a big ribbon, matching the boy’s unthreatening, almost
androgynously lovely countenance. This is an image of teenage amateur
model Musashi Rhodes wearing Milkboy’s scarf tee, which made its
appearance in the brand’s blog in early 2013 (Figure 3.1a).
We might be surprised by the fashion brand’s inclusion of conventionally
‘feminine’ attributes such as ‘cute’ and ‘lovely’ when describing fashion
items. Equally striking is that such terms are, to a certain extent, not
imposing a threat to the ‘masculine’ identity of the consumer. In the
previous chapter, I demonstrated that a group of Japanese men’s fashion
magazines encourage their male readership to recognize the importance of
being subjected to the gaze. This chapter continues exploration of the
Japanese young men’s publications I put forward in Chapter 2, with
particular focus on Popeye, Men’s non-no and Fineboys, and introduce
renowned men’s street-casual fashion brand Milkboy as a paragon of
fashion aesthetics that these magazines illustrate.
 (a)
Figure 3.1 High school student Musashi Rhodes wearing (a) Milkboy’s scarf tee and (b) a shirt with
studs.
Styled by KENJI and photographed by SHINGO. Image reproduced with kind permission of
KENJI/Milkboy.

(b)
 Psychoanalyst J. C. Flügel famously contended in the 1930s that ‘[i]f
heterosexual men were “to dress a little more to please women,” rather than
striving for respectability from their fellow males, some very concrete
pleasures would result’.2 For him, recognizing and valuing the gaze of
women would render men’s fashion more progressive, more attractive. Are
Japanese men’s fashion cultures a visual testament of Flügel’s contentions?
Or are they instead a demonstration of what Michel Foucault contended in
‘The Concern for Truth’? In this interview conducted one month before his
death, Foucault said in relation to morality in Greek and Roman antiquity:

It was a matter of knowing how to govern one’s own life in order to give it the most beautiful form
possible (in the eyes of others, of oneself, and of the future generations for whom one could serve
as an example). That’s what I tried to reconstitute: the formation and development of a practice of
self whose objective was to constitute oneself as the worker of the beauty of one’s own life.3

Foucault’s idea of ‘the worker of the beauty of one’s own life’ is thus not
motivated only for the eyes of others, but also for oneself. I argue that these
two desires are what Japanese men’s fashion culture negotiates in order to
motivate fashion interests in men. One of the significant strands that this
chapter focuses on is the strong presence of a mode of slender, elegant male
aesthetic sensitivities, which both Japanese and non-Japanese models in the
aforementioned men’s fashion magazines embody. I contend that this is a
manifestation of masculinity different from either an emphatically muscular
mode as favoured in mainstream European and particularly American
culture, or ‘salaryman’ masculinity which many find dowdy and confining.
In short, this chapter aims to substantiate that Japanese young men’s almost
‘narcissistic’ concerns about appearance and fashion, as represented in
men’s fashion cultures, might offer a different and more ‘relaxed’ approach
to understanding men’s relationship with fashion.4
The first section of this chapter attempts to make sense of the magazines’
deployment of non-Asian along with Japanese and Eurasian models. I
identify both practical and aesthetic reasons to explicate this point.
Transcultural differences in male aesthetics, highlighted by the magazines’
models, are the focus of the second section. By using the theory of ‘format’
and ‘product’, which I will explain, this section pays attention to the male
slenderness so predominant in the contemporary Japanese fashion scene.
With short case studies of the boyish reinvention of the ‘Neo-Edwardian’
dandy style in Japan, and menswear label Milkboy, the final section seeks
to establish the idea that slender, boyish and sophisticated images of
contemporary Japanese men serve as an alternative to the established yet
unfavourable image of Japanese masculinity as epitomized by worn-out,
middle-aged men. I also explore two factors that contemporary Japanese
men’s fashion culture deploys and negotiates in order to motivate and
increase fashion interests in males, namely a desire to attract admirers and a
desire to dress for their own pleasures. The images of masculinity these
examples offer, while not entirely subverting the expected gendered looks,
elucidate the aesthetic importance of dress. Instead of merely making and
sustaining a clear gender distinction, sartorial styles can be appreciated and
incorporated, even if they disagree with the socially or culturally expected
masculine identity of the wearer.

Fusion of European and Japanese aesthetic senses

The first European sartorial style that Japanese culture adopted and
appropriated from outside was a male dress form. European style clothing
was officially and actively adopted by Japanese culture towards the end of
the Tokugawa and the early Meiji (1868–1912) periods ‘as part of the drive
for modernization of the country’.5 It was not solely a practice of random,
sudden or forced adoption. There were cultural affinities between European
and Japanese sartorial aesthetics, to which I shall refer later in this chapter.
Since contemporary Japanese men’s fashion has its basis in European dress
forms, whether or not the country’s contemporary fashion culture signifies
or endorses the ‘Westernization’ of Japanese youth is a question I pose here.
Indeed, the presence of non-Asian-looking male models in these men’s
fashion magazines is highly suggestive of this contention. Many of the
models appearing in Popeye, for example, are non-Asian, including those
who are Caucasian and black. This ratio is slightly changed in Men’s non-
no, where, among non-Asian models, some Japanese or Eurasian models
are visible. In Fineboys the presence of Japanese models is increased and
Japanese models Shunsuke Daitō and Atsushi Harada were exclusive to the
magazine in around 2010. In addition, Fineboys tends to feature amateur
models (dokusha-moderu) more frequently than the other two magazines.6
We might ask whether the presence of non-Asian-looking models in these
magazines recreates a long-existing debate in which ‘many critics and
scholars interpret the new physical aesthetics as emanating from an
imported racist beauty ideology that denigrates Asian physical
appearance’.7 Indeed, Laura Miller points out that new beauty ideals among
Japanese young men, such as dyed brown hair, have been presumed by
some foreigners and older Japanese individuals as these men’s desires to
imitate their Euro-American counterparts, and hence signalling the
‘Westernization’ of Japanese youth.8 Echoing this criticism, Japanese
women’s attempts to obtain a look that does not evoke conventionally
‘Asian’ qualities, whether or not it might be (unintentionally) associated
with the physical characteristics of black, Caucasian or ‘imagined-Japanese’
have been criticized as ‘unnatural’ and extreme.9 Does the presence of non-
Asian-looking models in these Japanese men’s fashion magazines, then,
allude to their Westernized nature? It might be so, since Popeye was
launched as Japan’s first lifestyle magazine to introduce many trendy
American youth lifestyles and sports, such as skateboarding in the 1970s.10
We might also consider other interpretations. It is simplistic, and perhaps
shallow, to assume that the deployment of non-Japanese-looking models
solely represents the range of Japanese desires to emulate and identify with
Westerners. The presence of Japanese men in all of these magazines, for
instance, needs to be recognized.

The nationality of fashionable men

As we have seen in Chapter 2, many of Johnny’s stars and young actors as
well as employees of well-known Japanese brand clothing shops appear in
every issue of these magazines, often with interviews and photo shoots.11
As for Men’s non-no and Fineboys, the celebrity who appears on the cover
would also be featured in three or four pages of fashion and interview.
Photographic images of selected, ordinary, young men found in the streets
or university campuses across Japan are moreover presented in such regular
two-paged features as ‘Fashion Snap’ (Fashion Snapshots, Men’s non-no)
and ‘Campus Snap’ (Campus Snapshots, Fineboys). This type of feature is
periodically developed at an international level. ‘Snap the World’
(Snapshots of the World, Men’s non-no) and ‘World Snap’ (World
Snapshots, Popeye) sometimes include young men (and, to a lesser extent,
young women) in such internationally recognized fashion capitals as New
York, London and Paris. This type of feature lends itself to a number of
readings. Perhaps the obvious one is that these magazines present the reader
with the idea that their country is part of the larger fashion world.
Yet if we look at the images more closely, we can see some sartorial
differences between photographs taken in the Euro-American and Japanese
cities. For instance, these features show the tendency of dressing Euro-
American young men more trimly and conservatively. The Japanese men
selected for this type of feature, by contrast, appear to be dressed more
elaborately, even flamboyantly, with layers of sartorial items and
accessories like scarves in vivid colours.12 Whether it reflects a
transnational fashion sense or the editors’ intention to distinguish between
men of different nationalities, these subtle differences arguably remind the
Japanese readership that their fashion culture is not entirely standardized
with their Euro-American counterparts.
The presence of Japanese men in these magazines suggests that even
though Japanese readers consume fashion that is largely associated with
Europe and America, their lives are not likely to be utterly standardized or
‘Westernized’. This amplifies social-cultural anthropologist Arjun
Appadurai’s argument; in relation to the widespread popularity of renditions
of American popular songs in the Philippines, he states that even if
individuals adopt a transnational cultural form, this does not necessarily
mean that their lives are completely infiltrated and standardized by the
culture where the transnational cultural form originated.13 The presence of
Japanese men in these magazines indicates that the readership is constantly
reminded that these magazines are Japanese fashion magazines targeted at
Japanese men. Therefore, their lives are inseparable from their ‘local’
cultures. There is also a more practical reason to explain the co-presence of
Japanese and non-Japanese men in fashion publications.
 Advertising scholar Mariko Morimoto and independent researcher Susan
Chang point out that foreign advertisers tend to prefer foreign-titled
publications in Japan, where ‘these advertisements are likely to be
standardized to convey the Western images to Japanese consumers’.14 In
contrast, Japanese advertisers tend to prefer Japanese magazines, often
emphasizing ‘Japaneseness’. One method ‘for international advertisers to
maintain congruency between their culture and images’, they argue, ‘is to
use models from their home culture. Western models can convey Western
values and images that are preferred by Japanese consumers’.15 This idea,
at least partially, explains why magazines with a considerable amounts of
European luxurious designer wear, such as Popeye, prefer to feature non-
Asian-looking models while Japanese models are more prevalent in
Fineboys or Choki Choki, where Japanese designer clothes are more
frequently featured.16
Miller convincingly argues that the new male physical aesthetics in
Japan, including a large eye shape and brighter hair colour, represents
Japanese young males’ rejection of older modes of male identity rather than
a rejection of their own ethnicity. She argues:

When American ravers or cyberpunks appropriate non-Western forms of body modification, such
as nose piercing or tattooing, we do not hear anyone accuse them of trying to turn themselves into
Dani warriors or Maori islanders … if looking Euroamerican includes having a hairy body, I doubt
that very many young Japanese men would be interested. It seems to me that this is an aesthetic
that combines many features and is not merely ‘failed Western’ or ‘faux-American.’ It pulls in
ideas from outside Japan for inspiration in certain of its traits, but it also draws on local concepts
and proclivities.17

This sentiment is shared by media and cultural studies scholar Meredith

Jones, who puts it beautifully that fair complexion, which Japanese women
endeavour to obtain, might be ‘influenced by global (Western) notions of
beauty but have a distinct Japanese flavour’.18 Respecting the contentions
of the above authors, I argue that images of the Euro-American culture
presented in these Japanese men’s magazines, including the non-Asian-
looking models, are more precisely described as being about an imagined
Europe or America. Indeed, both non-Asian and Japanese models deployed
in the Japanese magazines outline a preferred mode of masculinity in
contemporary Japan. This differs from the modes generally favoured in
European and particularly in American cultures; namely, it values ideals of
extreme slenderness and youthfulness.

In praise of youthful slenderness: preferred modes

of male aesthetics in Japan
The presence of different models of masculinity preferred in Japan,
particularly the slender and ‘androgynous’ model, is compelling (Figure
3.2). Slenderness among Japanese young men has been prominent in recent
times, but this does not mean they are dramatically losing weight. For
example, annual surveys conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and
Welfare point to the steadiness of the percentage of Japanese men between
the ages of twenty and twenty-nine who are considered to be too thin
according to Body Mass Index (BMI, Table 3.1). The statistics show that
most men in this age group are in the ‘average’ range.
According to writer Megumi Fukumitsu, these images allude to an
increase in the preference for a slender ‘look’ and fashion among young
men rather than thinness for nutritional or medical reasons. This has led to a
blurring of the boundaries between women’s and men’s dress sizes. Some
young men increasingly seek slighter silhouettes and they wear items of
clothing, like trousers and T-shirts, that are designed for women.19 Not only
that, but Milkboy, a men’s fashion brand to which I shall return later in this
chapter, has designed men’s clothes in small sizes, which is part of what
appeals to female consumers. We should keep in mind some variations in
male physicality in addition to race are evident in Men’s non-no and other
similar titles.20 Nevertheless, the models gracing these Japanese men’s
fashion magazines, it is fair to say, possess slender physiques, which are
considered to be barely normal or slightly underweight. The average height
and weight of Men’s non-no models is, for example, 182.64 cm and 63.26
kg (6 ft and 139 lbs).21 These magazines promote attractively healthy
bodies, as the magazines concurrently feature instructions on how to
exercise and body build.22 However, as the feature in April 2008 issue of
Fineboys noted, it is ‘the adequately muscled, beautiful’ (tekido ni
hikishimatta utsukushii) body that the magazine promotes, not the Greek
god-like, ‘Adonis-complex-obsessed’ body so often found in Euro-
American men’s publications such as Men’s Health and even GQ.23

Table 3.1 BMI of Japanese young men between the ages of twenty and
twenty-nine
1986 1996 2006 2007 2008 2010 2011
Too Thin 9.4 9.9 9.5 10.6 9.6 12.3 8.4
Average 77.5 76.6 70.9 68.1 75.8 69.2 70.4
Obese 13.1 13.5 19.6 21.3 14.6 18.5 21.2

Based on Kokumin kenkō/eiyō chōsa no gaikō (The Survey Results of Health and Nutrition of the
Nation), Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2006: 7; 2007: 174; 2008: 186; 2010: 15; 2011:
110.

It has been noted that the increase in more androgynous male images is
also visible in many Euro-American countries, particularly in women’s
magazines or fashion advertising and runways.24 Indeed, such young male
models as Clément Chabernaud, Baptiste Radufe and Ben Allen have
notably more slender physiques than other popular models like Sean O’Pry,
Matthew Terry and Marlon Teixeira, all of whom are ranked in top ten of
Models.com’s ‘Top 50 Male Models’ as of 5 September 2013.25 Susan M.
Alexander also argues that despite the fact that all the models in Men’s
Health magazine she examined have well-developed muscles, they clearly
are not as muscular as those ‘supermales’ featured on the covers of
magazines devoted to bodybuilding. For her, ‘[t]he cover images present the
image of masculinity, at least for white males, as a well-toned but not
overly muscled body’.26 Yet the muscularity of male models still tends to be
emphasized in many Euro-American men’s lifestyle magazines, let alone
Men’s Health. Llewellyn Negrin has moreover pointed out that these male
models tend to accentuate rugged, ‘manly’ characteristics even when they
are presented in the ‘feminine’ way, such as through their postures.27 This
leads us to wonder if the word ‘slender’ is connoted differently in Japanese,
European, North American and Australian contexts.
Joanne Entwistle offers a standard body size of male fashion models in
contemporary New York and London. She states, ‘the required height for
most agencies is between 180 and 191 cm (5 ft 11 in. to 6 ft 3 in.) and the
standard measurements are, usually: chest, 96–107 cm (38–42 in.), and
waist, 76–81 cm (30–32 in.)’.28 Male models in Men’s non-no demonstrate
some significant differences in body size: 170–92 cm (5 ft 7 in. to 6 ft 4 in.)
in height, with the measurements of chest being 73–95 cm (28.7–37.4 in.)
and waist 63–81 cm (24.8–31.9 in.). They have significantly smaller or less
developed chests than models in the USA/UK. Also, Men’s non-no models
vary in body size and shape significantly more than their British and
American counterparts, where ‘[t]he male fashion model’s body is a very
standard one in terms of size and shape’.29 This is particularly evident in the
waist size of male models in Men’s non-no; few models have a waist as thin
as 63 or 65 cm (25 in.). This all indicates that models in Japanese men’s
fashion magazines like Men’s non-no tend to have much less muscled
bodies than standard male models in the United States and United
Kingdom, who are themselves very thin by Euro-American standards.30
The difference outlined by the comparison between models in Anglophone
and Japanese magazines are further highlighted by fashion magazines like
Choki Choki, where many of the models hired are amateur or semi-
professional.
As shown in Table 3.2, the Japanese amateur models of Choki Choki
generally have daintier body frames than the models of Men’s non-no, many
of whom are professional models of non-Asian or Eurasian races. Since the
average height and weight of Japanese men aged twenty to twenty-nine are
172 cm and 66. 63 kg, as far as their height is concerned, the amateur
models of Choki Choki correspond even more to the size of average
Japanese men than the Men’s non-no models.31 Needless to say, these
‘ordinary’ Japanese male figures could reflect the interventions, selections
and even manipulation of editors, as observed in Chapter 2. But, as also
noted in Chapter 2, they may well reflect the magazines’ intention to
maintain extreme sensitivity to social changes and trends, and to create a
social affinity between the target reader and the preferred mode of
masculinity in contemporary Japanese youth culture.
The presence of less conventionally ‘manly’ models also outlines senses
of ambivalence and negation found in Euro-American popular culture
towards slender male physiques.32 The idealized male body image in the
United States, as circulated widely in the media, has continued to be the
muscular ideal originated in ancient Greece. This mode of ideal male image
comes ‘with a consistent focus on taller frame, broad shoulders, slim hips
and waist, and well-defined (but subtle) musculature in the chest, legs, and
arms’.33 Actors Bradley Cooper or Channing Tatum are the beau idéals of
such masculine ideal while Robert Pattinson, self-described as ‘literally the
only actor in LA who doesn’t have a six pack’, is allegedly ‘ashamed’ of his
body and has determined to ‘get in shape’ after having missed out on some
roles because of his ‘less’ muscular body shape.34 To put it simply, these
male figures, particularly with a boyish-looking face, need to have a body
that resembles a Greek god in order to be recognized widely as the male
‘ideal’.35 Thus, we can infer that a muscled physique is still part of
preferred male aesthetics especially in mainstream Anglo-European
cultures. This male body is moreover displayed frequently without clothes,
adding further significance to its physical muscularity.

Table 3.2 Body size of male models in Men’s non-no and Choki Choki
Tallest Shortest Heaviest Lightest Average height Average weight
MEN’S NON-NO 192 170 75 52 182.64 63.26
CHOKI CHOKI 183 164 65 44 174.72 53.8

Reproduced with the kind permission of Berg Encyclopaedia of World Dress and Fashion.

With a 26-inch waist: slenderness as the flower of

Japanese male beauty
Male models are frequently (partially) unclothed when they are used to
advertise clothes and fragrances. One only needs to glance at such
advertising campaigns as Calvin Klein Jeans with the Northern Irish model,
singer and actor Jamie Dornan (2010), and that of Armani with Portuguese
soccer superstar Christiano Ronaldo (2010), to see the legitimacy of this
contention. What are the significant meanings derived from this emphasis
on the nude male body? Such images are capable of several readings,
including the intention to capture and serve the desiring gaze of gay men,
who are often conceived, even if stereotypically, as the primary consumers
of male fashion. These male figures are moreover pictured in the lean
position with medium to medium-close shot frames, which accentuate their
well-articulated, upper-body muscles, further suggesting their statures as the
object of the viewer’s gaze. It is noteworthy that heterosexual men tend to
display either strong forms of rejection or strongly stated lack of interest in
looking at such images of male nudes. According to sociologist Beth Eck,
this kind of reaction mirrors these men’s strong urge to reactively construct
and accentuate their ‘hypermasculine’ heterosexuality.36
Or could it be simply that the virile physicality of a male and its aesthetic
qualities diminishes as it is clothed? And conversely, would clothing not
appear attractive on such physicality? Anne Hollander articulates the idea
that European civilizations have long been fascinated by human nakedness,
and modish fashion of each era has left traces on how nudity was
(artistically) conceived.37 In other words, the favoured visualization of the
human nude has always been influenced by contemporary fashion. The
naked body did not, however, always enjoy the stature of fascination and
eroticism in Japanese culture. Actually, nudity and the shape of the body
have not been important in Japanese aesthetics.38 In the Heian period of
Japan, for instance, the nobility wore elaborate layers of silk robes carefully
selected through the art of matching colours.39 The clothes and how they
were coordinated had much more importance than the actual physicality of
the wearer in this era. Consequently, general lack of interest in the body was
noted. Japanese studies scholar Ivan Morris had stated:

The humanist idea that the naked body can be a thing of aesthetic joy and significance is alien to
the Japanese tradition … Murasaki [the author of The Tale of Genji] comments, ‘Unforgettably
horrible is the naked body. It really does not have the slightest charm.’40

The dissociation between fashionability and emphasis on the male nude

body in Japanese culture is also evident in an October 2010 feature story of
Fineboys, titled ‘No-no Styles that Would Turn Girls Off’. Four ‘stylish’
young women are invited to discuss what girls like and dislike about young
men’s fashion styles in this story. Importantly, one of the women, nineteen-
year-old Rei Handa, does not like men wearing their shirts open too much,
for when they bend down, their chests are shown. She says, ‘I don’t like
that odd sexiness’. Her comment is followed by another participant, twenty-
year-old Mayuko Iguchi, who claims: ‘I would think, what do they want to
do by showing that much. Basically, girls don’t want to look at boys who
reveal their body too much!’41 Needless to say, nudity, particularly female
nudes, are conceived as erotically charged in contemporary Japanese
culture, too. However, if we invert the point made by Hollander that modish
fashion influences the portrayal of the nude in European culture, the
emphasis on the male nude and his muscularity might have its reflections in
the currency of men’s fashion. Although any generalization should be
avoided, contemporary American and European men may be encouraged to
have a muscular body frame and to dress in a very simple fashion, so a trace
of their (well-built) physicality is visible on his clothed body. Hence, the
emphatically muscled male physique is still seen as a ‘requirement’ for
these men to be considered attractive.
The context in which such unclothed male images is presented – that is,
in men’s lifestyle magazines such as GQ, Loaded or Men’s Health – would
allow the heterosexual male readership to assume that the primary purpose
of these images is to sell the product, not to sensually allure the bearer of
the gaze. This implicit message might offer the male reader another way to
engage with the image of an unclothed male other than displaying strong
forms of rejection or stated lack of interest. Sartorial styles proposed in
these Japanese magazines, on the other hand, often involve layering of a
number of items. This is particularly so in magazines like Fineboys and
Choki Choki, whose models are even more slender than the models in
magazines like Men’s non-no, as we have seen. In order to present layered
styles effectively and attractively, thus, a slender physique, like a hanger or
a mannequin, is more desirable. What adds further significance to this
slender male physique is that this male image is perceived as aesthetically
pleasing if not sensually alluring by Japanese women, and importantly, it is
not the only mode of male aesthetics existent in the culture.
Hidetoshi Nakata (b. 1977), a Japanese former soccer player known to be
a ‘fashionista’, is one of the four celebrities who endorsed the 2010 Calvin
Klein underwear advertising campaign with American actors Mehcad
Brooks and Kellan Lutz, and Spanish tennis player Fernando Verdasco. He
appeared to be slightly less muscular than the other three but still displayed
a visibly muscled, athletic physique. His body utterly corresponded with a
preferred mode of male physicality in the Euro-American tradition.
Presumably, this image was targeted primarily at male viewers who would
actually wear the product he was endorsing. His direct, piercing gaze and
slightly leaning, but otherwise hard, ‘face-off’ posture, and the context of
the model as a star soccer player, all connoted his nude body as athletic
rather than sensual. Significant divergence is illuminated by the images of
nude males that are ostensibly targeted at heterosexual Japanese women.
Japanese singer and actor Teppei Koike (b. 1986) appeared unclothed in
his photo book (2006). In a similar fashion, in 2010, Sho Sakurai (b. 1982),
singer, actor and member of Johnny’s boy band Arashi, appeared nude in
well-established women’s lifestyle magazine an an (January 2010).42 The
medium shot and the lean position of the young men suggest their statures
as personal and familiar objects of the desiring gaze. Koike and Sakurai
clearly have unthreateningly slender and undeveloped, almost androgynous
physiques, making a stark contrast to the more muscular bodies of Nakata,
Jamie Dornan or Cristiano Ronaldo in the aforementioned advertisements.
Although the images of Koike and Sakurai may take on different
connotations for gay or heterosexual male consumers, they officially target
the heterosexual female market. This reinforces Miller’s contention that
such a slender, ‘androgynous’ male can be aesthetically, and perhaps
sensually, alluring to Japanese women.43 The firmly established presence of
two different types of male physicality in Japanese popular culture (one
muscular and the other slender) also signals a degree of ambivalence
involved in male slenderness in Euro-American mainstream culture where
one body image of muscular male still tends to be preferred. The images
exuding these different aesthetic sensitivities are also present in the three
Japanese magazines. The next section will examine this transcultural
difference through a D&G advertisement campaign for the summer 2010
collection.44

Elegant cowboys: D&G garments and stylistic

transformations
Such internationally distributed advertisements as Dolce & Gabbana,
Chanel (e.g. Allure Homme Sport) and Diesel are also featured in these
three Japanese magazines. Although all of them have a non-Asian-
appearance, the male figures appearing in these advertisements differ
visually from the actual models adorning the fashion photo pages.
Undoubtedly, well-developed, muscled bodies are shared by the models
appearing in these advertisements.
One such example was a series of D&G’s advertisements for their
summer 2010 collection. At first glance, the male models in the D&G
advertisements appear more boyish, or at least less ‘hypermasculine’ than
their counterparts in other advertising campaigns. Except for one model in
the far right, the indirect gaze of the models connotes a degree of passivity,
which might diminish their ‘hypermasculinity’.45 Yet their very short
hairstyles and postures, particularly those of the model in the middle, who
has his left foot on the sofa and his right hand in his trouser pocket, connote
a more conventional and confident masculinity. Inclusion of women in the
background, although vaguely visible, also alludes to the intention of
accentuating a normative heterosexuality of an otherwise homosocial
image. On closer observation we see the well-developed, muscled bodies of
the models, with strong facial features and broad shoulders. This is
reminiscent of the male models who appeared in Euro-American men’s
magazines like Men’s Health,46 and thus reflecting the European and
American ‘ideal’ masculine physical image. Arguably, these almost
contradicting qualities reflect the negotiation process between
hypermasculine and the more androgynous kind of male images.
In contrast, the April 2010 issue of Popeye and Men’s non-no offer an
illustrated story with the same D&G collection. The fashion spread of
Popeye is of great significance for my argument. In the story, the same
D&G sartorial items that appeared in the advertisement campaign are worn
by Australian model Benjamin Wenke, but are styled and photographed by
Japanese artists, and targeted at the Japanese readers.47 In comparison with
the D&G advertisement campaign, Wenke in Popeye appears significantly
younger, more boyish, slender and elegantly dressed than the models in this
campaign. The photographic aesthetics of these images, notably a type of
dreamy, melancholic and soft-focused effect, also highlight the credibility
of my reading. Wenke’s youthful, androgynous appearance corresponds
with his ‘lean’ posture, presented in a medium to medium-long shot, all of
which connote his stature as an ‘object’ to be looked at and appreciated.
The title of the fashion spread, ‘The Cowboy Way’, adds further
significance. As fashion scholar Shaun Cole theorizes, such sartorial styles
as the cowboy traditionally connoted a virile masculinity and the qualities
of toughness, aggression and strength associated with it.48 However, the
cowboy is reinvented as a youthful, slender and elegant male fashion model
in Popeye, a male aesthetic largely echoed in Milkboy’s blog picture, which
I referred to at the beginning of this chapter.
In order to make sense of these differences, it is useful to refer to the
theory of ‘format’ and ‘product’ as articulated by Keiko Okamura. This
theory allows a cultural form to be seen as a ‘format’ when becoming
transculturally accepted. This standardized ‘format’ becomes a carrier of a
local culture, making its characteristics visible, and comparable with those
of other cultures.49 In line with this theory, a Caucasian male model in the
D&G clothes (the ‘formats’) becomes transnational, and then ‘localized’ in
Japanese culture (as in the form of Popeye). When the ‘format’ is then
combined with local aesthetic ideals, it engenders a male image largely
favoured in Japan. The ‘product’ of this transcultural flow reflects an
emphasis on the fusion of a youthful and slender male image, a quality yet
to be fully favoured in European and American mainstream fashion scenes.
These differences perceived in modes of male aesthetic sensitivities allude
to the ideas of cultural hybridization and ‘glocalization’, informing us that
local aesthetics projected upon models gracing Japanese men’s magazines,
regardless of their nationality or race, should not be disregarded.50 At the
same time, such a view also rings an alarm bell and reminds us that we
should not fall into simple cultural essentialism.
In Chapter 2, I demonstrated that the target readerships of these Japanese
men’s publications are in their late teens to early twenties. Therefore, the
male images that appear within these Japanese magazines tend to be
situated between boyhood and manhood. Except for youth subculture styles,
European and American scholarship on fashion still tend to treat males in
their teens and twenties, as well as those in their thirties or older, as a
‘collective entity’ when referring to the issue of men and fashion, and thus
it has yet to offer full analysis of young male styles in specific age
segments. Contrary to this tendency, the concept of young men in terms of
stricter age segments have been important to some scholars who focus on
Japanese men and appearance. Such youthful masculine aesthetics might,
for example, imply Japanese young men’s attempts to reject an older mode
of masculinity. According to Miller, ‘[t]he model of maleness being
opposed [to the youthful, suave one] is age-graded, associated with an older
generation of oyaji (old men) with different values and aspirations.’51 The
images of males embellishing these Japanese men’s fashion magazines,
including the ‘ordinary’ young men pictured on the streets of Japan, make a
vivid contrast to the widely circulated images of uniformly worn-out, older
men in Japan. Here the mode of masculinity associated with older males
most likely points to that of the ‘salaryman’. In a derogatory sense, a certain
kind of older salaryman is typified as a symbol of unpleasant masculinity,
with frumpy clothes and crude mannerisms.52
The ‘salaryman’ masculinity is said to have embodied the dominant
discourse around masculinity in modern Japan, particularly since World
War Two with such qualities as ‘loyalty, diligence, dedication, self-sacrifice,
[and] hard work’.53 Idealized portrayals of the ‘salaryman’ as masculine,
austere and sexually virile, are prevalent in Japanese popular culture,
particularly the ones targeted at middle-aged men.54 According to Romit
Dasgupta in his study of ‘salaryman’, such representations are more likely
the mirror-image of the ridiculed and caricatured images of tired, weak and
shabby middle-aged man.55 Typically, a ‘salaryman’ devotes his time to his
company, and thus would have little time to spend with his family, let alone
on his appearance.56
Importantly, some argue that younger generations of Japanese men
believe this lifestyle to be inadequate.57 The burst of the bubble economy in
1991 and subsequent recession in the early 1990s, along with changes in the
status and rights of women, are often given as direct causes of the decline in
the legitimacy of this once hegemonic, ‘salaryman’ masculinity.58 One way
Japanese young men show their opposition to this older mode of
masculinity is through fashion. Although there are stylistic variations in
Popeye, Men’s non-no and Fineboys, the concept of elegance inscribed to
the ‘Neo-Edwardian Dandyism’ is one style associated with this ‘rebellion’.
Boyish reinvention of the ‘Neo-Edwardian’ dandy
style
Exemplified by such figures as Cecil Beaton, ‘Edwardian Dandyism’
appreciated elegance, grace and sophistication with a handful of
mannerisms retrieved from the past, particularly from the Regency period.
Although it is not completely a unified style, the orthodoxy of the style, as
Sean Nixon describes of the 1980s revival of ‘Edwardian male style’ in the
UK fashion scene, consists of ‘taupe, cream and beige jackets and trousers
set off with coloured silk ties, cravats and waistcoats. Courduroy [sic] and
brogues compliment [sic] the soft edges of a cream raincoat and a straw
hat’.59 The importance of this suave style in contemporary Japanese fashion
culture is that the ‘Edwardian Dandy styles’, once ascribed to certain social
classes in England, have been claimed in contemporary Japan as neat yet
youthful and rather casual men’s fashion.
The adoption of elegant fashion as a form of revolt against other notions
of masculinity has also been exemplified by Takuya Kimura, singer, dancer,
actor and member of the longtime Japanese boy band SMAP. Kimura is
captured in a distinct fashion in the May 2008 issue of Popeye.60 He is
dressed in a loud Gucci check suit, shirt, tie, knit sweater and shoes,
completed with a straw hat. In the black-and-white photo, Kimura is sitting
cross-legged on a modern chair, holding a walking stick. More ‘relaxed’
appropriation of this ‘Edwardian Dandy’ style with a modern nuance is also
found in the April 2010 issue of Men’s non-no.61 In a fashion spread titled
‘United Arrows White Label: Wearing the Suits Freely! Daily!’, one of the
models is pictured wearing a black jacket with a gilet, a blue shirt and a pair
of indigo corduroy trousers, completed with a check bow tie and a hat. The
elegant aesthetics conveyed in these images are reminiscent of famous fin
de siècle dandies who imposed a direct influence on their Edwardian
descendants, notably Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley in the case of
Kimura, and the young Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas in that of the Men’s non-
no model.
According to Ellen Moers, author of The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm,
Oscar Wilde made sartorial transitions in the 1880s as ‘Professor of
Aesthetics’ with a costume of ‘knee breeches, drooping lily, flowering
green tie, velvet coat and wide, turned-down collar which first made him
famous’.62 In the 1890s, with fame and notoriety achieved, his dress
‘became coldly and formally correct. He was content to express
individuality (aside from his enormous and oddly proportioned bulk) with a
single detail: a green boutonnière, a bright red waistcoat or a turquoise and
diamond stud’.63 In either case, the fin de siècle dandyism appreciated
elegance, grace and sophistication with a handful of mannerisms retrieved
from the past. The concept of elegance and sophistication becomes
particularly important in relation to the negative stereotypes of middle-aged
Japanese men. Jan Bardsley, in her study of middle-aged Japanese men and
their demeanours, points out that negative traits commonly associated with
the (middle-aged) ‘salaryman’ are often due to the lack of elegance and
sophistication both in his appearance and in his manners.64 What, then, is
the relevance of European dandyism to Japanese contemporary men’s
fashion? There is in fact a significant link between dandyism and
contemporary Japanese men’s fashion. Indeed, the formal introduction of
the European sartorial style to Japan, which was initially a male
phenomenon, coincided with the eve of the revival of dandyism in the UK
in the late nineteenth century.65
Art and dress historian Toby Slade suggests that there existed an
equivalent to European dandyism in the Japanese context, which allowed
Japanese men to adopt and appreciate the aesthetics of the suit.66 And what
is in his mind when Slade is making this statement is iki: a traditional
aesthetic ideal, believed to have emerged from the worldly and urbane
merchant classes in the 1800s, late-Edo period in Japan. Often roughly
translated in English as chic or stylish, iki is usually used to describe a
simple, nonchalantly refined and stylish thing, behaviour or appearance.
Upon iki as articulated by philosopher Shūzō Kuki, Slade argues that:

While some reservations can be placed on its exact equivalence, it can be concluded that some of
the aesthetic factors that shaped the suit’s development in Europe were at work in the Japanese
experience as well.67

The concept of iki, then, ‘bears an unmistakable resemblance to

Baudelairean dandyism’.68 This cross-cultural affinity of dandyism
reinforces the claim made by Nederveen Pieterse that cultural hybridization
expresses cultural affinities rather than ‘exoticism’ or difference.69 Rather
than blindly following the modes of the past in their untouched form, the
elegant styles offered by contemporary Japanese youth fashion culture
shows a degree of innovation. I argue that the significance of its elegant
aesthetics is twofold: it has modified and restyled fin-de-siècle and
‘Edwardian’ dandy aesthetics as slightly more casual by combining them
with other, more nonchalant styles. This has rendered the ‘elegant’ styles
both more youthful and accessible. Likewise, young men’s embrace of
these neat yet youthful, classic yet attainable styles contributes to the
crafting of an image of masculinity that imposes, however indirect, a
repudiation of the worn-out, dowdy and ‘mature’ image of masculinity
predominantly ascribed to Japanese men.

A marriage of the casual and elegant:

popularization of elegance in contemporary
Japanese men’s styles
The elegant style considered by these magazines also includes ‘European
Traditional’, ‘Mod’, ‘Ivy’ and ‘preppy’. These styles correspond well with
the kireime (neat) and high-casual styles preferred by the three Japanese
magazines. Compatibility of the Japanese concept of male elegance with
other styles, such as ‘Military’, ‘Rock’ or even ‘Working Clothes’ styles, is
another significant quality. These magazines show commingled styles,
which add elegance and neatness to rather rough, dishevelled and real
styles. The March 2008 issue of Men’s non-no illustrates this point by
offering examples of elegant or chic coordination for the flannel shirt. The
feature suggests that wearing it with a tie achieves a chic look; with a
matching jacket and trousers comes an elegant look; and layering it with a
pastel-coloured pinstripe shirt completes an innocent look.70 Almost all
these magazines include the styles coming with the coordination of a shirt
and tie, jacket or pea coat, and thus resembling men’s suit styles. According
to Hollander, the suit has undergone only slight stylistic modifications since
1820, the time when it was virtually established.71 Thus, the dominance of
the elegant male aesthetics presented in these magazines privileges an
allusion to turn of twentieth-century Europe and fin-de-siècle dandyism,
which were closely tied with the original dandy movement that occurred in
late eighteenth-century to early nineteenth-century England. What is
significant is that such a privileged, suave male aesthetic has been recreated
as everyday elegance in Japan. Whether it is an Edwardian-dandy elegance
or the insignia of elite Ivy Leaguers, Japanese fashion culture has
incorporated it into everyday style, making it available for virtually
everyone who can afford it.
Although stylistically different, such elegant styles offered by these
magazines correspond conceptually to the mid-1880s British Wildean
costume, ‘open to the influence of taste, which dictated a return to the
Regency ideals of grace, youthfulness, and elegance’.72 Rather than
affirming the relationship between fatigued, unattractive masculinity and
the suit, these magazines show their male readership that they can look
youthful, elegant and sophisticated even when dressed in the sober suit.
These Japanese men’s fashion magazines, then, are able to encourage their
male readership to acknowledge the pleasures of looking pleasant. Do these
suave males, then, suggest the formation and development of Foucault’s
theory of a practice of self? If so, can their acquisition of ‘the beautiful form
in the eyes of others and of themselves’ through governing their lives with a
set of fashion principles indicate their repudiation of the preconception that
men dress for utility rather than aesthetics?73 If such a preconception
reflects conventional sex role ascriptions, do appearance-conscious men
who are notable in Japanese fashion culture point to images of masculinity
that are less preoccupied with conventional gender roles?
Figure 3.2 Teenage actor Ryutaro Akimoto looking cute in Milkboy’s bow-tie shirt and a pair of
sarouel trousers.
Styled by KENJI and photographed by SHINGO. Image reproduced with kind permission of
KENJI/Milkboy.

The presence of cute (kawaii) aesthetics, which is increasingly becoming

applicable to male fashion styles, has also contributed to the crafting of a
context where this image of boyish yet suave, edgy yet classical masculinity
is nurtured. This importance is not only visible in fashion magazines, but
also is notable in actual fashion houses. A prime example is menswear label
Milkboy, the precursor of the modern Japanese street style. What is striking
about Milkboy is that it is a paragon of the qualities I have hitherto
described in relation to a ‘newer’ image of male fashionability in
contemporary Japan—edgy, boyish, slender, suave and kawaii.

Boyish playfulness and old-world elegance: an

aesthetic continuity and transformation of
Milkboy
Milkboy was established in 1974, four years after Hitomi Okawa, described
by Tiffany Godoy as the ‘Muse of Harajuku’, opened her shop for
ladieswear Milk in Harajuku, Japan.74 While Japanese mainstream fashion
culture was predominantly looking at American casual styles for its
inspiration after the hippy movement, Milkboy preferred European, and
particularly British, fashion culture as its inspiration. The exceptional and
cutting-edge style of Milkboy is evident in its first shop interior designed by
influential designer Shirō Kuramata, and visits paid by numerous
international designers and artists, including John Lennon and David Bowie
in the 1970s and Stephen Jones, Jean Paul Gaultier and Public Enemy in the
1980s. Milkboy has also been known for initiating new trends and
movements. While the original Milk brand has been frequented by Vivienne
Westwood and was the first shop in Japan to sell Comme des Garçons,
Milkboy is the driving force behind Japan’s punk boom in the 1990s with
its popularization of bondage trousers as ‘everyday wear’, the ‘urahara’
boom in the early 2000s, and made famous such fashion labels as Jun
Takahashi’s undercover/undercoverism.75
One notable characteristic of Milkboy is its encompassment of various
styles. According to the owner and designer Hitomi, the brand aims to
design clothes for the youth of each period.76 The brand’s fashion
philosophy is to continue designing and creating clothes that a seventeen-
year-old boy can understand and thinks cool. Accordingly, the muses of the
brand, while they could be celebrities and models, include more ‘ordinary’
young men such as the label’s shop assistants and students.77 This also
alludes to a social affinity between the clothes of Milkboy and the
consumer, and so does the sensitivity that bridges Milkboy’s brand image
and the real lives of its wearers. A degree of change in Japanese young men
and their fashion can therefore be observed in Milkboy items over time.
This ‘elasticity’ makes vain the attempt to generalize the label’s styles, and
there are at least four main stylistic essences that are quite indelible to
Milkboy’s fashion aesthetics; punk/rock, hip-hop/street, military and the
British schoolboy/dandy. Here, what seems particularly noteworthy is these
aspects of clothing are, like Men’s non-no’s commingling of an elegant look
and ‘work clothing’, shaped by a few key words: kawaii (cute), boyish,
elegant and slender.
The flexibility of Milkboy and its fairly versatile adaptability to given
ambiences can mirror the trend of time while retaining its more
fundamental aesthetics. A fashion spread dedicated to Milkboy in the
December 2006 issue of Popeye, styled and directed by Hitomi herself, for
example suggests a tougher, ‘man-kid’, ‘hip-hop’ style with set-ups of loose
fitted sweaters and sweatpants, big accessories and caps, along with more
punkish items of plaid trousers and black boots.78 The models who appear
in the spreads, including the brand’s shop assistant, fellow designers, a
stylist, teenage models, and musicians, are predominantly pictured in the
‘face-off’ position, most of whom stare at rather than smile to the camera,
further upholding the tough, rough, ‘man-kid’ kind of masculine image.
While the designer later recalls that this rather edgy, hard, and masculine
style was more like a blend of the magazine’s request and her impressions
drawn from the models used in the actual photo shoot, the concept of ‘man-
kidness’ and, by implication, a kind of boyishness is significant.79
A fashion spread appears in the August 2013 issue of fashion and culture
magazine spoon., styled by Kenji and photographed by Shingo (leaders of
the Milkboy design and art direction team), that illustrates the brand’s
preference to a cuter, gentler and more boyish image of masculinity.80 In the
eight-page photo shoot that accompanies a soft-focused, dreamy and highly
romantic fashion spread of Milk with popular fashion icon Amo, teenage
amateur model Musashi Rhodes, smiling, puts up an umbrella while
wearing a three-piece grey regimental jacket, vest and a pair of trousers,
and a shirt with a polka dot tie of pale blue. Rhodes is also captured
standing straight on an avenuea boulevard, wearing a neat coordination of a
white shirt with large black letters spelling ‘AMAZING’, a pair of skinny
black trousers and loafers; in a medium shot, he shows a faint smile to the
camera, wearing a white T-shirt with a print of a cute teddy bear, a pair of
beige, floral pattern-like camouflage bondage trousers, a black top hat and a
number of accessories. The clean-cut, boyish and rather sweet image of this
shoot conceptualizes Hitomi’s perception of the brand that Milkboy
garments are designed in part for the ‘prince’ of the girl who dresses in
Milk.
Figure 3.3 Musashi Rhodes and Yota Tsurimoto wearing clothes from Milkboy’s 2013–14
collection.
Styled by KENJI, photographed by SHINGO, and hair and make-up by Kyouichi Hirota. Image
reproduced with the kind permission of KENJI/Milkboy.

The cute but edgy image of boyishness remains unchanged in another

fashion spread of Milkboy in the December 2013 issue of spoon., again
styled by Kenji and photographed by Shingo under the theme of ‘Team
Boys’ or ‘buddy-ness’.81 Presenting Rhodes and the brand’s shop assistant
Yota Tsurimoto, both seventeen, as ‘buddies’ in the setting of an amusement
park, the sixteen-page feature story is a commingling of playful teenager
and cute, unthreatening and wholesome boyishness. The young men are
wearing sartorial items of Milkboy’s 2013–14 collection, from a relaxed
coordinate of hoodies and a pair of tartan check trousers, to a more
sophisticated, schoolboy-like suit with a white shirt, a matching plaid jacket
and trousers, and a pair of golden penny loafers (Tsurimoto), and a black,
red, blue and white regimental vest and a pair of matching shorts,
accompanied by a black pair of penny loafers (Rhodes). The photo shoot
captures the young men enjoying activities like playing at a game arcade,
eating ice creams and driving go-karts, and in the stunningly cute image of
blowing bubbles together (Figure 3.3).
This unique amalgam of light, boyish delinquency and cute, wholesome
and youthful suavity is evidence of the brand’s aesthetic continuity and
transformation. Seeing these recent Milkboy photo shoots, we might be
surprised by the fashion brand’s translation of the concept of ‘cute
(kawaii)’, a typically considered as a ‘feminine’ attribute, onto men’s wear.

Edgy, cute and suave: Milkboy as a candy-box of

boys’ fashion aesthetics
As already mentioned, a blurring of sartorial boundaries between men and
women is an aspect increasingly becoming visible in contemporary
Japanese youth fashion culture. And the concept of kawaii, which we shall
see in detail in the next chapter, can be applied to both men’s and women’s
fashion in Japan. Yet how the brand assimilates the concept into men’s wear
designs is quite mesmerizing. This aspect is well observed in Milkboy’s
blog, managed and updated regularly by the brand’s staff, and appropriately
named Milkboy Staff’s Blog.82 In the blog, Milkboy items are described as
kawaii or cute quite frequently, whether it is a pair of colourful striped
socks (28 February 2013), a pair of saxon blue trainers with large white
polka dots and pink lining (20 April 2013), a short-sleeved shirt with a big
ribbon tie (30 April 2013) or a polka-dotted blouson jacket with fur collar
(9 November 2013). The blog, for example, describes the polka-dot pattern
of the blouson jacket as ‘cute’, and it looks kawaii when worn with the
collar standing up. In addition to these sartorial items, which might be
considered rather ‘feminine’, or even girlish in the conventional sense,
Milkboy has also translated the concept of kawaii onto more ‘masculine’
items.
Milkboy has been known for its association with a punk style,
particularly famous for bondage trousers, and more recently, hip-hop
fashion styles with hoodies and overalls, both of which are generally known
as ‘masculinist’ subcultures. Its bondage skinny trousers, released in 2013,
however, come with a number of different patterns, including a floral
pattern with shades of blue, and of grey (the latter of which had already sold
out when introduced in the blog on 10 July 2013), and a black jersey hoodie
is scattered with a vivid pattern of golden bananas and adorable teddy bears
(18 March 2013). In this sense, Milkboy has reinvented ostensibly
‘masculinist’ styles as more cute and pop fashion items. This reinvention
indicates that a concept of kawaii has been integrated as one type of ‘cool’,
stylish aesthetics in Japanese men’s fashion scene. In other words, Milkboy
items can be seen as creatively and effectively using and merging the
antithetical poles of ‘girlish’ and ‘masculine’ sartorial concepts.
While the label has brought aspects of ‘feminine’ fashion to men’s style,
it also signifies the blurring of men’s and women’s fashion in another way;
namely, its cool and cute designs have attracted female customers. Milkboy
is the male line of Milk, a women’s fashion brand known for its romantic,
girlish styles with a ‘twist’, but Milkboy is also worn by women, including
famous icons like pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and fashion model Amo in
recent times.83 According to Kenji of Milkboy’s design team and press,
women currently occupy approximately 20 per cent of Milkboy
consumers.84 For women customers who wear Milkboy, Hitomi says that
Milk is worn by girls who want to be princesses, and Milkboy is taken up
by girls who want to dress just like their princes.85 By the ‘prince’ she
means a beau of that moment, and he can look different depending on the
ideal male vision each woman holds. Nonetheless, judging from the photo
shoots of the brand, currently the cute and rather androgynous type seems to
best express the image of ‘Milkboy prince’. Corresponding to this point is a
slender silhouette that the label assimilates.
Milkboy stocks loose-fitting items, including sarouel trousers, overalls
and large-size hoodies. Yet many of the trousers come in one or two sizes;
Slim bondage trousers (27 August 2013), for example, are 98 per cent
cotton with 2 per cent elastic fabrics, and come in five different colours and
patterns but have two sizes – small with the waist size of 78 cm (31 in.) and
medium with an 80 cm waist (31.5 in.). Check pocket trousers that match
the dolman Jacket, again, come in two sizes; small with a 76 cm waist (30
in.) and medium that fits a waist size of 80 cm (31.5 in., 31 October 2013).
Zip-lined slim trousers (28 September 2013) and Ceremonial trousers (23
December 2013) come in one size with 78 cm and 82 cm (32 in.) waists
respectively. This tendency mirrors actuality of the physicality of
contemporary Japanese young men. According to surveys conducted by
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, nearly 60 per cent of
Japanese men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine have a waist size
of 80 cm or smaller. The highest group, falling between 75 and 80 cm,
accounts for 24 per cent, followed by 70–5 cm (22.75 per cent) and 80–5
cm (17.6 per cent).86 This indicates that Japanese men in this age group
predominantly, but not exceptionally, have smaller waists, and Milkboy
both reflects and is instrumental in this trend. This confirms the
aforementioned point that dress sizes for men and women are increasingly
blurring in contemporary Japanese fashion culture. Not only that, the
brand’s embrace of slender silhouette further reinforces the idea that an
androgynous and boyish image is important for Milkboy. This is because a
conventional and perhaps widely held view of the androgynous look makes
allusion to, as Hollander has pointed out, a kind of beauty belonging to the
adolescent male, which is often typified by an exceptionally slender
physicality.87 I believe this can be more complex than that, and I explore a
different mode of androgynous look in Chapter 5, but the slender male
silhouette gives a definite boyish flavour, and that is what Milkboy
espouses.
The length of the forenamed Ceremonial trousers can be adjusted with
button tabs on both sides of the trousers, to make them three-quarter length.
Especially with the neat and tight silhouette of the matching jacket, this
crafts a boyish look. Indeed, Milkboy’s suits, such as a plaid Crest jacket
and Crest slim trousers, and the aforementioned dolman jacket and check
pocket trousers, render the wearer’s look significantly boyish, as if alluding
to the look of elegant Edwardian schoolboys. This is especially so when
coordinated with a pair of penny loafers and a top hat, the latter of which
was a bestselling item in late 2013 (Figure 3.4).
Alternatively, more on the elegant side, the coordinate of a regimental
jacket, regimental vest and regimental trousers, worn with a pale blue shirt
with a matching polka dot tie, as the cover image of this book bespeaks,
creates a suave look reminiscent of the ‘Neo-Edwardian’ dandy. Since the
brand philosophy emphasizes the concept of male youthfulness, this cute,
slender and boyish ‘schoolboy’ look is an important one for Milkboy.
As previously mentioned, Hitomi describes her brand philosophy as
designing and offering clothes that seventeen-year-old boys can love and
understand. The significant meaning of this philosophy is that established
fashion brands tend to transform themselves into more high-end fashion
identities as both designers and consumers age, which could result in their
items gradually ‘speaking’ less to younger consumers.88 Kenji states that
Milkboy is actually purchased by real seventeen-year-olds as well as older
individuals, but the age of seventeen can also be symbolic of youth in a
more general sense.89 In the Japanese social system, seventeen-year-olds
are situated in a space one step before going into society. The imagery of
boys for whom the brand primarily designs their items is thus situated in a
liminal space between boyhood and manhood. The boyish cuteness that is
unconstrained of many social trammels accords well with the edgy coolness
of playful street fashion. Combined with this is a sense of suavity, which is
added by items of old-world chic such as a plaid suit and especially a top
hat, a wardrobe that G. Bruce Boyer calls a reminder of ‘the days of empire
and studied elegance’ and ‘the social ideal of gentility’.90 Such a stylistic
amalgam of diametric opposition – perky, boyish cuteness and manly
elegance – epitomizes a distinctive and largely untapped image of youthful
Japanese men. The brand’s frequent collaborations with such figures as
Rhodes, Tsurimoto, boyish-looking actor and former amateur model Yudai
Chiba, and teenage actor Ryutaro Akimoto (Figure 3.2) as its preferred
models further reinforce this image. A subtle balance between street style
coolness and schoolboy cuteness, coated with Edwardian dandy elegance, is
an image of masculinity that offers a striking alternative to the images of
dowdy and largely unflattering middle-aged ‘salaryman’ and impuissant,
‘passive’ young men, both of which tend to have typified the images of
modern Japanese males, especially in non-Japanese contexts.

Figure 3.4 Musashi Rhodes with a ‘Neo-Edwardian’ schoolboy look, wearing a dolman jacket,
check pocket trousers and a top hat.
Styled by KENJI, photographed by SHINGO, hair and make-up by Kyouichi Hirota. Image
reproduced with kind permission of KENJI/Milkboy.

The Milkboy blog almost never mentions romantic desires as a primary

motivation to acquire or dress in Milkboy clothes. Obviously, it does not
disregard or even refuse such desires. Since Milk and Milkboy stores in
Harajuku are located in the same building, and as already mentioned,
Milkboy clothes are also purchased by women, the store is frequented by
college-age couples, creating a lovely sight of boys shopping together with
their girlfriends.91 That being said, what the brand considers most important
is its principle that the wearer enjoys and looks pleasant by wearing nice
clothes for themselves, and this should not be achieved by sacrificing
functionality for aesthetics. In this sense the brand focuses on the
Foucauldian notion of beauty as a practice for one’s self, to look good for
oneself regardless of what motivations lie behind this desire. By refusing to
conform to a set of clichéd assumptions for men and fashion, Milkboy
makes men’s fashionability significantly more complex. Respecting this
point, I argue that the fashionability of Japanese young men conveys and
even uplifts both romantic desirability and self-confidence.

Dressing for time and occasion: negotiating

romantic desires and narcissistic impulses
Contemporary Japanese men’s fashion culture points to at least two possible
factors contributing to the rise of fashion-consciousness among young men.
Miller argues that ‘[a]n emphasis on male appearance counters the
salaryman reification of men as workers, while women appreciate these
new styles because they are aesthetically pleasing and erotically charged’.92
In similar fashion, Megumi Ushikubo notes that Japanese women in their
twenties and thirties are likely to find overtly fashion-minded men, whom
they take to be unassertive, calm and willing to share domestic work, to be
more attractive romantic partners than older men who tend to be framed
within rigidly defined gender roles.93 Having said that, Ushikubo suggests
that the appearance-consciousness among these young men reflects their
attempt to gain self-confidence rather than to attract the attention of
women.94 That being so, I suggest that two factors are the keys to
understanding this rise of fashion consciousness: a desire to attract admirers
and an attempt to gain self-confidence or pleasure.
Importantly, male fears that women will criticize their appearance are one
of the primary factors concerning men’s beauty consumption in
contemporary Japan.95 These concerns are frequently the subjects of
magazine features, such as the aforementioned ‘No-no Styles that Turn Off
Ggirls’.96 In this feature, the reader is instructed how to avoid coordinating
pieces in unflattering looks. For example, it tells the reader that wearing a
loose-fitted top and trousers together would make an unattractive silhouette.
Instead, the reader is advised to wear a tight-fitted top and loose-fitted
trousers, or vice versa. This story also features a group of young women
and their spicy, scrutinizing comments on each outfit. These magazines,
particularly Fineboys, are predominantly concerned with the looks and
styles that presumably attract young women. At the same time, a fashion
feature in the April 2010 issue of Men’s non-no introduces styles and
coordinates that are designed to make pleasant impressions on both men
and women.97
In similar fashion, a feature story about bodybuilding, which these
magazines offer sporadically, particularly in the summer, is often framed
within the discourse of the heterosexual, and young women’s evaluations
are frequently used as motivations.98 But the April 2008 issue of Popeye
offers a kickboxing feature that instructs the readership to build a slender
body that fits tight-silhouetted clothes.99 In other words, this Popeye feature
tells us that Japanese young men dress not only to attract admirers but also
for their own desire and pleasure. This view corresponds with Milkboy’s,
which emphasizes a sense of pleasure gaining from wearing clothes one
likes as an important motivation for the male customer. This not only
indicates that Japanese young men’s fashion culture persuades their
participants to dress to make themselves feel attractive, along with
presenting a good impression on other individuals, and that taking pleasure
in clothes enhances their self-assurance. Its pedagogy around crafting a
fashionable self for both the eyes of the other and for themselves by
following a set of principles and regulations, and hence governing one’s
life, also endorses Foucault’s idea of a practice of self.100
Valerie Steele emphasizes, in relation to Victorian women’s fashion, that
‘attractive dress gave its wearer considerable self-confidence, which
contributed to an improved appearance’.101 This is what Japanese men’s
fashion attempts to convey. These two possible driving forces of male
fashion-consciousness are also in the process of negotiation. A prime
example is a 2007 Fineboys article on fragrances that offers a number of the
latest colognes for specific situations, including those to be worn at school
and on dates.102 In this sense, these men’s fashion magazines revolve
around the negotiation process between the two forces of romantic desire
and narcissistic impulses.
Japanese men’s fashion magazines do not entirely disregard ‘hegemonic’
masculine tones (as, for example, Men’s non-no often accentuates, by
saying ‘if you are a man …’ in its feature stories). Unlike the Milkboy blog,
magazines like Fineboys and Choki Choki also instruct their male readers
not to be too fashion conscious. This is particularly notable in ‘what girls
like/dislike about boys’ styles’ feature stories. These features repeatedly
cite young women as saying that although they like men who take care of
their appearances, they do not like men who are exceedingly and explicitly
appearance-conscious, or who wear items that explicitly connote
‘femininity’ or ‘girlishness’. For instance, the ‘No-no Styles for Girls’
feature story in Fineboys tells the reader that college-aged women have
voted for a frilled shirt and a skirt as the items they want men to wear the
least. According to the magazine, young women find the frilled shirt too
‘girlish’ (onnanoko-ppoi), and they think the skirt does not look good on
men unless worn by those with an exceptional sense of fashion.103
While the skirt is rarely featured as a men’s outfit in men’s fashion
magazines like Fineboys and Men’s non-no, the frilled shirt is sometimes
depicted as an ‘elegant’ item.104 What is striking is that Milkboy’s beautiful
Frill shirts are described in the blog as airy, elegant, gorgeous and unisex
(25 January 2012), and apparently do not pose any threat to the wearer’s
masculine identity. Hence, fashion houses like Milkboy have even more
relaxed attitudes towards the relationship between men and fashion.
Importantly, ‘[h]istorically, attention to male beauty [has] not [been]
unusual in Japan’.105 As for the relative lack of emphasies on
‘hypermasculine’ traits and activities in contemporary Japanese men’s
fashion culture, there may ‘be less stigma attached to men looking feminine
in Japan’.106 Thus, within a broader historical context, fashion has not
necessarily been treated as a ‘female-only’ trait in Japan. This indicates that
the boundaries between ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ are placed differently in
Japanese youth culture. The significance of these representations is further
emphasized by a fundamental role of clothes to demarcate and manifest
gender distinctions as an imaginative necessity.
The established hetero-romantic influence on (young) men and their
fashion consumption might explain the significantly different attitudes
Japanese men display towards fashion compared to their Euro-American
equivalents, where the strong ties between fashion practices and a gay
subculture are assumed.107 If we recall the idea put forward by Sandra L.
Bem that a group of men customarily marginalize homosexual men, let
alone women, in order to affirm and strengthen their ‘male’ identities, it can
be deduced that these men tend to have ambivalent feelings for fashion
consumption.108 This is because fashion consumption in Anglophone
culture is stereotypically deemed as being associated with women and
homosexuals, the ‘others’ of these heterosexual men, and hence consuming
it might impose a threat to their ‘masculine’ identities. This also offers an
explanation for the allegedly ironic yet strong emphasis on ‘conventional’
masculinity and on heterosexuality, notably predatory attitudes towards
women, still found in Anglophone men’s lifestyle magazines.109
As we have seen in Chapter 1, the desire of men and women to express a
clear sartorial distinction between the two gender categories, which has
occurred periodically in the European history of dress, would usually
emerge when the visual differences between men’s and women’s clothes are
blurred.110 Slade, moreover, argues that one of the appeals the European
three-piece-suit had to Japanese men in the late nineteenth century was its
ability to offer clear sartorial distinctions between male and female. This
would appeal to Japanese men, since the Japanese kimono was perceived as
relatively vague about gender distinctions.111 In other words, the existing
notion that assumes male indifference to fashion, and ambivalence in male
interests in fashion or appearance, possibly reflects the instable nature of
‘masculinity’ or, more precisely, of gender. ‘Masculinity’ might be so
flimsy that it needs visual (and hence explicit) divides from ‘femininity’ in
order to sustain it, and vice versa.
Since the requirements of sartorial distinction point to the instability of
gender – in this case ‘masculinity’ – ‘feminine’ sartorial elements, when
excessively adopted or incorporated in men’s fashion, might be perceived as
inflicting a threat to men’s heterosexual ‘masculine’ identity. As the editor
of now discontinued British men’s magazine Loaded Fashion Adrian Clark
said in 2005:

Experimenting with colour is one of the few opportunities men have today to freely express
themselves without ridicule. It is, therefore, a pity that many choose to limit their palettes to
stereotypical masculine hues, such as black, grey, indigo and natural shades.112

Arguably, both the Japanese men’s fashion magazines and Milkboy’s

perceptions of the young male and what he likes to wear offer an alternative
to this tendency.
To what extent does this change in Japanese male aesthetic sensitivities
reflect the actual conception of gender relations among Japanese youth?
Miller suggests that although Japanese young men have changed in their
appearances and their aesthetic sensibility, ‘it has done little to alter the
structure of basic gender relations’.113 A young man ‘will still expect the
women in his life to fulfil traditional and subservient gender roles’.114 More
optimistically, Ushikubo suggests that both Japanese men and women of
younger generations are considerably less concerned with traditional gender
roles.115 There is, however, one thing that is clear through studying the
aspects of contemporary Japanese young men’s fashion culture: a stylish
outfit gives its wearer pleasure and confidence, and men too, wish to be
aesthetically appreciated. Dress is, to recall what Elizabeth Wilson has said,
the cultural metaphor for the body through which we manifest our identity
into our cultural context, and it constantly demarcates our conceptions of
gender and its boundaries.116 The influences of the suave male aesthetics
flourishing in contemporary Japanese culture on the structure of actual
gender relations thus remains to be seen.

Conclusion
At the beginning of this chapter, I referred to Flügel, who contends that
recognizing and valuing the gaze of women would make heterosexual
men’s fashion more progressive and attractive. As we have seen, the male
aesthetics flourishing among young Japanese men, as evident in Japanese
men’s fashion publications and menswear labels like Milkboy, are highly
favoured by Japanese women. Yet fashion is not only based on young men’s
wish to attract the female gaze, but also their desire to look good and to
increase their self-confidence through their enhanced physical
appearance.117 For example, the popularity of elegant, ‘Neo-Edwardian’
dandy aesthetics reinforces the view that a group of young men hope to
identify themselves with a mode of masculinity other than the more
established ‘salaryman’ masculinity. At least for younger generations, chic,
fashionable, elegant and even feminine outward appearance, to a certain
degree, does not necessarily threaten ‘masculine’ identities. Instead it
recasts notions of masculinity for a new age. Their incorporation of some
‘feminine’ sartorial items into their styles suggests that the boundaries
between the two gender categories are placed differently in Japanese youth
culture.
Since male heterosexuality does not necessarily conflict with beauty
consumption in contemporary Japanese society, young men do not need to
justify their engagement with fashion. At the same time, through the
negotiating process between young men’s desire to attract admirers and
their own hedonistic pleasures, Japanese men’s fashion culture presents
fashion interests and consumption as both enjoyable and a strategy to
enhance self-esteem. In this sense, adoring oneself in nice clothes, with
stylish hairstyles and delightful perfumes, at least for a certain group of
young men, provides confidence and a sense of pleasure. Importantly, this
repudiates the anachronistic yet persisting preconception that men are less
concerned with clothes than women, and prioritize functionality over
aesthetics. It is noteworthy that slender body types are also gaining
popularity despite the prolonged preference of the ‘hypermasculine’
muscularity of male physique in Anglophone cultures. Whether or not this
type of male image, as embodied by such male models as Clément
Chabernaud (b. 1989) and Andrej Pejic (b. 1991), will become mainstream
remains to be seen.
My analysis of aspects of Japanese men’s fashion cultures underscores
that Japanese adoption of Euro-American male models and clothing styles
does not manifest a simple, cultural imperialism in which one cultural
aspect infiltrates the other. Rather they unearth the different modes of male
aesthetic sensitivities present in Japan. This offers a potential for different
approaches to men’s fashion and the possibility to create a new, more
practical aesthetic. The next chapter will address the Japanese aesthetic
concepts of kawaii (cute) and shōjo (girls). With a case study of Japanese
female performers’ appropriations of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in
Wonderland in their music videos, it will examine the given aesthetic
concepts’ potential to affirm ‘infantile’ cute fashion while sustaining senses
of agency and autonomy.
 4
GLACÉ WONDERLAND:
CUTENESS, SEXUALITY AND
YOUNG WOMEN*

Kawaii is like love of humanity, you need a certain mental capacity,

strength and experiences to appreciate the fragile.
—HITOMI of Milk and Milkboy, 2013.1

In a song named ‘Bloomin’!’, the sugary voice of Tomoko Kawase flavours

this slightly kitsch, overly sweet candy-box of lyrics.2 She sings:

Bloomin’ flowers dance with me; So darling, you’re my fantasy; Shower of jelly beans pouring
heavily; My lips are here to stay; Tonight… if the stars flow; Fate forbids us to part Ah Ah.

Whether she sings it on stage, or in the famed music video where she takes
up the image of Lewis Carroll’s immortalized heroine Alice, she wears an
air of cuteness, or kawaii as it is called in Japan.3 What renders her
performance puzzling for the eyes of those unfamiliar with Japanese culture
is perhaps the almost complete absence of sexuality or assertiveness. The
27-year-old Kawase, in the guise of one of her alter egos Tommy February,
crafts a look that unites the girlishness of the school girl and the infantile
cuteness of the preadolescent. Significantly, whether wearing a flowing,
baby pink knee-length tunic or a lace-trimmed, tight-silhouetted pastel grey
pinafore dress, Kawase’s girlish style is not about overt sexual allure. The
significance of such a cute representation is dramatically different to the
‘kinder-whore’ look of the 1990s, and more recent vogue of ‘porno-chic’
style in Euro-American culture, where women, presumably young, are
represented in scantily clad ways, with explicit references to pornography
and pole dancing.4 The concept of cuteness, particularly when it is mingled
with sweet, girlish and ‘infantile’ qualities, is deemed as unfavourable,
demeaning or even pathological in Euro-American culture. In this chapter, I
argue the opposite, namely that a certain kind of the Japanese concept of
kawaii can be interpreted as a ‘delicate revolt’ that softly and implicitly
opposes and subverts stereotyped preconceptions connected to sexuality
and gender.
I explore the particularly Japanese concepts of kawaii and shōjo (girls),
which allow Japanese women to retain a girlish, almost ‘infantile’ cuteness
without emphasizing mature female sexuality. A group of Japanese
mainstream female performers have taken up the performative nature of
these concepts, crafting and parodying the cute ‘look’, which consequently
enables them to operate in a position that moves between sweet, non-sexual
and autonomous conditions. In short, I argue that the sweet and largely
asexual representations of young women as demonstrated by the performers
might offer a representation of youthful femininity that is not too
sexualized, too demurely ‘feminine’ or too ‘masculine’, but comfortably
situated somewhere between these three positions.
This chapter begins with a general overview of the concept of kawaii,
explaining how this concept is a manifestation of interactions between
Japanese and Euro-American cultures. The first section also looks at
another Japanese aesthetic concept of shōjo (girls), which might refer to the
subtle state between ‘child’ and ‘adult’, ‘male’ and ‘female’, and is
comparatively detached from heterosexual economy. The significance of
shōjo, which I will argue, lies in the possibility that it allows Japanese
women to appear girlish and cute while being segregated from obvious
sexualization. Through an analysis of three Japanese music videos, the
second section develops these ideas further. In particular, by examining how
these three female performers adopt and appropriate the imagery of Alice,
this section argues that ‘infantile’ cute and girlish appearances do not
automatically invoke passivity, vulnerability or sexualized objectification.
The final section aims to explore the idea of the kawaii aesthetic as a ‘soft
revolt’. It seeks to establish the idea that the amalgamation of ‘asexual’
cuteness and girlish reinvention of ‘authenticity’ can serve as an alternative
to the established multiple binaries of aggression, sexualization and
modesty in which women tend to be represented.

In the name of kawaii

For many both in and outside Japan, the character of Hello Kitty (1974)
embodies the concept of kawaii, which has come to represent, at least
partially, the quintessence of Japanese popular culture.5 Fashion magazine
Numéro Tokyo has stated that Hello Kitty embodies a particular concept of
cuteness that is loved and appreciated by adults and children both in and
outside Japan.6 The application of the Japanese word kawaii is, however,
contested, contentious and above all amorphous. As Laura Miller points
out, ‘although literally the word kawaii means “cute” it has a much broader
semantic meaning than does the English term “cute”’.7 This sentiment is
shared by scholar of Asian studies, popular culture and psychology, Brian J.
McVeigh. In Wearing Ideology: State, Schooling and Self-presentation in
Japan, he precisely summarizes Japanese cuteness as:

baby cuteness; very young cuteness; young cuteness; maternal cuteness; teen cuteness; adult
cuteness; sexy cuteness; pornography cuteness; child pornography cuteness; authority cuteness;
and corporate cuteness.8

Kawaii is not only used to describe straightforwardly hyperbolic cute but

can also combine the elements of cute and grotesque or erotic qualities (e.g.
guro-awaii/kimo-kawaii and ero-kawaii).9 The diversity of kawaii aesthetics
can also be illustrated by young women’s fashion in which different kinds
of kawaii exist for different purposes. For example, the concept of kawaii
can display different connotations depending on the styles endorsed by
different fashion magazines.10 In the magazines known for ‘conservative’
styles, kawaii signifies an aesthetic quality that is precisely woven together
with the concept of mote-kei, a ‘conservative’ style that, without displaying
obvious sexual allure or individuality, is designed to attract men. In
magazines associated with less conservative styles, the concept is used to
describe a more mainstream-individual style. To put it simply, the aesthetics
of kawaii in the former case signify the ‘uniform’ qualities that are believed
to attract desirable men, whereas kawaii becomes more individualistic in
the latter case. But in simple definitional terms, kawaii refers to an aesthetic
that celebrates sweet, adorable, simple, infantile, delicate and pretty visual,
physical or behavioural qualities.11
One of the core elements of the kawaii aesthetic is to appreciate
‘youthfulness’, and one archetype of kawaii fashion is that it is ‘deliberately
designed to make the wearer appear childlike and demure’.12 This includes
bright-coloured clothes for boys and pastel shades with lace for girls.13 Not
unexpectedly, the concept of kawaii is applicable to men as much as to
women, and this is increasingly obvious, as Chapter 3 indicates. The unisex
qualities of kawaii aesthetics are also evident in styles favoured by Olive, a
now- discontinued subcultural magazine for ‘cosmopolitan’ girl culture,
which, in fashion scholar Reiko Koga’s opinion, marks the beginning of
kawaii as a mode of fashion in the 1980s.14 Two of the three main styles
subscribed to by Olive were frill and lace-adorned, ‘romantic’ girlish
dresses and a cute ‘boyish’ style with very short hair, the latter of which
was said to be influenced by such popular icons in the 1980s as The
Checkers, an all-male rock/pop band who were frequently costumed by
Milkboy, and the pop idol Kyoko Koizumi.
Fashion styles with notable kawaii essences have been present in
Japanese culture for a long time, at least from the 1970s, as evident in the
popularity of the clothing brands such as Hitomi’s Milk (1970), Isao
Kaneko’s Pink House (1972) and Rei Yanagikawa’s Shirley Temple (1974).
Milk in particular has set a modern example of ‘glocalizing’ European
fashion forms and adding ‘Japanese’ style to them.15 Fashion editor and
consultant Tiffany Godoy articulates this point as follows:

Milk took in all of fashion’s disparate parts and made its own combination on looks, creating
something entirely new. Before Milk, no one would ever say that punk is cute. But in Okawa’s
hands, it really was. She took tracksuits from the States and punk fashions from the U.K.,
 redesigned them to fit smaller Japanese bodies and revised them into something entirely new and
of the moment.16

The name Milk conceptualizes Hitomi’s principle that things that look
fragile but vigorous inside are kawaii while things that look strong both in
and outside are uncool.17 Her interpretation of kawaii is worth including
here: the concept is like a modern-day wabi-sabi, which is easy for
individuals born and raised in Japan to grasp, but problematic for those
without such backgrounds. For Hitomi, kawaii can be something infantile,
fragile and perhaps imperfect, and particularly those whose culture praises
maturity over infantile fragility and imperfection would require a certain
mental capacity and experiences in order to be tolerant of, comprehend and
adore such qualities. In this sense, for Hitomi, kawaii and appreciating that
concept is almost equal to the etymological definition of philanthropy – that
is, ‘love of humanity’. Equally strikingly, Milk integrated kawaii fashion
aesthetics with their emphasis on sweetness, without overly hinting at
sexual allure. ‘Milk clothes were – and continue to be – girly, romantic, and
feminine but not sexual. All these elements are the base for what would
later become kawaii culture’, notes Godoy.18
The mid-1970s saw the vogue of romantic folklore style among young
women. A ‘Japanized’ hippy style, this fashion embraced a simple, dreamy
aesthetic resembling the worlds of Lucy Montgomery’s Anne of Green
Gables (1908) and Johanna Spyri’s Heidi (1880).19 The subculture of Olive
in the 1980s and 1990s, and the revival of romantic, floating folkloric
dresses of pastel shades around 2010, followed.20 Similarly, in Japanese
popular music culture, female ‘pop idols’ in the early 1980s were closely
associated with kawaii aesthetics. Pastel-coloured, frilly and lace dresses
were their unofficial uniform, connoting innocent, girlish femininity as well
as artificiality.21 Although the concept of kawaii is most prominently
ascribed to Japanese culture, these fashion styles often combine some
European elements, be they romanticized or realistic. In this chapter, I focus
largely on this type of kawaii aesthetics, perhaps with a faint ‘twist’, which
can softly challenge and even subvert the common ways in which young
women are perceived, understood and represented.
 What is noteworthy is that Euro-American cultural influences are
perceived as important ingredients of kawaii aesthetics.22 Alessandro
Gomarasca, for example, implies that ‘Kawaii appears in the moment in
which the shōjo bunka (culture of teenage girls) encounters the Euro-
American culture of cute, the playful, childish aesthetic imported to Japan
from the West’.23 Although Gomarasca was referring to the post-war period
when making this statement, the case of the illustrator, doll maker, fashion
designer and stylist Jun’ichi Nakahara indicates that Euro-American
influences and subsequent Japanese appropriation shaped the modern
concept of kawaii even before the 1940s.24
Nakahara (1913–83), particularly celebrated for his illustrations and
fashion designs in girls’ magazines, continuously promulgated the
European-inspired visual images of elegantly dressed, ladylike young
women. As the lavish image of Figure 4.1 illustrates, his ideal girls are
exquisitely dressed, upper-class European with delicately coiffed hair, tiny
ribbons, thin waists and long limbs.25
Nakahara has also imposed a notable degree of influence upon Japanese
fashion designers. Such fashion figures as Hanae Mori, Kenzo Takada,
Keita Maruyama and Isao Kaneko have declared their admiration of, if not
influenced by, Nakahara.26 The girlish art of Nakahara points to the
Japanese adoption and interpretation of European cute culture even before
the post-war period. There is also a possibility that an aesthetic concept
similar to kawaii, one that admires anything young, small, fragile and cute,
was present in Japanese culture as far back as the Heian period (AD 794 to
1185).27
Indeed, Japanese culture has long placed aesthetic importance on the
state of youthfulness. Japanologist and scholar Donald Keene has noted that
one of the four characteristics in Japanese culture that he thinks have
special importance is ‘suggestion’, which grants immense importance to
beginnings and ends, such as the crescent and waning moon, or buds and
strewn flowers.28 This is because ‘the full moon or the cherry blossoms at
their peak do not suggest the crescent or the buds (or the waning moon and
the strewn flowers), but the crescent and the buds do suggest full
flowering’.29 While it might be too extreme to assume a direct link between
the Heian aesthetic and contemporary cute, this nonetheless alludes to the
possibility that kawaii, which predominantly appreciates something small,
fragile and young, could be deep-rooted in Japanese culture rather than a
more recent phenomenon.
The concept of kawaii and its Euro-American influences are most visible
in the medium of comics (manga), which as Jaqueline Berndt, an art and
media studies scholar specializing in manga aesthetics, rightly puts it, ‘is …
the result of intercultural exchange’ between ‘Chinese ink-painting,
European tableau with its central perspective, European caricature, and
American superhero comics’.30 Museum curator Mizuki Takahashi argues
that it was illustrator Macoto Takahashi who, through the influences of
Nakahara’s art, shaped the aesthetic style of shōjo manga including the
introduction of glamour, fashion and visual conventions such as starry eyes,
which can be described as the intersection between early 1900s shōjo
culture and more modern kawaii aesthetic.31 As a matter of fact, this kind of
girlish, kawaii aesthetic might be seen as closely related to the concept of
shōjo (girls) and its slightly anachronistic sister otome (maiden).
Figure 4.1 Jun’ichi Nakahara’s illustration of a chic and lovely shōjo.
© JUNICHI NAKAHARA/HIMAWARIYA. Image reproduced with the kind permission of Rikako
Nakahara (Himawariya Co., Ltd).

A liminal space of dreaming: Japanese concept of

shōjo
The term shōjo frequently points to a culturally constructed concept.32
While literally shōjo means ‘girl or maiden’, it is laden with values and
history.33 Masuko Honda, pioneering figure in Japanese girl studies,
perceives the state of shōjo as the period between girlhood and
womanhood, which the girl’s imagination turns into a romantic space of
liminality where the ‘girl’ can indulge in a momental reverie unconstrained
from social trammels attached to ‘womanhood’.34 It is a culturally
constructed space that starts after one’s adolescence, which differentiates
girls from boys who used to be in the ‘same category’.35 Honda’s idea of
shōjo assigns a degree of independence to the category of adolescent girls
and hence separates them from both older and younger women under the
name of shōjo.
The concept of shōjo had originally an ideological purpose, constructed
by the Meiji government in the late nineteenth century in order to educate
girls to embody ryōsai kenbo (good wife, wise mother), an ideology
inspired by ‘Victorian notions of “true womanhood”’ – that is, nineteenth-
century European ideas.36 According to the government, the shōjo
demonstrated three virtues – ‘affection’ (aijō), ‘chastity’ (junketsu) and
‘aesthetics’ (biteki) – in order to discipline female students between the
ages of twelve and seventeen who, until the modernization of the state,
would have been either married off or put to domestic work.37 Regardless
of the effectiveness of the concept as a regulatory principle, shōjo can refer
to ‘a hyper-feminine ideal’ in the early 1900s.38 A common image of the
shōjo ‘was often defined in literature and art by qualities associated with
femininity at the time – sentimentality, interest in flowers, clothing, dolls,
and dreamy thoughts of the moon and stars’.39 These imageries are both
well captured and distributed via the genre of shōjo novels and the works of
jojo-ga (lyrical illustrations) artists such as Yumeji Takehisa (1884–1934)
and Kashō Takabatake (1888–1966). Takabatake’s modern and
sophisticated works, which were partly inspired by Pre-Raphaelite artists,
included beautiful male and female, young and mature, but was particularly
popular among young women in pre-war Japan (Figure 4.2).40
Notably, many of these qualities are amicably parodied by Kawase in her
songs. This is the case in the quote that opens this chapter. The core
ingredients of the shōjo aesthetics are valid even in the present day. A
common form of the shōjo, for instance, involves ribbons, frills and
flowers.41 It can be deduced from these cultural representations that a
clothing form that is adorned with frills and lace has occupied a special
place in Japanese girl cultures for many decades.
 What is striking about this girlish concept is its presumed ‘asexual’
qualities. One of the three virtues of shōjo that the Japanese government
imposed in the late nineteenth century, as sociologist Shūko Watanabe
points out, was chastity.42 Over a hundred years, this has seemingly been
modified to connote a kind of innocence and ‘asexuality’. For instance,
John Whittier Treat, in his seminal essay on Banana Yoshimoto’s early
novels, claims:

In English, gender is binary – at every stage one is either ‘male’ or ‘female’. But in Japan, one
might well argue that shōjo constitute their own gender, neither male nor female but rather
something importantly detached from the productive economy of heterosexual reproduction.43

As gender and cultural studies scholar and specialist of girl studies

Catherine Driscoll says, caution with such a claim is required.44 But it is no
coincidence that ambiguity in gender has been a strong theme in shōjo
manga since the 1950s, including Osamu Tezuka’s Princess Knight (Ribon
no kishi, 1953–6; revised version, 1963–6), whose protagonist is born with
both a boy’s and girl’s hearts, as a famous but not the only example.
Elaborating upon Treat’s idea, the anthropologist Karen Nakamura and the
journalist Hisako Matsuo further contend that ‘[p]erforming shōjo [can be]
one active and dynamic way that Japanese women can control their
sexuality’.45
Figure 4.2 Kashō Takabatake’s beautiful girl with flowers.
© The Yayoi Museum. With thanks to Asako Takabatake (The Kasho Museum).

When the concept of shōjo was initially implemented, girls from certain
class backgrounds, for whom this concept of shōjo were most likely
created, took advantages of this ‘good wife, wise mother’ ideology and
secured their opportunity to be educated. This is because they could argue
strongly that education was a requirement for becoming a ‘wise mother’.46
Melanie Czarnecki and Alisa Freedman have noted that the position of
schoolgirls in the era allowed for latitude and self-establishment for some
girls, and drew both fierce criticism and racy curiosity from the public.47
But Czarnecki argues upon the common accusations of schoolgirl
prostitution at the time, which should be read as ‘the desire for an education
was such that some girls would willingly prostitute themselves [only] to
obtain one’.48 The concept of shōjo, therefore, can be read as having two
faces – one being an idealized construction imposed by older males, and the
other being embraced and possibly manipulated by girls themselves. With
the latter explanation, crafting and performing shōjo through gestures, and
particularly clothes, allows Japanese women to present themselves as being
segregated from obvious sexualization. The concept of kawaii shares this
conceptual duplicity of shōjo. Miller contends that there is a difference
between ‘cute’ as a cultural aesthetic circulating in Japanese girl culture,
and ‘cute’ as an aesthetic appropriated or manufactured by companies such
as Sanrio.49 Within Japanese girl culture, ‘cuteness often gets modified,
parodied, or deliberately inflated in diverse ways’, thus implying
autonomous controls of girls.50
A certain degree of risk is, however, involved when one is perceived as
acting or appearing too innocently cute or girlish. The term burikko (or its
predecessor kamatoto) is a Japanese label used to describe women who
exhibit feigned and sugary innocence and cuteness, particularly via
manipulation of vocal pitches and gestures.51 Although sometimes
considered an obsolete word, the concept has nevertheless survived to the
present day, and this label can be derogatory. Miller’s insights into burikko
indicate three significances: that it is a performance of exaggerated girlish
femininity, that this ‘downplays or masks the adult sexuality of the woman
doing it’, and that it is a double-edged sword.52 Performing burikko might
allow a woman to assert her position in an appropriate situation. It could
also stigmatize her for being cunningly pretentious and immature, if done
inappropriately.
It might be tempting to consider shōjo as a clearly established, ‘organic’
category – the third gender perhaps, as authors like Treat are inclined to do.
However, we must acknowledge that the term shōjo is a very ambiguous
one, as the term is often used for its literal meaning of a ‘maiden/girl’ as
well. Nevertheless, as these authors argue, shōjo/‘girls’ are often considered
as asexually ‘pure’, comparatively autonomous beings, though it does not
necessarily mean shōjo are immune from either eroticization or the
objectifying male gaze. But as Sharon Kinsella indicates, often it is the
contrary that is suggested.53 Lewis Carroll’s Alice in his two famous novels
might be described as an embodiment of an idealized shōjo. Although she
was a creation of Victorian England, Alice has enjoyed a long-lasting
popularity in Japanese culture. In the next sections I shall look at Alice and
analyse her as an embodiment of the Japanese concept of shōjo. I ask, what
has made Alice popular in Japanese culture, as an icon of shōjo? I shall then
proceed to examine contemporary Japanese performers’ appropriations of
the character Alice in their music videos. Particular attention will be paid to
how they demonstrate ground-breaking representations of cute yet ‘asexual’
femininity through their performances of Alice.

Alice’s voyage to the empire of the sun

Lewis Carroll’s two books featuring Alice have had a strong presence in
Japan since the first Japanese translation of Through the Looking-Glass
appeared as a sequential novel of eight episodes published in Youth’s World
(Shōnen sekai), a magazine for boys throughout 1899.54 Maruyama Eikan’s
Fantastic Tales of Ai (Ai-chan no yume monogatari), published in 1910 by
Naigai shuppan kyōkai, is said to have been the first complete translation of
Alice. This 209-page book with Tenniel’s illustrations where the heroine is
called Ai instead of Alice indicates the difficulty of fully translating
Carroll’s word play and puns into Japanese.55 Nonetheless, the Japanese
literary world’s fascination with Alice has continued, and nearly 200
editions of Japanese Alice and Looking-Glass (including reissues) have
been published between 1908 and 2004.56 The current popularity of Alice is
largely thanks to Sir John Tenniel’s celebrated illustrations (1865 and 1872)
and Walt Disney’s now classic film Alice in Wonderland (1951), which was
first released in Japan in 1952.
One of the arenas where the imagery of Alice has been a colourful and
enduring inspiration is in the world of fashion. Most notably, Japanese
Lolita fashion, which I shall examine in Chapter 5, has displayed the
compatibility of the elaborate version of historic ‘little girl’ dress and the
style’s sartorial philosophy. In a less ‘decorative’ example, the October
2007 edition of Sō-en, one of the oldest Japanese high fashion magazines,
offered twenty-two pages of fashion spreads and feature articles on the
theme of Alice. With particular regard to Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer
and his surreal cinematic visualization of Alice (Něco z Alenky, 1988), this
feature story tells how Japanese fashion brands such as Jane Marple (est.
1985) derive inspirations from Carroll’s character.57 The feature story in Sō-
en moreover endorsed the idea of Alice embodying the idealized image of
shōjo, saying ‘even after 142 years since its publication, Alice exists as the
ideal of shōjo’.58 Another Japanese fashion brand known for its girlish
styles, Emily Temple Cute, affirms the link between Alice and sweet
sartorial aesthetics.59 In 2009, the brand published Wonderland, an
eighteen-page catalogue/book in which its 2009–10 winter collection was
photographed according to the images of Alice.60
Filled with layers of tight yet flowing knee-length dresses, long-sleeved
polo necks with delicate lace trims, knit cardigans with patterns of ribbons
and flowers, striped high socks and a lace headdress, fragments of the
girlish sartorial aesthetics envisaged in Emily Temple Cute’s Wonderland
are also captured in the music videos of a number of Japanese young female
singers, particularly since the early 1990s. Before proceeding to the analysis
of these performances, it is useful to look at the imagery of Alice and the
possible factors that have contributed to her popularity in Japan. The
popularity of Alice among Japanese culture, especially as an icon of the
idealized shōjo, is undoubtedly due to the heroine’s intricate combination of
aloofness, autonomy and girlish appearance.

A Victorian girl with independence: Alice and a

sense of autonomy
Although she is a child of seven (and seven and a half in Through the
Looking-Glass) in Carroll’s books, Alice tends to be represented,
particularly in illustrations, as a girl in her early adolescence.61 One of the
reasons for this visual ‘misrepresentation’, apart from the absence of
depictions of the heroine’s appearance in the original books, can be found in
the fairly independent personality of Alice. If we consider the typical
concept of shōjo as sweet and innocent on the outside, and considerably
autonomous on the inside, the imagery of Alice displays similar
characteristics. Despite her appearance of being a demure, Victorian child,
Alice is depicted as a rather emotionally flat, yet autonomous character. As
television and film studies scholar Will Brooker points out:

the heroine never seems troubled by them [the grotesque inhabitants]. There is no sign that she is
terrified, that she fears she won’t escape Wonderland alive, that she is ever praying to get out of
this place and go back home to the river bank… she remains calm, and so the adventure never
sinks fully into the ‘darkness’ that some contemporary critics see in the text.62

Driscoll interprets the complexity of Alice, saying she ‘is as self-interested

as she is generous and is not unambiguously a good girl (i.e., loving,
courteous, or trustful)… the little girl in Carroll is marked by curiosity and
delight’.63 Author, poet and translator Sumiko Yagawa, in the afterword to
her Japanese translation of Alice, offered her interpretation of Alice as a
symbol of loneliness attached to autonomy, indicating that this reading is
also shared in Japanese culture.64 Carroll’s Alice is thus neither assertive
nor passive, but is rather positioned comfortably in between these two.
Alice’s sense of agency is further conveyed by her dress. With regards to
Tenniel’s illustrations, Elizabeth Ewing, an author of numerous books on
fashion history, elucidates this point as follows: ‘Alice is a spirited,
uninhibited, outspoken little girl, though always a polite one, and her
clothes too are unrestricting.’65 Tenniel’s Alice is particularly important
since the imagery of Alice as cultural icon was largely fixed by his
illustrations. Indeed, the visual qualities that shape our imagination of Alice
are not solely the creation of Carroll. This is because the contextual analysis
of Carroll’s books indicates that they are ‘surprisingly vague about the
appearance of [their] characters and settings, and [were] designed from the
outset to rely on illustrations rather than written description’.66 In other
words, Alice’s visual descriptions, let alone the clothes she wears, are rarely
delineated in Carroll’s original work, and are mostly a creation of John
Tenniel whose illustrations accompanied the first edition of Alice. Together
with the animation of Disney, Tenniel’s Alice has become a kind of
template for Alice illustrators.67
 The immortalized vision of Alice was not what Carroll imagined.
Illustrations of Alice by Carroll’s own hands in his original Under Ground
instead showed her wearing ‘a soft, clinging tunic’ and he allegedly
‘begged Tenniel, “Don’t give Alice so much crinoline”’.68 This illustrates
the author’s desire to distinguish his Alice clearly from the fashionable
young lady of his time. If our images of Alice have been fixed by the
illustrations of Tenniel, how exactly did his Alice dress? His Alice is
apparently dressed in a fashion current to the time of the book, with a faint
hint of the practical future.69
Tenniel’s Alice and her dress thus convey Victorian girlhood or feminine
adolescence.70 How do we, then, make sense of the popularity of Alice in
Japan, since the story does not evoke any immediate cultural or periodical
similarities to contemporary Japanese culture? I contend that the imagery of
Alice as an independent girl with ‘infantile’ cuteness is a highly appropriate
vehicle for women in Japan, let alone artists, to perform and negotiate a
compromise between female autonomy and the concept of kawaii. Subtly
nuanced, sweet aesthetics with no overt hint of female sexual allure is what
we notice when viewing the music videos of three Japanese female
performers in their homage to Alice.

Being Alice in Japan: music videos of Alisa

Mizuki, Tomoko Kawase and Kaela Kimura
Although since the 1970s, several Japanese singers have performed songs
with the theme of Alice this chapter focuses on three singers who appeared
in their own music videos dressed in the fashion redolent of Alice.71 Alisa
Mizuki (b. 1976), Tomoko Kawase (b. 1975, as Tommy February) and
Kaela Kimura (b. 1985) offer similar yet distinctive portrayals of Carroll’s
heroine. One of the earliest examples of Alice adaptation in a Japanese
music video is found in Alisa Mizuki’s Town of Eden (Eden no machi,
1991). Mizuki, child actor and fashion model since the age of five, made
her successful singing debut in 1991 with the CD titled Legendary Girl
(Densetsu no shōjo).72 Her second single, Town of Eden was released in
Japan in August same year. At the time of release, she was fourteen. The
lyrics tell a story of innocent, fleetingly romantic memories that are
seemingly lost, and the melody is rather cheerful and poppy.
Ten years later, the imagery of Alice made another appearance, this time
with Tommy February in her song ‘Bloomin’!’. Tommy is an alter ego
persona of Tomoko Kawase, vocalist for Japanese pop rock band The
Brilliant Green. Known for its sweet synthetic-pop sound and hyperbolic
romantic lyrics inspired by and playfully parodying American teen films
and 1980s American and British pop music, Tommy is a part of Kawase’s
solo project.73 Preppy-looking February is contrasted by her other alter ego,
Tommy Heavenly, who is characterized as darker, slightly more aggressive,
and has a Goth sound and demeanour.74 Five years after Tommy, in 2007
Japanese pop rock singer and model Kaela Kimura released her third album
Scratch, which topped the charts in February of that year. One of the songs
on the album, ‘Snowdome’, whose music video was initially included in the
limited edition of the album, offers Kimura’s visual rendition of Alice.75
The imagery of Alice adopted in these music videos comes with
variations. Apart from the obvious image of falling down into darkness,
which is present in all the three clips, these videos do not straightforwardly
visualize the narrative of Alice. This reflects the nature of music videos,
which lack narrative structures like those found in classic Hollywood
films.76 Thus other aspects such as clothes becomes of greater significance
in music videos, to ‘quickly [show] a character’s role and its relation with
others’.77 These musicians perform Alice through the repertoires of
clothing, which also have variations. Anne Hollander has pointed out that
the absence of sartorial descriptions in literature might cause a ‘mis-
visualization’ when recreated in different media, ‘as in the case of the
Hollywood visualization of Pride and Prejudice (1940) – the novel was set
in 1796–97 but cinematic visualization took place in around 1835’.78
According to this logic, the three music videos do not present the singers
dressed exactly like either Tenniel’s or Disney’s Alice. Mizuki is attired in a
black, knee-length, puff-sleeved flared pinafore dress with a white collar
and white gauzy apron (Figure 4.3).
As can be seen in Figure 4.3, the layers of what appear to be a white lace
petticoat are shown under the dress, with white stockings and a pair of
black ankle boots. A black ribbon adorning her long hair brings to mind the
ears of a rabbit. Apart from the colour of the dress and the boots, Mizuki’s
outfit displays the influence of Tenniel’s and Disney’s Alice.

Figure 4.3 Alisa Mizuki in Town of Eden (1991).

Director/Producer unknown. Reproduced from the DVD History: Alisa Mizuki Single Clip Collection
(2005). Avex Track, Japan.

Kawase’s version of Alice, as Figure 4.4 indicates, involves a short-

sleeved, tight-silhouetted silky grey apron dress, worn over a layer of white
lace petticoats, with two lace trims running vertically from the top to the
bottom of the dress. Under the dress, she wears a long-sleeved black polo
neck, and a pair of high-heeled, black boots. Her blondish, rolled and
permed hair is adorned with a red velvety ribbon. The vertical, tight-
silhouette of Kawase’s dress might suggest the influence of young girls’
princess dresses in 1880s Europe, but a sash is worn knotted at the waist,
with no sign of the bustle. Undoubtedly, it has modern nuances, as wearing
a pinafore over a blouse is a style that became common after the 1930s with
the introduction of gymslips, and a black polo neck was a sign of
intellectuals in the 1940s and 1950s.79 This makes a subtle contrast to the
outfit of the white rabbit, who is dressed in a beige tweed ‘University’
jacket and knickerbockers, Argyle-pattern grey socks, and a pair of large
brown shoes, a clear reference to those worn by social reformers and
members of the Aesthetic Movement in late-Victorian England (Figure 4.4).

Figure 4.4 Tomoko Kawase/Tommy February in ‘Bloomin’!’ (2002). Directed by AT, produced by
Ryuji Seki. Sony Music Entertainment, Japan.

As Figure 4.5 shows, Kimura is attired in a flared blue dress with red
floral patterns, the collar of the dress and the chemise worn underneath are
trimmed with white lace, and a pair of long, thin red ribbons cascade from
the collar. She wears a black cardigan over the dress, with black and red
striped stockings, and a pair of black high-heeled boots (Figure 4.5).
Since the cardigan commenced its life as military wear, allegedly
invented by James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan during the Crimean War,
it was a part of male attire in Victorian England until interest in European
folk art introduced a ‘Tyrolean’ cardigan to girls’ fashion in the late
1930s.80 Hence the cardigan adds a modern nuance to Kimura’s otherwise
mid-Victorian girl look. In short, the summary of the differences from
Tenniel’s and Disney’s Alice is as follows: Mizuki is dressed in black
instead of blue, Kimura wears a cardigan instead of an apron dress and
Kawase’s apron dress is grey and tight-silhouetted. In addition to the dress,
all three wear a pair of black boots instead of Alice’s traditional Mary
Janes. These sartorial variations indicate the performers’ or stylists’ artistic
interventions, showing that they have created their own Alice. We can
deduce that the aesthetic of historical European girls’ clothing forms is what
unites these performers’ perceptions of Alice.

Figure 4.5 Kaela Kimura in ‘Snowdome’ (2007). Directed by Daisuke Shimada, produced by Kaela
Kimura. Columbia Music Entertainment, Japan.

These dresses, modestly trimmed with frills, ribbons and lace as worn by
the Japanese performers, clearly show that they are crafting a kawaii ‘look’
that resembles the beautiful designs and images of a girl Jun’ichi Nakahara
has limned in his art, which has been and still is an embodiment of shōjo.81
By contemporary Euro-American standards, however, these would only be
worn by young girls. In other words, seen through a Euro-American lens,
they are dressed in rather ‘infantile’ fashion, and their clothes refer to
children’s dress of upper-class, mid-to-late-Victorian England. This is
particularly evident with the calf length of the skirt. Up until the 1920s, an
age hierarchy of female dress style in upper-class of Europe was largely
maintained through the length of skirts. Young girls would wear short skirts
whereas the length of skirts increased with the age of the wearer, and the
skirts of teenage girls would approach ankle length.82 Therefore, the
‘infantile’ qualities of these Japanese performers, which are one kind of the
kawaii fashion aesthetics as already noted, are emphasized by their short,
‘little girl’ dresses.83
French philosopher and semiotician Roland Barthes argued in The
Diseases of Costume (1972) that good costume ‘had a powerful semantic
value; it was not there only to be seen, it was also there to be read, it
communicated ideas, information, or sentiments’.84 It is not my intention
here to judge whether or not the dresses that these Japanese performers
wear are good costumes in the Barthesian sense. Rather, I pay attention to
his idea that (good) costumes convey signs. If the Alice costumes carry
signs, what are the meanings they convey? It is my belief that the kawaii
appearances of these Japanese performers in the music videos have two
symbolic significances. Firstly, they signify the possibility of detachment of
eroticism from both the representation of cute femininity as well as from
‘infantile’ sartorial style. Secondly, they show a degree of creative authority
being exercised. I assert that the ‘infantile’ cuteness enacted by the
Japanese performers is largely detached from the heterosexual economy.
This is evident in the embrace of predominantly young girls’ period dress,
the absence of male figures and the obvious girlish qualities such as the
dreamy, fairy-tale narratives and sugary voices in these videos.

A fairy tale without a prince: Japanese music

videos and narrative themes
In the music videos we are analysing, their almost saccharine cuteness does
not primarily operate in order to accentuate a normative heterosexuality in
their music videos. Whether because of the tendency in which stars’ sexual
or romantic relationships are kept low profile, or because ‘“giving off the
scent” of sexuality is publicly frowned upon’ in Japanese culture
(hetero)sexual narratives are generally less visible in Japanese music videos
than in their American counterparts.85 These three Japanese performers’
videos are no exception. Of Mizuki’s twenty clips created between 1991
and 2003, there is only one that opaquely refers to the narrative of an
innocent romance with a male lead (her debut single in 1991).
This becomes even more significant for Kimura and Kawase, as none of
their music video clips, of which sixteen (between 2004 and 2008) and
twenty-one (both as February and Heavenly, between 2001 and 2009) have
been created respectively, display overt romantic narratives. Despite their
lyrics narrating innocent and romantic love, these Japanese performers’
renditions of Alice are not entirely framed within heterosexual romance,
either. For example, in Town of Eden, Mizuki travels briefly through the
narratives of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Romeo and Juliet and
Cinderella, all of which are known for their romantic narratives. But
significantly, the singer is impersonating Alice, not the love-struck
princesses, and hence deliberately eschews being a romantic object of the
male figures in the video. Hence, these performers are, at least in these
videos, not defined in relation to male figures. This absence of romantic
narrative marries well with a degree of infantile qualities manifested
through the demeanours of the singers.
Toby Slade articulates that the sexualization of female clothing is about
accentuating the nuances of the female form, whereas its desexualization is
to remove its element of seduction, its mystery.86 The Japanese versions of
Alice do connote sexualization as well as desexualization of dress. The
Alice dresses, especially the ones worn by Mizuki and Kimura, with their
knee-length full skirts, connote a ‘female’ quality meaning that limbs and
waist are accentuated. Yet their ‘demure’ forms do not emphasize or reveal
other parts, notably, bust and shoulders. Despite the emphasis on girlishness
– or perhaps because of it – the representations of these Japanese singers do
not evoke sexual qualities strongly. In this sense, their ‘little girl’ dresses
affirm Honda’s notion of the decorative, girlish (hirahira) aesthetic that
allows ‘simultaneous denial of womanhood and emphasis of femininity’,
just the part of ‘femininity’ being replaced by ‘girlishness’.87 In the music
videos, they do not moreover engage in gestures or dance movements with
pronounced erotic overtones. Kawase’s ‘Bloomin’!’ frequently cuts back to
a segment where she sings and dances, wearing a pale pink mini tennis
dress, blue socks and a pair of high-heeled platform shoes. However,
Kawase, not seemingly trained as a dancer, dances in a rather half-hearted
fashion, and two chubby Caucasian cheerleaders who dance with her add a
comical rather than erotic touch. Her slender physique as accentuated by
her tight mini tennis dress moreover suggests a type of androgyny most
famously identified with Twiggy. The 1960s British fashion icon was
accredited with querying ‘several parameters of female sexuality and
attractiveness of the time through blurring the distinction between child and
adult, male and female, as well as emaciated and skinny’.88 Like Twiggy,
these three Japanese performers do not invoke either strongly ‘feminine’ or
‘masculine’ visual qualities.89
The striking nature of such ‘asexual’ representations of young women is
highlighted by the ‘sexualized’ culture of American music videos. It might
be contested that significant differences in the representation of youthful
feminine identities have been manifested within Japanese and American
music video cultures. Central to this difference is the degree to which young
women are visually sexualized, particularly through clothes.

Alice vs Barbie: sexualization of femininity in

American music videos
In contrast to mainstream Japanese culture where the concept of (infantile)
cuteness is supported, societies like the United States have been known to
have a tendency to encourage even small girls in elementary school to dress
in mature clothes.90 Although music videos can vary in themes and
scenes,91 and ‘individuals may interpret [them] differently based on a
variety of factors, including social class, ethnicity, gender, interests, and
experiences’, American music video culture is one of the arenas where this
tendency is highly visible.92 One predominant argument regarding the
music video culture, particularly the American one, is that it is a cultural
arena where images of powerful and dominant men and of sexually
objectified women are prevalent. For ‘love and sex predominate as
themes’93 in music videos, and such programmes ‘tend to depict women as
thin and beautiful, scantily clad, and involved in implicitly sexual and
subservient behaviour’.94 In this sense, American music is conceived as
reflecting ‘real world’ gender stereotypes in that male singers are assumed
to be aggressive while female singers are assumed to be coquettish and
fragile.95 The sexually alluring ‘mature’ female look is, however, another
subject of controversy.
Styles such as ‘porno-chic’, which is strongly identified with ‘Barbie
doll’ musicians who represent an ideal, sexualized female type and are
dominant in contemporary American popular music,96 are perceived either
negatively, as endorsing female eroticization or positively, as articulating
‘women’s sexuality with individual autonomy’.97 For example, this sort of
sexualization of young women might not need to be read as wholly
negative. Feona Attwood, whose research focuses on sexuality in
contemporary popular culture, implies that if seen through a positive lens,
this kind of fashion can be symbolic of feminine pride and confidence,
emphasizing a positive and empowering version of female sexuality.98
American pop musician Katy Perry’s music video to California Gurls
(2010) offers a good example of an amalgamation of cute aesthetics and
highly sexual overtones in order to connect young femininity and
empowerment. The negativity surrounding styles emphasizing the
sexualized female body, however, is that they tend to be ‘mandatory’ rather
than matters of individual choice in Euro-American culture.99
The aim to challenge ‘normative’, ‘passive’ ‘femininity’ through clothes
can be seen in ‘porno-chic’, in subcultures such as contemporary Goth
subculture, and in contemporary Punk. ‘Punk girls’ attempt to resist
mainstream adolescent femininity and normative feminine beauty through
the adoption of punk style, which is stereotypically and historically
characterized by an aggressive, rebellious and dominantly masculinist
aesthetic.100 What these styles elucidate is a cultural construction of young
women’s fashion through a set of extreme binaries. Social scientists Linda
Duits and Liesbet van Zoonen articulate this point in relation to the Dutch
public debate about Muslim headscarves and ‘porno-chic’ fashion. They
argue that the permeation of the virgin-whore dichotomy reflects the
conflicting approaches of Euro-American popular culture to young women:
ideals of virginity and innocence in girls, and obsession with overt female
sexuality.101 This dichotomy has contributed to the difficulty of achieving
the concept of the ‘nice girl’, an idealistic social standard girls often feel the
need to live up to. Such standards could be achievable by managing to
‘balance her sexuality on the decency continuum; neither showing too much
of it (G-string) nor denying it (headscarf)’.102 But this balance is nearly
impossible because girls in particular are most often represented as being
defined by either extremity, with nothing in between.103
For the three Japanese Alices, the predominant lack of typical sexual
qualities, combined with the absence of heterosexual narrative, enables a
manifestation of an ‘infantile’ kind of cuteness without being subject to
overt eroticization. The comparison with mainstream representation of
young women in American popular music culture demonstrates that this
kind of representation of youthful femininity can offer ‘a place somewhere
in the middle of this decency continuum’. Such a kawaii look can enable
women to appear cutely and sweetly but not sexually suggestive.104 But it is
not without controversy. Their impersonation of preadolescent girl Alice via
the clothes of little girls brings forth the issue of negative female
‘infantilization’.

Too cute to be good: some criticism of kawaii

The concept of kawaii has attracted its fair share of criticism. For some, the
concept endorses asymmetrical gender relations as women are evaluated
and judged within it, and are sexually commodified by being reduced to
vulnerability, submissiveness, and immaturity.105 Furthermore, Japanese
female idols’ emphasized youthfulness and kawaii aesthetics have been
dismissed as only covering their lack of talent while serving Japanese men’s
paedophilic gaze.106 This is rather a monolithic, simplistic view of kawaii
aesthetics as well as of Japanese singers and actors. As noted previously,
the concept of kawaii is multiple and diverse. This view also claims that
even a lack of overt sexual allure in young women is perceived as serving
the objectifying male gaze, while this kind of view should instead point out
that almost no individual, regardless of their age, gender, race and
physicality are thoroughly immune from the eroticization of the gaze.
Nevertheless, Japanese female performers, particularly those who are young
and considered physically attractive, have frequently been deprived of
serious attention due to their apparently marginal amount of creative
contribution and emphasis on their appearance. Thus, being ‘a performing
tool, as they were seen to be, is a feminized, devalued, and inauthentic role
in rock and pop’.107 Likewise, these three Japanese performers, with their
Alice dresses and shōjo mannerisms, might be subjected to the criticism of
favouring unhealthy ‘infantilization’ of young women. As influential
feminist Andrea Dworkin had been cited as saying:

Infantilizing women is society’s way of keeping women inferior, weaker, smaller and dumber … It
would be a lie to think that this is about adult women. It’s about children, about having a sexual
interest and obsession with children. Women are choosing to do something that’s very detrimental
by letting this preoccupation continue.108

Scholar of communication studies Deborah Merskin endorses Dworkin’s

point. She warns that the sexualization of teen and preteen girls as well as
the ‘infantilization’ of young women, particularly in American fashion
advertising, is primarily for an objectifying male gaze. Consequently, such
representations signify the objectification and infantilization of women, and
furthermore, the willingness, passivity and availability suggested by these
images have the potential to fuel paedophilic desires.109 Such concerns and
criticism point to the tendency prevailing in Euro-American cultures that
perceives ‘infantile’ cuteness as highly unfavourable and demeaning, even
when applied to very young women. Performing Alice carries a significant
risk in this regard, as the character is sometimes seen as a ‘Lolita’, a
preadolescent girl perceived by a middle-aged man as a sexual nymphet.
This ambivalence is evident in North American performers’ appropriation
of Alice in their music videos. At this point it is useful to look at how non-
Japanese (in this case predominantly North American) performers perceive,
adopt and interpret Alice in their music videos. As noted in the previous
chapter, the theory of ‘content’ and ‘format’ can demarcate both differences
and similarities through the shared ‘format’ (Alice and music video in the
present setting) when it becomes transculturally understood and accepted.

Gloomy wonderland: darker sides of the Victorian

girl
There is a certain curiosity ascribed to the character of Alice. For example,
Brooker refers to the ‘duality’ associated with Carroll’s books. He has
pointed out that Alice can be understood on the basis of two schools of
thought:

those who choose to enjoy them merely as a pretty nonsense (broadly speaking, the nineteenth-
century approach) and those who insist the text has hidden meanings that they want to shake out
(to generalise, the twentieth-century method).110

This tendency in Western culture to inspect the ‘dark side’ of Alice has
increased in recent times. ‘Rather than offbeat speculation’, Brooker notes,
‘the idea that Alice has adult overtones and a dark heart seems to have
become key to the way the story resonates in the broader public
imagination’.111 This duality is largely due to the ‘enigmatic’ sexuality of
the author. The tendency to perceive Carroll in dualistic terms as ‘a national
treasure and a vaguely suspect enigma’ includes the speculation on his
paedophilic attachment to children, which is largely unproven.112 Like her
creator, Alice herself has been perceived and interpreted with variations
from ‘a child of her time and class’, to a brashly sexualized Lolita, for
example.113 The idea of Alice as being steeped in sexual overtones is
arguably endorsed by the fact that Vladimir Nabokov, (in)famous for his
creation of Lolita (1955), translated Alice into Russian in 1923.114 The
influences of Alice on Lolita is further assumed, for Nabokov allegedly
said, ‘I always call him Lewis Carroll Carroll because he was the first
Humbert Humbert.’115 Accordingly, ‘whether intentionally or not,
Humbert’s style has distinct Carrollian echoes in Lolita’.116 Thus, the
contemporary perception to parallel Alice and Lolita, and Carroll and
Humbert Humbert, was born. Such an eroticized reading of Alice is also
present in Japanese culture, as Mary A. Knighton (2011) discusses in her
analysis of Mieko Kanai’s novella Rabbits (Usagi, 1973), about a young
girl implicated in sadomasochistic eroticism and an incestuous
relationship.117 Nonetheless, while Japanese performers perceive Alice as
an incarnation of the kawaii aesthetics, North American performers tend to
prefer the adult overtones projected on the character and her world.
Although the mainstream illustrations of Alice after Tenniel are not
overtly sexualized, embroidering the ‘darker’ sides of Alice is a practice
recognizable in the arenas of Euro-American popular culture. American
psychedelic rock band Jefferson Airplane’s song White Rabbit (1967)
includes comparisons of the hallucinatory effects of illicit drugs with the
imagery of Alice. When the imagery of Alice is adopted by male
performers, the helplessness and passivity of the heroine tend to be
emphasized. Whether or not the woman who plays the role of Alice is
young, they tend to be dressed in the fashion of Victorian girls, obviously
referring to Tenniel’s pictures while male vocalists are often dressed as the
hatter.118 In contrast to the passivity of their Alice, these male performers
are much older and in authoritarian positions. Perhaps, these treatments of
Alice, deliberately or otherwise, reflect the asymmetrical gender relations
that allocate the position of ‘power’ to the male and that of ‘submission’ to
the (young) female.
So, what if Anglophone female musicians perform the role of Alice in
their music videos? American singer-songwriter Gwen Stefani’s famous
video for What You Waiting For? (2004) offers visual references to Alice. In
comparison to the visual aesthetics of the Japanese music videos analysed
in this chapter, the dominant sexual overtone of Stefani’s references to Alice
is illuminated. Arguably, Stefani offers a dominantly kitsch yet more mature
visualization of Alice. She both appears as the heroine and Red and White
Queens in dresses allegedly designed by John Galliano, for example. One of
her Japanese/Japanese-American ‘Harajuku Girls’ backup dancers is
dressed as a white rabbit in a somewhat ‘Playboy Bunny-style’ and her
dancing movements invoke obvious sexual overtones.
Darker and less kitsch, Canadian singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne sings
the soundtrack to Tim Burton’s film Alice in Wonderland (2010). In the
music video of her song Alice (2010), Lavigne traces the narrative of
Carroll’s Alice – following the white rabbit, falling into the hole and
appearing at the tea party. The video cuts back to segments of the film
frequently. What is noteworthy is that, like Stefani, Lavigne is dressed in a
casual style at the beginning; T-shirt, mini skirt on skinny jeans, and a pair
of black Dr Martens boots. After the fall, however, she is dressed in a black,
late-Victorian full dress and white stockings imprinted with patterns of
playing cards. Trimmed with a frill of keyboard patterns, the front of the
skirt is shortened to look like the dress of Tenniel’s Alice, while from the
side, Lavigne appears to be dressed like a mature late-Victorian lady in the
fashion of Madame X, the Parisian socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno
Gautreau immortalized in a portrait by John Singer Sargent (1884).
Lavigne, as signified by her ‘normal’ clothes, follows the rabbit and
transforms into Alice. Here the sartorial transformation signifies an identity
transformation. A brief comparison between Japanese and North American
female performers’ visualizations of Alice suggests two strands of
significance. On the one hand, almost complete absence of male characters
is a shared characteristic by both Japanese and North American female
performers’ interpretations of Alice. Perhaps this reflects Alice’s
independent and autonomous character, which made her distinctive from
other girlish heroines in the late nineteenth century.119 The ‘infantile’
cuteness that the Japanese performers so visibly embraced is, on the other
hand, absent in North American appropriations.
Indeed, neither Stefani nor Lavigne wear ‘little girl’ dresses. Lavigne’s
visual rendition of Alice is obviously less ‘sexualized’ than Stefani’s, as she
is fully clothed throughout the video and rarely engages in explicit, sexually
alluring movements or gestures. But her dress might signify an ambivalence
towards maturity and infantility, perhaps echoing the film, whose Alice is
nineteen years old with an emphasized sense of agency. Crucially,
Lavigne’s interpretation of Alice manages a balancing act – it both respects
the image of the original books’ Alice and emphasizes a distinction from
the mainstream Euro-American representations of ‘mature’ femininity.
Nevertheless, Lavigne dresses in a more mature manner than Japanese
performers, perhaps to avoid the accusation of ‘infantilization’, which
would be perceived unfavourably in North American societies.
 One might deduce that these videos highlight the unfavourability of
young women to be dressed in an ‘infantile’, sweet look. This point is
further endorsed by the tendency that North American female performers’
Alice clips have to conclude with their departure from the ‘wonderland’ and
a return to their normal, real selves. On the contrary, Japanese performers
do not clearly leave the wonderland. Kawase in ‘Bloomin’!’ loops back to
the wonderland while we see Mizuki and Kimura still dressed like Alice at
the end. This might be reflective of the conceptual difference. In North
American culture, the wonderland and performing a preadolescent ‘girl’ is
like a dream that one needs to come out of at the end. It is acceptable only if
it is ephemeral and the individual returns to her real, mature self. In Japan,
even if there are certain criticisms attached to it, being ‘infantile’ can be
prolonged.120 Thus, adopting and appropriating the imagery of Alice
highlights cross-cultural differences in perceiving the aesthetic concept of
‘infantilization’.
Furthermore, like the concepts of kawaii and shōjo, these three Japanese
singers’ appropriations of Alice likely manifest their capabilities to modify,
parody or deliberately inflate the ‘infantile’ cuteness that their ‘little girl’
dresses connote. By failing to see the diversity in a state of ‘infantility’,
authors like Dworkin are underestimating the complexity of women’s
subject position. This is because, in contrast to its apparent docility, the
kawaii aesthetic can be compatible with senses of autonomy and agency,
like the character of Alice herself. Indeed, the concept of kawaii can operate
as a revolt, although not a Wagnerian but rather a subtle one.121

A delicate kind of revolt

What is striking about the Japanese concept of kawaii is, indeed, that it can
be interpreted as a ‘delicate revolt’ that softly and implicitly subverts
established stereotypes and cultural preconceptions. Kinsella, in her
ground-breaking work on Japanese kawaii culture, articulates this point:

Cute fashion was … a kind of rebellion or refusal to cooperate with established social values and
realities. It was a demure, indolent little rebellion rather than a conscious aggressive and sexually
 provocative rebellion of the sort that has been typical of western youth cultures. Rather than acting
sexually provocative to emphasise their maturity and independence, Japanese youth acted pre-
sexual and vulnerable in order to emphasise their immaturity and inability to carry out social
responsibilities. Either way the result was the same.122

In this sense, the concept of kawaii can operate like a feminine masquerade
in Joan Riviere’s terms.123 According to McVeigh, women can use cuteness
to their own advantage by obtaining favours and attention from those
hierarchically above while their apparently ‘non-threatening’ manners
might gain control over those who are their subordinates.124 This idea
enables a reading that such a kind of cuteness displayed by the Japanese
performers in their music videos might be telling of something more than a
submissive, docile femininity. For example, through crafting the Alice look,
these three performers manifest an implicit parody of Japanese female
‘idols’, which is a conceptual embodiment of the kawaii and shōjo
aesthetics in Japanese popular culture.125 The most typical image associated
with female pop idols, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, is that of Miss
Sweet and Innocent with a ballerina-like flared dress, an image largely
believed to be manufactured and controlled by male producers.126 The
dominant image of ‘idols’, moreover, were those who do not expect or are
not expected to contribute to any creative or production process of their
music.127
This has led Japanese female pop musicians, let alone Japanese pop
music itself, to be seen by both Japanese and non-Japanese critics as lacking
in authenticity. For those critics, authenticity is largely predicated on a do-
it-yourself aesthetic and emphasis on creative control.128 However, paying
particular attention to Miller’s theory of ‘feigned innocence’, I would argue
that the music videos of Mizuki, Kawase and Kimura narrate three stages of
kawaii specifically as a means to exercise creative control. While Mizuki’s
Alice was still showing the influences of Japanese ‘idol’ images and her (or
her managing agent’s) attempt to move away from them, Kawase and
Kimura had careers performing in rock bands prior to their solo careers, and
wrote most of their own lyrics. They have established themselves as
songwriters, not ‘idols’, and their creative control over their repertoires
allow them to embrace and parody the cute aesthetics freely.
Three stages of subtle revolutions
Compared with Kimura and Kawase, Mizuki’s version of Alice is perhaps
the most straightforwardly cute. She was only fourteen years old and was
one of the top ‘idols’ at the time that the music video was filmed. It was
also the aftermath of the end of the sweet female ‘idol’ era, which occurred
around 1989.129 Given that the dominant image of Japanese idols is of
performers who do not and are not expected to contribute to any creativity
to the production of their music, her cuteness does not demonstrate
subversive or rebellious aspects/intentions.130 For this particular video clip,
Mizuki herself later commented: ‘The theme of this clip is Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland. Why? Why Alice? Is it because my name is
Alisa? Isn’t it too simple? That was what I was thinking when shooting this
clip’, indicating the absence of her agency in creating this particular music
video.131 However, she was not merely a commodified object either.
In the video, she does not manifest a doll-like docility or inactivity.
Instead, she propels the narrative, passing through famous fairy tales and
the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet, making each story happier by
slapping the dead Romeo awake, for instance. This sense of agency
corresponds with her public image of a ‘legendary girl’ or an ‘It Girl’ at the
time, which was further endorsed by the title of her debut song and her first
feature film Chōshōjo Reiko (Reiko, the Super Girl, 1991).132 This is
largely attributed to her tall, slender physique with long limbs and a general
aura of maturity, as well as her prior career as a fashion model, all of which
inverted, if not subverted, the typical girl idol images of charming but
ordinary girls next door, the image engraved in the 1980s.
Challenging the stereotyped image of Japanese female musicians,
communication arts scholar Brian Cogan and Asian religion scholar Gina
Cogan argue that these musicians do make their contributions ‘in ways that
they are not usually recognized’.133 What they are referring to is the visual
production and presentation.134 This includes singing as well as creating,
sustaining and circulating the visual image via appearing in music videos,
interviews and fashion magazines. According to Cogan and Cogan, these
musicians are simultaneously commodified objects and producers of ‘a
commodity that can be said to be authentic’.135 According to the logic
introduced by Cogan and Cogan, Mizuki contributed to the visual aspect of
her commodified public image via her exceptionally beautiful looks, and
her frequent appearances in music television programmes, television
dramas, advertisements and fashion magazines.136 Furthermore, Mizuki’s
face is captured close-up smiling shyly and self-consciously, facing the
viewer directly as the video concludes. This Brechtian self-reflexivity can
be interpreted as implying that Mizuki is not merely a passive object of the
viewer’s gaze, but is actually performing the role of Alice.137 This
underscores a parody of cuteness and hence the fabricated and performed
nature of kawaii.
Kimura’s version of Alice appears to accentuate the saccharine qualities
more than Mizuki’s. This is particularly evident in her mannerisms such as
smiling and waving to the camera (audience), and clasping a teddy bear.
This renders her almost thoroughly an object of the viewer’s gaze.
However, her intentional, performed nature of this kawaii aesthetics is
suggested by the contrast made in her ‘public’ image. Unlike the sugary
innocent images manifested in her ‘Snowdome’ video, she has in public
established something of a cute yet cheeky, independent and boyish
character.138 ‘Hyperfemininity’ is not a quality she is usually associated
with. A few months after the release of ‘Snowdome’, for instance, she
performed the song in her concert tour but wore a black dinner jacket with a
matching pair of trousers and a white shirt, like her male supporting
musicians.
Kimura also emphasizes her contribution to her music. According to her,
the music of ‘Snowdome’, which was one of the pieces composed for her
by the Japanese rock/punk band Beat Crusaders, sounded like an ‘idol’ pop
song. Since sweet ‘idol’ pop was not her usual style, she took up the
challenge, choosing it and wrote lyrics that would suit the music, which
also influenced the video clip.139 Miller has pointed out that the performing
nature of kawaii, or burikko (feigned innocence) in her case, is highlighted
when done by those who are not customarily identified with those sorts of
gestures or behaviours.140 Thus, Kimula’s performed nature of ‘infantile’
cuteness is highlighted.
The parodied nature of kawaii is further evolved in Kawase’s version of
Alice, which is more aloof compared to the former two. First of all, she was
twenty-seven years old when she appeared as Alice in ‘Bloomin’!’. At a
glance, Kawase’s performance of Alice does not seem overly camp. She
appears to be considerably younger than her age, and is dressed as such.
This indicates Kawase’s intention to appear seriously like ‘Alice’, and
hence no exaggerated, humorous or theatrical effects regarding her craft of
the Alice look are obviously evident. A closer observation, however, reveals
that her serious attempt itself reflects a cleverly placed self-awareness.
Masayuki Matsumoto, the editor of music magazine Marquee, points out
that the saccharine intensity of Tommy reflects Kawase’s composed ability
to craft and self-produce the exaggerated ‘idolness’.141 The term ‘idolness’
figuratively refers to hyperbolic and artificial sweetness and innocence
whose manufactured nature is tacitly understood. Kawase herself mentions
that the kitsch yet candy-coated world of Tommy is comprised of her roots
and personal tastes, and reflects her own creative control.142 Moreover, the
constructed and performed nature of Kawase’s Alice is further emphasized
by Miller’s theory that an accentuated kawaii look performed by ‘those
clearly beyond an age of innocence, unmasks the artifice of the manoeuvre’
and neutralizes adult sexuality.143 We can deduce, then that these
performers’ Alice looks demonstrate three different stages of kawaii
aesthetic as a ‘revolt’.
Whereas in Mizuki’s version, kawaii shows a degree of inflection, a
compromise between the expected cute ‘idolness’ and the desire to establish
a more independent and distinguished identity, in Kimura’s version, the
kawaii concept illuminates her playfulness, which is made clear via the
vivid comparison with her perky, independent public image. Kawase’s
rendition of kawaii enacted through Alice further demonstrates her own
individuality and creative controls via the construction of the ‘infantile’
cute image without an explicit hint of camp sensitivity or sexuality. While
the three musicians illustrate different stages of kawaii specifically as a
means to exercise creative control, their Alice performances highlight one
shared characteristic, that is, the combination of girlish styles and sober chic
colours. I argue that this balancing act of cuteness and subdued aesthetics is
effective in rendering their performances as ‘delicate revolts’ against the
negative stereotypes of girlish femininity.
The equilibrium of pastel and dark shades
The kawaii aesthetics manifested in these videos are indeed kept at a
considerably moderate level. Their dresses are delicately but not
extensively ornate, and the colours are on the sombre side. Their preference
for earthy colours is significant in light of the commonness of girls’
clothing in pastels, often with lace. Sober colours did not contradict the
trend of girls’ dresses in Victorian England.144 No matter if it connotes the
sinister, the macabre, elegance, individual distinction, dignity, maturity,
substance or probity, colours like black would not, however, be the best
choice to display innocent girlishness.145 Thus, in addition to their
deliberate lack of (hyper)feminine qualities, the deployment of darker and
sober colours in these three Japanese performers’ Alice dresses endorses
their intention to market themselves as having a ‘twist’ that makes them
different from other, more straightforwardly sweet-looking performers. As a
result, their dresses maintain an intricate balance between infantile cuteness,
asexuality and a sense of independence, which, delicately and implicitly,
points to a construction of girlish yet not necessarily passive or objectified
mode of female appearance.
The three Japanese female performers may not be representative of
Japanese women in general. Nor are all Japanese female performers devoid
of eroticism. It is, however, striking to see that there exists a group of
female performers who can embrace ‘infantile’ cuteness that points to a
lack of mature, sexual allure although they are not necessarily puritanical in
their real lives. Such representations demonstrate that the idea that ‘fashion
is not inevitably produced to render the wearer attractive to the opposite
sex’ and challenges the idea that ornate clothes function solely for men’s
erotic pleasures.146 As Duits and van Zoonen point out, schizophrenic
demands of the virgin–whore dichotomy tend to define women’s clothing
styles at either extreme of the decency continuum.147 As a result, the
cultural construction of women’s fashion is unstable, and largely
problematic. Ultimately, the girlish yet asexual, innocent yet autonomous
‘cute’ fashion displayed in these Japanese music videos possibly serves as
an alternative to the established multiple binaries of aggressive
sexualization and subservience in which young women tend to be
represented, particularly in but not exclusive to Euro-American culture.

Conclusion
Through crafting the look of Alice, the three Japanese performers
demonstrate a compatibility between kawaii fashion aesthetics and senses
of agency and autonomy. Emphasizing sweetness, demureness and
femininity without hinting at sexuality or seeking the objectifying male
gaze serves to repudiate the stereotyped representation of cuteness as
passive, compliant and powerless against the sexual objectification of
women. I suggest that this is more effective than such approaches as
‘porno-chic’ or ‘girl punks’. These two styles are seemingly defined, at
least in part, through the ‘othering’ of more demure and perhaps
‘normative’ modes of femininity. These styles, as long as they exist as the
antithesis of conventional femininity, therefore ‘do not seem to disrupt but
rather appear to endorse existing gender hierarchies’.148 In contrast, the
significance of Japanese kawaii and shōjo aesthetics as demonstrated by the
Japanese performers lie in their abilities to reaffirm ‘infantile’ cute and
apparently saccharine fashion aesthetics and values (which tend to be
denounced in Euro-American societies) as positive and desirable. The
compatibility of autonomy and decorative girlish fashion will be further
explored in the next chapter through the analysis of the Japanese film
Shimotsuma Monogatari and the Japanese fashion trend of Lolita.

*Parts of this chapter first appeared as ‘Being Alice in Japan: performing a cute, “girlish” revolt’ in
Japan Forum (26, Issue 2 [2014], pp. 265–85.
DOI: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09555803.2014.900511). I thank Taylor &
Francis for their permission to include it here.
 5
RIBBONS AND LACE: GIRLS,
DECORATIVE FEMININITY AND
ANDROGYNY

‘There’s one thing about you,’ Maudie said. ‘You always look ladylike.’ ‘Oh
God,’ I said, ‘who wants to look ladylike?’
—JEAN RHYS, Voyage in the Dark, 1934.1
…for the aesthetics of the rococo, the more delicate a girl becomes, the
higher her value.
—Shimotsuma Monogatari.2

A girl of seventeen drives a scooter fast. In the blurred images, her white,
delicately flounced dress flutters on wind. She then collides with a
greengrocer’s truck and soars high in the beautiful sky, a bunch of cabbages
waltzing and whirling behind her. She falls gracefully in a fashion redolent
of Alice falling down into the rabbit hole in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s
Adventures in Wonderland. This is what we encounter soon after the
opening in the Japanese film Shimotsuma Monogatari (Shimotsuma Story
or Kamikaze Girls, abbreviated as Shimotsuma 2004). Clair Hughes in her
book Dressed in Fiction argues that ‘[t]raditionally, aspects of dress have
been used to portray aspects of personality, particularly when a character
first enters the story’.3 A girl attired in a white, lace calf-length puff-sleeved
dress, known as Japanese Lolita dress, with a pair of Vivienne Westwood’s
Rockin’ Horse shoes, rides a scooter fast with a serious mien. If what
Hughes argues is applicable to films, this sequence alone is enough to hint
that Shimotsuma offers a portrayal of teenage girls that is full of
juxtapositions and contradictory images. These are revolutionary and
striking.
In the previous chapter, I argued that some Japanese female performers
manifest the possibility of a detachment from the eroticism often associated
with ‘infantile’ cute and apparently girlish appearances. In this chapter I
pay attention to the established idea that female sartorial ornamentation is a
stable signifier of dependency and subservience, the view made famous by
architect Adolf Loos and sociologist Thorstein Veblen at the turn of the last
century. This idea continues to the present day, most notably via feminist
scholars. For them, women’s concerns for appearance, including fashion,
operates for the purpose of attracting and serving the objectifying male
gaze. These ideas substantiate one facet of gender performative theory,
articulated by Judith Butler, which considers gender as a construction
created and sustained by series of performances including gestures and
dress. The socially inscribed dress of ‘femininity’ creates, demarcates and
distinguishes the gender category from ‘masculinity’, which is symbolically
embodied by the austere, sober and supposedly more functional men’s suit.
To what extent does a ‘girlish’ and emphatically ‘ornamental’ fashion-look
as typified by Japanese Lolita style, then, inevitably signify such
unfavourable connotations? Is it instead a visual embodiment of Valerie
Steele’s view that ‘[h]istoricizing, glamorous fashion could be subversive,
not nostalgic’?4
The functionalist idea that construes decorative femininity as symbolic of
oppression has been both critiqued and challenged by scholars of dress,
particularly since the 1970s. Works by Bonnie G. Smith (1981), Elizabeth
Wilson (1985), Valerie Steele (1985) and Joanne Entwistle (2000) are but a
few examples. Following these works, what I hope to achieve with this
chapter is to offer an alternative to the somewhat monolithic idea that
amalgamates decorative girlish fashion and unfavourable feminine
passivity. I employ Shimotsuma and its predominantly positive depiction of
Lolita fashion as an exemplary case study of this aim. This in turn
reinforces another facet of the theory of gender performativity, that a young
woman can ‘perform’ both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ acts alternately,
while being clad in the same white puff-sleeved dress adorned with
flounces and ribbons (in the case of Shimotsuma). Thus, the film
demonstrates the idea of performative gender even more effectively and
credibly.
I begin the above operation with a general overview of Lolita fashion. I
explain how this concept is a manifestation of a complex cultural
commingling between European and Japanese cultures. The second section
consists of a textual analysis of Shimotsuma. In particular, by examining
what roles clothes play in the film, this section argues that fashion is much
more than a mere embellishment to the narrative, and that the film’s
representation of Lolita fashion is therefore eloquent. The subversive
qualities of Shimotsuma that problematize traditional negative views about
decorative femininity are the focus of the third section. In the final section I
aim to explore the socio-psychological analysis of ‘androgyny’, which the
heroine’s fluent demonstration of both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ attributes
arguably endorses. I seek to establish the idea that ‘androgyny’ does not
necessarily have to be manifested through ‘masculine’ clothes, and that the
ornamental and ‘girlish’ sartorial style could be equally effective in its
performance.

The dress of a bisque doll princess: aspects of

Lolita fashion
Japanese Lolita fashion, which was believed to emerge in the mid-to-late
1990s, is characterized by its self-consciously girlish style, often with the
extravagant opulence of lace, flounces and ribbons. The style’s origins
remain largely undecided.5 Nor is there any clear definition of Lolita style;
rather, it functions as a general term for a number of subtly different
trends.6 The orthodoxy of the fashion style, however, consists of a highly
elaborate, Victorian ‘little girl’ calf-length dress hooped with layers of
pannier, frilly knee-length socks, and ‘Mary Jane’ or strap shoes including
Westwood’s Rockin’ Horse ballerina. The look is completed with intricate
headdresses or bonnets. This fashion, when practised in its ‘full-on’ form, is
often associated with the physical restrictions the style imposes on the
wearer. Akinori Isobe, the owner of the renowned Lolita fashion brand
Baby, The Stars Shine Bright (hereafter abbreviated as Baby), once
admitted that the opulent use of lace and frills makes his garments both
heavy and impeding.7 Echoing this impression, the actress Kyoko Fukada,
who wears Lolita garments (including some actually designed by Baby) in
Shimotsuma, commented that they were not as physically impeding as she
had expected.8
For some who wear this style, Lolita is not merely a choice of clothing,
but also defines their identity and lifestyle.9 Their fashion and demure body
language is closely associated with their romantic views of privileged
young women in the idle, aristocratic elite social classes of eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Europe (Marie Antoinette of France and Alice in Lewis
Carroll’s two Alice books are most obvious and accessible examples). Yet to
what extent does Lolita style embrace and appropriate historic European
dress styles? The style’s appropriation of European dress forms of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries appears to be more conceptual than
stylistic, embroidered with certain aesthetic essences of these periods. In
this sense, it is a ‘transtexual’ style in which references to other texts or
sources are deployed, and definitely not a straightforwardly accurate and
monotonous replication of period dress.10 In addition to the aesthetic
sensibilities conceptualized and romanticized by Lolita, we shall also see
how Japanese understandings of historic European dresses have been
influenced by Japanese popular culture (e.g. girls’ manga).

Embroidering the romantic past: European dress

aesthetics and Japanese appropriations
Steele writes of Lolita fashion in her book Japan Fashion Now, noting
‘[t]he look as a whole is often said to resemble a nineteenth-century French
doll or jumeau’.11 Thus, the Japanese style has some historical references to
period clothes.12 This is despite the fact that the notable promulgation of
European women’s clothing forms in Japan did not occur until the early
twentieth century, during the Taishō period (1912–26), when the ‘modern
girl’ and ‘garçonne’ look emerged, and Western buildings and furniture
styles also became prevalent in the country’s urban centres.13 Close
observation of Lolita style reveals that its incorporation of European
fashion aesthetics has not necessarily been concerned by historical or
stylistic authenticity. The manner in which historical accuracy gives way to
aesthetic preferences in Lolita style is representative of Walter Benjamin’s
philosophy of fashion. Ulrich Lehmann summarizes it thus: ‘a particular
style or stylistic element is taken from costume history and brought into
present fashion to create reference and friction simultaneously, along with
new commodities’.14 Lolita incorporates the ideas of certain aesthetic
elements from historical European dresses, but its actual style is
considerably contemporary. Lolita fashion does, however, have a history.
As noted in the previous chapter, the intensive saturation of lace and
frilly aesthetic sensitivity through Japanese pop culture in the 1970s and
1980s was a likely precursor to Lolita fashion. Japanese clothing brands
such as Milk, Pink House (est. 1972) and Megumi Murano’s Jane Marple
(est. 1985) were founded during this period. These brands are considered
part of the so-called Japanese DC (Designer and Character) brands, which
boomed during the bubble years in the 1980s. DC brands, such as Rei
Kawakubo’s Comme des Garçons as well as Milk, have wider consumer
appeal than Lolita style, and despite not identifying with fashion, their
somewhat romantic, girlish aesthetics are shared by later Lolita fashion
brands, such as Baby (est. 1988).
The link between shōjo manga and Lolita aesthetics is quite clearly
indicated. Fumiyo Isobe, a designer and co-founder of Baby, for example,
acknowledges the influences of Yumiko Oshima’s girls’ comic books such
as Banana Bread Pudding (Banana Bread no Pudding, 1977–8) on her
designs.15 Such appropriation and restylization displays a degree of
creativity and hence authority exercised by Japanese designers. Masuko
Honda’s analysis of a girlish aesthetic in Japan, typified by fluttering
ribbons, or dresses of decorative lace and frills (hirahira), which are
associated with senses of romanticism and latitude, also emphasizes a link
between the concept of Japanese ‘girlhood’ and decorative sartorial items.16
This in turn supports the view that transcultural appropriation of dress can
be systematic and tactical.17 How, then, have Japanese fashion designers
sartorially translated and adopted such ideas?
 Lolita dress often exudes an air of robe à la française style.18 This court
dress style was ‘an open robe with box-pleated panels falling from the
shoulder to form a train’, hooped with panniers, and was a popular dress for
upper-class women throughout the eighteenth century in Europe.19 To
emphasize this aspect of hooped petticoats, ‘the skirt was open in front to
reveal a decorative petticoat’, and even an ‘ordinary’ robe à la française
‘was highly decorated, made of patterned silks covered in ribbons, ruffles,
furbelows, and lace’.20 This is explicated in a Lolita dress, designed by
Innocent World (est. 1998) with the name of ‘Pompadour bustle skirt
(dress)’.21
Its name alone connotes the rococo reference. Pompadour refers to
Jeanne Poisson (1721–64), known as the Marquise de Pompadour, a famous
mistress of French King Louis XV; she had ‘come to be the personification
of the rococo in costume with its curving serpentine lines and riotous
decoration’.22 Accordingly, the échelle of three detachable ribbons placed
vertically on the bodice of this twilled cotton dress corresponds with ‘the
three-dimensional ornamentation of the dress that was an essential part of
the rococo’.23 Combined with the classical rose patterns and the robe à la
française emulated skirt with a matching petticoat on which pale yellow
lace trims separate the skirts into three parts, as if the petticoat were being
in front, these qualities of the dress bear resemblances to the dress the
Marquise wears in the famous portraits by François Boucher (1756). The
back of the dress, however, is bustled. Although it was not an invention of
the Victorian period, the bustle became a fashionable part of women’s dress
between 1882 and 1889.24 According to Toby Slade, Japan’s first attempt to
incorporate European women’s dress in the 1880s was unsuccessful largely
due to the bustle style and its ‘extreme deviation’ from the body’s natural
shape.25 Therefore, it is deducible that the bustle has a connotation of the
late nineteenth-century European dress forms in Japan.
The bustle was often paired with a long skirt, and even influenced
children’s dress in the late Victorian period. From today’s perspective,
young girls’ dress styles in this period have an air of maturity. Elizabeth
Ewing described the dresses of young girls in Europe at the time as ‘tight,
cramping and devoid of youthfulness, down to the elaborate tight, buttoned
boots or the even more elaborate ones made of satin and laced up over open
fronts’.26 As noted in the previous chapter, until the 1920s, age and class
hierarchies of female dress style in Europe were largely maintained through
the length of skirts. Only very young girls or lower-class women would
wear short skirts, and skirts lengthened as the age of the wearer.27 Thus, the
short ‘little girl’ skirt emphasizes the ‘infantile’ qualities of this Lolita
dress, and hence accentuates ‘youthfulness’ or ‘girlishness’. This elucidates
the kawaii aesthetics notable in Japan. Further significance of the
‘Pompadour bustle dress’ is added by the way in which amateur model
Misako Aoki wears it in volume 13 of the magazine KERA MANIAX
(Figure 5.1).
She is pictured wearing the dress over a white, flounced blouse named
‘Ribbon Crown Tucked Blouse’ and an organdie pannier.28 Unlike the
French court dress, this Lolita dress has no sleeves, and wearing it over a
blouse might avoid the exposure of cleavage.
Figure 5.1 Amateur model Misako Aoki dressed in Innocent World’s Pompadour bustle dress.
KERA MANIAX 2009, 13, p. 16.
Photography: Tetsuji Shibasaki, Hair and make-up: Akio Namiki (Clara System), Text: Emi Uemura,

Design: Akiyoshi Akira Design, Model: Misako Aoki. Courtesy of Mariko Suzuki/Jacke Media
Japan.

For more Victorian references, Victorian Maiden’s ‘Rose Lace Blouse

Dress’ offers a long-sleeved, bell-shaped, calf-length dress with tulle lace
and a tucked yoke made of cotton lawn cloth. The tucked yoke and long
sleeves of a blouse allude to the style of the Victorian era, particularly in the
1890s. Yet the outfits suggested by the brand include wearing a puff-
sleeved dress over the very dress and layers of pannier under it in order to
accentuate further a bell-shaped effect, again highlighting the style’s
‘appropriated’ quality. Judging from its appearance, a Lolita pannier can be
described more precisely as a hooped petticoat of the twentieth century
rather than the authentic eighteenth-century French garment. Further adding
to this mix of appropriation and ‘trans-periodic’ quality, one might argue
that these Lolita dresses’ silhouettes are stylistically closer to a 1950s
American formal gown – as immortalized by the prom dress. While the
American dress was popular at the same time in Japan, and again briefly in
the late 1970s, Lolita style has rarely been considered in relation to
American culture, either by Lolita brands or the community. Instead, the
style is commonly correlated with historical Europe, reinforced by
descriptive terms such as princess, maiden and ballerina. Indeed, Isaac
Gagné notes in his study of Lolita style that ‘the meaning of the fashion is
to become a “princess”’.29 Arguably, what is important for the style is the
opulent feeling created through the emphatically hooped skirt, produced by
wearing layers of filmy undergarments à la Marie Antoinette. In this sense,
while the actual shape of the dress is considerably more contemporary, it
aspires to the quintessence of rococo aesthetic sensibilities, namely ‘frills,
ribbons and flounce’.30
The authenticity of historical European dresses has also been negotiated
in terms of practicability suited to our time. The calf-length dress, made of
such fabrics as cotton or nylon, hooped with the (petticoat-like) pannier, is
lighter, less restrictive and more affordable than a long, full-length velvet,
silk or wool dress with a heavier crinoline would be. The use of panniers
can create a more opulent, aristocratic feel, and for aesthetic reasons, the
layers of cotton tulle or nylon sheer bear a striking resemblance to a bell-
shaped ballet skirt.31 Lolita style may therefore be a negotiation between
the fashion aesthetics of early/modern Europe and the kind of functionality
appreciated at the turn of the twenty-first century. Rather than being
unfamiliar with European sartorial history, some Japanese designers have
studied European dress history at university, and thus are able to reference
strategically certain aspects of historical European dress, producing
something new.32 It indicates the degrees to which Japanese designers are
able to make decisions and exercise creative control. Hence, transnational
appropriation, as Margaret Maynard has said, can be systematic and tactical
rather than ‘chaotic’.
Another notable characteristic of Lolita style is its emphatic display of
sweet, almost infantile, girlish aesthetics. Lolita adds a shade of girlish style
favoured in Japan – notably a kawaii (cute) aesthetic – to a frilly European
aristocratic dress form. Mixed with kawaii aesthetics, Lolita reinvents
historical European dresses as something novel and girlish. The projection
of the kawaii aesthetic as embodied by the shortened length of skirts,
exemplifies a conscious, creative adoption of foreign cultural forms. The
demure aesthetics of the style can evoke a sense of docility for those who
are not familiar with this fashion. In that case, it is logical to question
whether or not this opulently ornate, girlish fashion endorses female
subservience and eroticization.

Decorative femininity: praises and criticism

Women’s elaborate dresses in nineteenth-century Europe, by which Lolita
style is partially inspired, have been perceived as symbolic of feminine
oppression.33 This is explicated in two ways: firstly, the economic
dependency of bourgeoise women rendered them a property, a living index
of the pecuniary strength of men, by being adorned in lavishly ornamental
dresses. This has contributed to the assumption that such sartorial
ornamentation was a stable signifier of female dependency and
subservience.34 Secondly, in order to attract such financially stable men,
women were, it is believed, forced to rely on their physical allure, and their
clothes would serve that purpose to the maximum degree.35 As a result, the
decorative woman was presumed to symbolize female subservience as well
as the source of the man’s erotic pleasure. We might wonder, then, whether
or not Lolita style’s opulent use of lace, ribbons and flounces, which both
imposes a degree of physical restraint and makes the wearer an object of the
spectator’s gaze, endorses similar preconceptions. The question is made
more pertinent by the dominantly girlish qualities of the fashion. This is
because not only feminine fashion but also ‘girlish femininity’ itself has
been perceived negatively, particularly but not exclusively in Anglophone
cultures.
Girls, and the connected concept of ‘girlhood’ are frequently perceived as
being associated with passivity and vulnerability.36 The adolescent female
body is both commodified and glorified as the ideal sexual body in popular
culture at the same time the institutional spheres such as schools and family
perceive the female body as ‘a tainted body need of control’.37 Media
portrayal of adolescent girls moreover, often arouses social concerns
relating to the promotion of sexual precocity in teenage girls, but such
perspectives themselves are through the lens of the voyeuristic gaze of
adults.38 Consequently, the voices of girls with senses of agency and
positive attitudes are frequently disregarded.39 In order to claim a position
of power, some girls even adopt overtly ‘masculine and boyish’ demeanours
and ‘differentiate’ themselves from more ‘girlish’ or ‘normatively feminine’
girls who are regarded as dull and unfavourable.40 It can be deduced from
these ideas that despite the largely constructed nature of both genders,
conventional ‘masculinity’, even if it is on the side of ‘hypermasculine’,
tends to be seen as a ‘natural’ quality of human beings. By contrast,
conventional ‘femininity’ is seen as ‘gendered’, and hence is ‘crafted’.
Indeed, the concept of being ‘genderless’ is itself often adjusted to one
particular image of white, heterosexual and ‘masculine’. Blindly seeking
and attempting to apply this concept to any individuals who do not fit into
that type can, therefore, result in undermining their senses of freedom and
individuality.41
Although this kind of political interpretation of women’s dress,
particularly the ornate kinds, has been challenged in recent times, it is
nevertheless still prevalent. Sheila Jeffreys, for instance, writes as recently
as in 2005 that differences inscribed in what men and women wear
demarcate sexual differences between the two genders, and women’s
clothes turn their wearer ‘into toys to create sexual excitement in’ men.42
From the perspective that sees ‘feminine’ clothes as creating and recreating
a conventional, negative image of ‘femininity’, Lolita style is a reification
of unfavourable female passivity and objectification. However, most of
those who indulge in this romantic sartorial aesthetics, regardless of their
nationality, strongly deny these assumptions.43 It is generally assumed that
Lolita style is largely ‘pre-sexual’ despite the possibility of the style veering
into the sexualized.44 One of the shop staff at Baby in Japan who dresses in
the style regularly, for instance, has said her initial motivation to dress in
Lolita was a desire to wear cute, doll-like clothes.45
Elsewhere, I have argued that Japanese Lolitas ‘tend to endorse the
egoism and cruelty associated with childhood rather than its innocence,
naiveté or submissiveness’.46 Moreover, ‘[a]bstinence, girlishness, and
virginity’ – albeit qualities often considered sexually desirable in various
societies – have characterized this style in late 1990s Japan, in contrast to
the overt sexual connotations ascribed to Nabokov’s novel, from which the
name of the style was drawn.47 My intention here is not to deny women’s
desire to attract admirers via fashion or appearance. It might, of course,
appeal to certain fetishist tastes, and it is also possible for some women to
deploy Lolita style to attract sexual attention, but this does not seem to be
the aim for most Lolita wearers.48
Assuming these dresses merely endorsed feminine oppression is rather
simplistic. Wilson argues that ‘to understand all “uncomfortable” dress as
merely one aspect of the oppression of women is fatally to oversimplify,
since dress is not and never has been primarily functional and is certainly
not natural’.49 Moreover, ‘what may be considered “functional” dress in one
epoch or culture may not be so in another’.50 Anne Hollander points out
that ‘[c]omfort, which in clothing is a mental rather than a physical
condition, was no more likely to be a matter of course in skimpy clothes
than in voluminous ones’.51 This means that the length of a skirt or the
decorativeness of a dress might not, at least significantly, influence the
utility of the clothing. Her view is rendered credible by what Entwistle has
noted. Although generally overlooked, she writes, there is a degree of
discomfort attached to ‘the tight, fitted male clothes’ as well.52 Similarly,
while voluminous, crinoline skirts and corsets of nineteenth-century Europe
(by which Lolita style has been influenced) have been perceived by some as
a sartorial incarnation of imposed female docility, women’s senses of
agency, not their passivity, are also evident even in women’s fashion in this
era.53
 Repudiating the idea that wearing an ornate dress simply implies
Victorian women’s consent to submission, Steele argues that neither upper-
class men nor women’s clothes at the time in Europe were practical, as they
were not designed for manual labour.54 More significantly, the silhouette of
such florid, embellished women’s dresses ‘might be interpreted as
emphasizing the female presence in a way that male clothing singularly
failed to do’.55 Smith, in Ladies of the Leisure Class (1981), has also
suggested that voluminous decoration of women’s dresses in the mid-to-late
1800s might have given the wearers some degree of power and visibility.

Full skirts, bodices, huge sleeves gave substance to female claims to importance by increasing
their physical size to at least double that of men. Women wearing hoop skirts, crinolines, bustles,
or trains filled the social space and made people aware of their presence.56

Steele and Smith highlight the view that senses of agency and autonomy
were thus involved when women wore ornate dresses.57
Steele also emphasizes that the significant meanings ascribed to women’s
dress in the nineteenth century were far more complex, saying: ‘Victorian
fashion expressed neither the social and sexual repression of women nor
male perceptions of them as primarily sexual beings.’58 She argues that the
Victorian woman’s emulation of an ideal of beauty, even if it came with
limitations, should be understood more ‘as a personal choice or an aspect of
women’s self-development than as a part of their oppression as “sex
objects”’.59 This is because ‘women dressed not only for men or against
other women, but also for themselves’.60 This means that Victorian women
likely dressed in such a way because they believed the fashion would make
them look and feel pretty. In other words, they would feel pleasant, or even
cosy via the sensation of being ‘well-dressed’.61 The aesthetic value of
clothing is one of the fundamental factors ruling our selection of clothes.
Thus the aesthetic importance of clothing should not be underestimated. If
comfort is seen as one of the functions of clothing, wearing clothes that
match our aesthetic sensibilities would surely and significantly increase the
functionality of the clothes. This preposition is quite plausibly applicable to
Lolita fashion.
The sense of agency combined with a highly girlish fashion style has
moreover been a notable characteristic in Japanese popular culture.
Anthropologist Anne Allison points out that the assumption of a
‘masculine’ demeanour is required not only for male heroes but also for
female heroes in American popular culture. According to her:

the preferred model of superheroism (in both fantasy and ‘real’ realms) remains strongly
masculine in the United States and strongly biased against a female hero, particularly one who
behaves in a feminine or girlie manner. There is also an implicit message that even if a superhero
is a girl, she is expected to act, and even look, like a boy.62

In contrast, ‘feminine’, ‘girlie’ or ‘cute’ appearances are not necessarily

incompatible with independent strong women in Japanese popular culture.63
Allison’s interpretation of the Japanese animated series Sailor Moon, for
example, illustrates that in contrast to the singular, masculine model of
American heroism, ‘there are two different hero models operating, one male
and one female’ in Japanese culture.64 It is my belief that Tetsuya
Nakashima’s film Shimotsuma Monogatari and its portrayal of a young
woman who is almost totally dressed in Lolita fashion offer a visual
rendition of this point.65 Such a representation, it is argued, can serve as a
largely positive and favourable alternative to the monolithic idea that
perceives girlish/feminine appearances as endorsing passive objectification.
I examine this film in the next section in order to substantiate this point.66

A Lolita girl in the countryside: dress and

Shimotsuma Monogatari
Shimotsuma Monogatari (2004) is a film adaptation of Novala Takemoto’s
novel of the same title (2002). The film was a success at the box office and
has established a somewhat cult status outside Japan. The story of the film
can be briefly summarized in the following way. Momoko Ryūgasaki
(played by pop idol and actress Fukada) is a seventeen-year-old schoolgirl,
and a daughter of a failed yakuza and bar hostess. Although she lives in the
rural Ibaraki Prefecture with her good-for-nothing father and his eccentric
mother, Momoko dresses in the clothing of Baby, The Stars Shine Bright.67
She identifies with French rococo culture, and despite the curious eyes of
the locals, lives according to her rococo aesthetics (e.g. she refuses to ride a
bicycle simply because it is against her aesthetic principles, and she carries
a parasol whenever she is outside in order to avoid sunburn). One day, after
falling into a financial crisis that prevents her from purchasing expensive
Baby garments, she decides to sell off the cheap and illegal imitations of
Versace goods her father had produced earlier. Her advertisement attracts
the attention of Ichigo Shirayuri (played by fashion model and rock singer
Anna Tsuchiya), a seventeen-year-old student and a member of an all-girls
bikie gang (yankee) ‘the Ponytails’.68 Seemingly situated almost at the
other end of Lolita fashion, yankee style is generally known for its brazen
gaudiness, combined with working-class clothes, modified school uniforms
and other styles.69 Despite the fact that these two girls seem to be the exact
opposite in character and in fashion taste, they somehow get closer as they
spend time together, and embark on a journey to find a legendary
embroiderer in the posh area of Daikanyama in Tokyo, in order to ask him
to stitch a design on Ichigo’s bikie garment (tokkōfaku).
From the very beginning, fashion propels the narrative in the film.
Momoko’s father produces and sells cheap, ‘knock-off’ merchandise, which
bears the misspelled name of Versach, thus incurring the family’s financial
crisis and subsequent retirement to rural Shimotsuma. We learn that
Momoko was born and raised in the industrial city of Amagasaki, which the
film calls the ‘track suits paradise’ (jāji tengoku). The hideously made
‘Versach’ garments introduce Ichigo and Momoko, who are initially,
mutually surprised by the former’s démodé sukeban (female delinquent)
sartorial style and the latter’s frilly, ‘infantile’ fashion. Embroidery brings
the two heroines closer; Ichigo’s determination to find a legendary
embroiderer in Daikanyama forces Momoko to spend time with her, while
their friendship seriously develops when Ichigo requests Momoko to
embroider the design on Ichigo’s garment instead.70 Momoko becomes
anxious after being asked by the owner of Baby to embroider a design on a
white lace Lolita dress. She reveals her vulnerability, only to be encouraged
by Ichigo in a strong, loud voice. Clearly, clothing functions as an essential
driving force of the narrative in Shimotsuma. In order to examine the
significant meanings of Lolita fashion in this film, it is useful first to
observe what roles dress in general plays in it, and how it is connected to
the identity and ideology of the wearer.

Appearance says everything: dress and identity in

Shimotsuma Monogatari
Do the clothes that Momoko and Ichigo don represent their ‘true identities’
or do they instead offer the two protagonists a means to play with their
identities? In the era of postmodern thinking, we tend to assume that
identity is a masquerade and has an essentially instable and fragmented
nature. This means that rather than being inherent, ‘one’s identity is defined
in terms of the image that one creates through one’s consumption of goods,
including the clothes one wears’.71 Llewellyn Negrin argues that this is not
an entirely accurate reading because ‘[r]ather than just being about the
creation of a “look”, the way one adorns oneself should reflect one’s values
and beliefs’.72 In other words, one’s style of appearance refers to ‘the
ideology of the wearer’.73 Somewhat more cautiously, Wilson suggests that
dress and demeanours may allow us to assume a false or disguised
identity.74 However, even our intention to don particular garments in order
to disguise or adopt a false identity itself is a part of our identity. This is
because it reflects and is intertwined with our desires and wills. Thus I
argue that ultimately, dress is inextricable from our inner ‘self’. Likewise,
Shimotsuma predominantly endorses the idea of fashion/appearance as
carrying ‘the ideology of the wearer’. For example, in a sequence during
their first encounter, Momoko is dressed up for a meeting with a new
person, Ichigo. Beginning with a red velvet headdress trimmed with white
lace, roses and red ribbons, she is attired in Baby’s red velvet ‘Elizabeth’
dress with white flounce sleeves. As can be seen in Figure 5.2, its
stomacher-like bodice has a lace and flounced yoke with the échelle of a red
ribbon and white lace roses, while the bell-shaped, calf-length skirt has five
tiers of white lace, revealing a pair of frilly high socks.
Ichigo surprises Momoko with her school uniform worn in a 1980s’
sukeban style. With a short black jacket, which has rolled-up sleeves
revealing a leopard-patterned lining, Ichigo’s sukeban look consists of a
white shirt with a loosely-knotted black tie, a very long black pleated skirt
reaching to ankle level, kitsch red sunglasses and heavy make-up with
particular attention to her drawn eyebrows, a typical characteristic of
yankee style for women.75 Ichigo is in turn surprised by learning that a girl
who glitters with lace and ribbons is in fact seventeen years old, the same
age as herself, saying: ‘I figured only a child would wear that kind of frilly
dress. But I shouldn’t judge by appearance.’ Momoko gently yet decidedly
replies: ‘But appearance says everything’, reinforcing the idea that she
conceives fashion/dress as reflective of identity.

Figure 5.2 Momoko and Ichigo’s first encounter.

From Shimotsuma Monogatari (2004), directed by Tetsuya Nakashima, produced by Yuji Ishida,
Takashi Hirano and Satoru Ogura. Toho Co., Ltd, Japan.

Momoko does almost anything to continue to purchase her favourite

Baby items, even after falling into financial crisis. This alone indicates her
perception of Lolita fashion (and more precisely Baby garments) as
something much more than merely inessential, consumable pieces of cloth
detached from her identity or the self. As for Ichigo, her purple tokkōfuku)
is represented as almost synonymous with her soul. In the sequence where
Momoko offers to embroider a design on Ichigo’s bikie garment after they
had a quarrel, Ichigo accepts the offer, giving Momoko her garment. When
Momoko asks Ichigo: ‘Can you really trust me?’, Ichigo, sitting astride her
scooter in the rain, seriously replies: ‘To entrust your bikie garment to
someone means to entrust your soul to that person’.
Unlike their school peers, and despite their visible sartorial differences,
Baby and yankee garments might also function as signifiers of the
similarities between Momoko and Ichigo in Shimotsuma. Ichigo, like
Momoko, has light-brown hair with rather embellished make-up, and rides
a pink scooter, all of which undoubtedly renders her comparable to
Momoko despite their clearly different sartorial preferences. Their
commonalities are most evident in a sequence where the two girls are
sitting face to face in the ‘Forest of the Aristocrats’ (kizoku no mori), a local
tearoom. As Figure 5.3 indicates, Momoko’s demure posture, illuminated
by her pale pink classical dress with frilled yoke and machine-brocaded
ribbon-type textile, her matching straw hat adorned with a gauzy ribbon and
rose corsages are strikingly juxtaposed with Ichigo’s casual posture.
Ichigo’s deportment corresponds well with her hip-hop-meets-yankee
fashion consisting of a loose red track suit, a matching hooded sweatshirt
and a black singlet. Despite these sartorial differences, the two girls are
equally shown in a medium shot, which, significantly, implies their equality,
making a clear contrast to the scene where Momoko is seen with her
classmates, to which I shall return later.
This point endorses what Georg Simmel stated in The Philosophy of
Fashion, that their fashion ‘establishes uniformity within itself, as well as
differentiation from outsiders’.76
Momoko’s strong sense of independence impresses Ichigo, while
Momoko begins to understand and respect Ichigo as an individual who
strictly follows her own ‘principles’. Both heroines express their stringent
loyalty to their philosophies, and hence their individuality through (rather)
minor clothing styles. This very practice, however, provides a sense of
commonality, which draws the two girls visibly (if moderately) closer.
Figure 5.3 Momoko and Ichigo at ‘Forest of the Aristocrats’.
From Shimotsuma Monogatari (2004), directed by Tetsuya Nakashima, produced by Yuji Ishida,
Takashi Hirano and Satoru Ogura. Toho Co., Ltd, Japan.

If clothes are interrelated with identities in Shimotsuma, what is the

significance of the frilly and lace Lolita dress by which Momoko is so
fervently captivated? Considering the functionalist analysis of dress, the
emphasized girlishness and the frilly and lace ornamentation of Lolita
fashion might suggest it endorses a passive, restricted girlish femininity.
Ichigo’s comparatively aggressive demeanour and rather unisex, loose-
fitted silhouette of the yankee garments further accentuate the sweetness
and girlish femininity of the style Momoko wears. Is Momoko a passive
heroine who lacks a sense of autonomy/agency? Earlier in the film,
Momoko claims: ‘I’ve got a puny grip, I can’t run fast or swim. But for the
aesthetics of the rococo, the more delicate a girl becomes, the higher her
value increases’. This principle echoes Veblen’s perception of the ‘Leisure
Class’ in which ‘[t]he more the style and construction of a person’s clothes
indicates a complete unsuitability for work… the greater would be [the]
“reputability” of their wearer’.77 Michael Carter in Fashion Classics notes
that for Veblen, women’s dress ‘goes even farther in the way of
demonstrating the wearer’s abstinence from productive employment’.78 On
one level, Lolita fashion, in which Momoko is thoroughly attired, is a tailor-
made embodiment of Veblen’s philosophy of women’s dress. What makes
the film and its portrayal of Momoko subversive of such a political
interpretation can be explained in two ways. Notably, Momoko’s perception
of rococo principles is largely a romanticized version of aristocratic
aesthetics, and these do not pose any serious restriction of her sense of
agency.

Sweet reveries of the rococo: the rococo dreams of

Momoko
According to Momoko’s narrating voiceover, her rococo aesthetics teach
one that life is like candy, and that one should immerse oneself in a world
of sweet dreams. For instance, Momoko explains that aristocratic ladies of
the rococo period in eighteenth-century France had their waists laced as
tightly as possible solely for aesthetic purposes. This would be regarded as
a virtue even when they fainted due to dyspnea or suffocation. This almost
‘idiotic’ prioritization of aesthetics and apparent lack of functionality
accords with Lolita fashion, although the latter displays some practical
reinvention of period costumes. In fairness, we need to acknowledge that
Momoko’s understanding of rococo culture is a romanticized version of the
cultural movement. The rococo movement became notable in France in the
1730s, fully bloomed in the 1740s and began to wilt with the flowering of
the neo-classical movement in the late 1760s. Fashion and art historian
Aileen Ribeiro remarks that the rococo is the ‘most “feminine” period in the
history of dress’79 and ‘was a princely and urban art form, which
demonstrated a kind of opulence in taste sympathetic to absolute rule’.80
According to Ribeiro:

It was a style characterised by wit and fantasy, by playful ornamentation, asymmetry and three-
dimensional decoration…In terms of costume, the new style exemplified every fantasy about the
essence of the feminine; everything undulates and curves, from the tightly curled hairstyles (a
popular style was named tête de mouton, like a sheep’s fleece) decorated with a tiny, frivolous
headdress called pompon (a few flowers, a scrap of lace, a glittering tremblant jewelled ornament
which shivered as the wearer moved) to the dress itself, usually a sacque or a robe à la française
with floating back drapery, and trimmed with ribbons and flowers in serpentine curves. With the
aid of small hoops or hip pads, the silhouette formed a graceful pyramid.81
Thus, the qualities of the rococo movement can be summarized more or less
as ‘feminine’, artificial and elegant, all of which correspond well with
Momoko’s understanding of rococo aesthetics. Unquestionably, however,
the rococo is far more complex than that, for not only the aristocrats in
eighteenth-century France enjoyed the blessing of the rococo movement.
Although the movement was most strongly identified with the court
(particularly with the mistresses of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour and
Madame Du Barry, to be followed in the next reign by the iconic Marie
Antoinette), Steele has demonstrated that the influences and presence of
urban society were also notable in the rococo movement.82 Indeed,
according to historian Stephen Jones, ‘not only the aristocracy, but the
prosperity of the upper middle classes also made them ideal patrons of the
arts’ during this period.83 Moreover, Madame de Pompadour, a paragon of
the rococo sensibilities, was a self-made aristocrat and patron of the arts,
and both her tastes and life trajectory signified the subversion of hierarchal
distinctions in class and gender.84
How did the rococo dresses differ from the dresses of peasant women?
Social and cultural historian Daniel Roche’s study of popular dress in
eighteenth-century Paris gives a picture of what the labouring-class or
peasant women in 1770 would have worn. According to him, women in this
class were dressed in a fairly uniform way; many of them:

wore petticoats (or skirts, for the distinction between jupon and jupe is not always clear) loose
smock and shirt; a corset indicated the superior ways of servants, girls working in the world of
fashion, or the wives of good artisants. There were camisoles, some slightly superior low-cut
dresses, a few mantlets, not many cloaks, but they all wore stockings, a good number of checked
aprons, and the pairs of pockets essential to good housewives.85

Momoko’s idea of France of the rococo period as an opulently romantic,

aristocratic aesthetic therefore comes only from the limited and idealized
space of the aristocracy of the period. Further, superficiality at least, it
seems that Momoko’s own version of rococo aesthetics both enhances and
reinforces the assumed correlation between women’s ornate dress and their
imposed subservience.
What is significant about Shimotsuma Monogatari is, however, that
Momoko’s dress does not operate to render her submissive or the object of
the male gaze. I argue that three main factors contribute to this significance:
the independence in the characterization of the heroine, the almost absence
of romance in the narrative and the subsequent lack of objectifying male
gaze, and Momoko’s abilities to travel between both established
‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ activities effortlessly without undergoing any
sartorial metamorphosis. I examine these factors below, beginning with the
independent personality of Momoko. As we have seen, one of the points
that assigns a negative attribute to elaborate ‘feminine’ fashion is that such
a fashion signifies female restriction. Yet despite Lolita fashion’s signified
impracticability and demure girlishness, Momoko’s activities are neither
fully restricted nor impeded. On the contrary, she demonstrates a
considerably independent personality.

Frills for independence

As the director Tetsuya Nakashima himself comments, Momoko has
achieved a status of ‘independence’.86 As described by Ichigo, ‘Momoko
always stands up for herself. She follows only her own rules.’ According to
this proclamation, her sense of independence is well observed in the school
lunch sequence, where we see Momoko having her lunch alone in the
classroom. First and foremost, Momoko is visually distinct from her peers.
In the medium-close shot, she faces the window, whereas her classmates are
having their lunch in groups, portrayed in the long shot behind Momoko.
Her blondish ringlets, delicate make-up and even her pink heart-shaped
lunchbox filled with colourful sweets mark her ‘difference’ from the
uniformly black-haired, simple-looking and thus more conservative
classmates. Since Momoko is presented in contrast to her classmates, the
film’s intention is clearly to affirm her alienation. This also positively
highlights her independent mentality, as she is able to stand alone if
necessary, in order to live by her own values and judgements.
Momoko’s sense of independence and individuality does not originate
from her actual rejection of conformity, but predominantly from her
aesthetic principles. When Ichigo attempts to persuade Momoko to join her
bikie gang, Momoko, refusing decidedly, states, ‘I won’t be a yankee, ride a
bike, get in a fight or be in a group, and I won’t be shedding this [Lolita]
dress’ because ‘it [the yankee] just looks tasteless’. This implies that her
activities, including her sense of individuality and independence, are largely
predicated on her own aesthetic principles. Momoko’s independence is,
however, not as flawless as it appears. Towards the climax of the film, she
reveals her weakness and vulnerability, seeking encouragement from others
(notably Ichigo) rather than handling her anxieties by herself. As director
Nakashima notes, she might immerse herself in Lolita style and strictly
follow her romanticized rococo principles in order to avoid being hurt by
interacting with other individuals.87 In this interpretation, Momoko’s
adherence to the fashion style, and hence her ‘conformity’ to a (minority)
fashion trend, symbolizes both her independence and her vulnerability. This
intricacy manifested through the character of Momoko gainsays the one-
dimensional image of dependent women who are opulent trophies of their
male breadwinners while pointing to the ‘power’ such decorative girlish
fashion holds. Her independent status is further highlighted by the almost
entire absence of romantic narrative in the film. This is significant because
the lack of romantic narrative alludes to the conclusion that Momoko’s
immaculately crafted ‘look’ does not operate primarily for the male gaze.

Valiant be the sweet maidens: girls propelling the

narrative
Shimotsuma Monogatari challenges a common conception that romance is
an essential aspect of culture concerning adolescent girls, let alone film.88
Romantic heterosexual elements in Shimotsuma are, in contrast, largely
absent. The only romantic element that involves the two protagonists is the
episode of Ichigo’s first love.89 The comical visual elements of Ryūji
(Sadao Abe), Ichigo’s romantic interest, prevent him from being perceived
as an attractive male character in a traditional sense by the audience. Those
elements instead trivialize the romantic aspect in the film, with the
exception of the sequence where Ichigo cries after learning that he is in fact
the fiancé of Akimi (played by Eiko Koike), the respected leader of Ichigo’s
bikie gang. This sequence in turn highlights the bond between Momoko and
Ichigo. From this moment, Momoko begins to understand and respect
Ichigo as an individual who strictly follows her own principles, such as
‘girls shouldn’t cry in front of anybody’.
Like Ridley Scott’s renowned film Thelma and Louise (1991), the
activities of the two protagonists are predicated almost entirely on their
mutual friendship and personal desires in Shimotsuma. This seemingly
endorses the idea that at any age, people in Japan tend to find emotional
stability in a range of more ‘permanent’ relationships than sexual
relationships, such as friendships and group memberships, than Americans
are believed to do.90 In contrast to the portrayal of Ryūji, Ichigo frequently
engages her status as a ‘romantic hero’. Although neither intelligent nor
clever, Ichigo is portrayed as violent, rough, ardent, straightforward,
masculine and loyal. Her habits of spitting and head butting are
unquestionably associated with men and conventional ‘masculinity’. Ichigo
also comes to Momoko’s rescue when she is in trouble, first when she faints
with bliss after meeting her ‘god’ Isobe (Yoshinori Okada), and more
significantly, when Momoko is troubled by Isobe’s request to stitch a rose
pattern on his latest product sample.
The film’s celebration of female camaraderie might carry different
connotations for certain groups of lesbian, heterosexual female or
heterosexual male audiences. Although such a reading is not completely
absent, an analysis of the film as a lesbian romance does not seem to be
mainstream. I believe this is predicated largely on the film’s rather
unsentimental portrayal of the female friendship, combined with its
avoidance of (Momoko’s) misandrist attitudes, which are present in the
original novel, and the integrated nature of ‘female friendship’ in Japanese
popular culture. It may be argued that the relative absence of heterosexual
romance in Shimotsuma, just like the Japanese music videos analysed in
Chapter 4, exonerates the two protagonists from obvious eroticization.
Momoko and Ichigo are the ones who are in charge of controlling and
propelling the narrative, and they are the ones with whom the audience is
most likely to identify. Applying Laura Mulvey’s famous theory of the
gaze, this enables the (female) audience to engage with Momoko and Ichigo
in the ego-libido way – taking pleasures by empathizing with the
protagonists in the film. In addition, since the two protagonists are young
women, the female audience is not likely to be required to be involved in
the process of ‘masculinization’ in order to derive pleasures from
empathizing with the protagonists. According to this reading, Shimotsuma
Monogatari refuses to allow Momoko and Ichigo to become objects of the
camera’s traditionally male gaze. In contrast to Simone de Beauvoir’s
contention that women’s preoccupation with fashion and appearance
symbolized their enslavement by the objectifying male gaze, Momoko is
moreover portrayed as not preoccupied with attracting the gaze of men.91
Importantly, Momoko’s Lolita fashion itself may be operating against
eroticization. This is because ornaments such as frills and ribbons can
simultaneously emphasize girlishness and draw attention away from the
body of the wearer by concealing its shape.92 This idea that ornate feminine
dress diminishes eroticism is also applicable to films. As film studies
scholar Stella Bruzzi argues of Jean Paul Gaultier’s costumes in Pedro
Almodóvar’s Kika (1993), elaborate feminine fashion in cinema can
‘diminish’ heterosexual allure and sexual desirability of the wearer. This is
because ‘the more sensational clothes become, the less they signify the
beauty and desirability of… the female characters who wear them. This
contravenes directly the traditional interpretation of adornment as
something which accentuates and complements the feminine’.93 According
to this logic, clothes in the film, let alone Momoko’s highly ornate dresses,
are not ‘dictated by the fundamental desires of the opposite sex’ as dress
historian James Laver contended in his famous principles of Hierarch and
Seduction (1950).94
It is, however, also possible to read Lolita dresses in a different, almost
opposite way. Clothes can sexualize the body of the wearer, for instance,
not only by revealing but also by hiding the body, and hence adding a sense
of mystery.95 Although contemporary Japanese culture locates sexuality in
the body, nudity has not been important in the history of Japanese
aesthetics. Traditionally, the nape (unaji) was an anatomical part of
woman’s body that exuded sensuality to the highest degree.96 The kimono
silhouette focused attention on the neck by wrapping the body and making a
flat, straight look while de-emphasizing other body parts such as the
breasts, waist and limbs.97 In this sense, putting intricate layers between the
gaze and the object hardly draws attention ‘away’ from the object, because
if that object is understood as ‘hidden’, it might merely serve as a promise,
or titillation. Considering these cultural complexities, I believe it is safe to
contend that the ornate, girlish fashion in Shimotsuma is not a device to
intentionally or primarily render the wearer an exclusive object of the
objectifying gaze, although some viewers might find the fashion, or more
precisely the image of Fukada in Lolita dress, to be erotically charged.
The romantic chemistry between the two female protagonists in this film,
with Ichigo’s apparent assumption of the ‘masculine’ role, displays a
distinct influence of Japanese shōjo novels, which can be traced back to the
early 1900s. It is worthwhile to observe this tradition in the present setting.
This is because the film’s modern take of this tradition sometimes inverts,
and even subverts, assumed gender roles, and makes the film’s depiction of
youthful femininity even more complex.

A romantic camaraderie of girls

The romantic friendship between girls is an ongoing theme in Japanese
girls’ culture. Such relationships have been most obviously associated with
shōjo literature in the early 1900s, with the author Nobuko Yoshiya (1896–
1973) the main exponent of the genre, but they continue to be part of
Japanese shōjo manga culture even today. These romantic relationships
often involve two girls – one of them being tall, active, independent and
handsome, while the other is petite, girlish, sweet and innocent.98 To some
extent, these girls represent idealized images of ideological ‘masculinity’
and ‘femininity’. Until the 1990s, such relationships were depicted as short-
lived, for these girls were soon integrated into heterosexual romance or, if
the story ended tragically, the former girl died for the latter girl.99
Unlike the original novel, the friendship between the two protagonists in
the film version of Shimotsuma is not as romantic and sensual as the one
found in the novels of Yoshiya. It is, however, clear that the two
protagonists exhibit notable aspects of the convention of ‘masculine-
feminine’ girls. Visually, Momoko assumes the role of the ‘feminine’ girl in
the tradition of romantic relationships between girls. She is portrayed as
highly girlish with demure demeanour. Most of the time she is dressed
entirely in Lolita fashion, which is a signifier of hyperbolic girlish
femininity. This fashion matches her use of polite language in a softly
spoken voice. The casting of Fukada, whose public image is often described
as gentle and quiet, further enforces this image. In contrast, Ichigo, played
by popular fashion model Anna Tsuchiya, is characterized by her
(relatively) tall build with manly attitudes and frequent use of rough,
masculine language, spoken in a deep, husky voice. All of these qualities
signify her status as the ‘masculine’ girl in the tradition of girl-girl romantic
friendship. What makes this film unique, however, is its play on this
tradition, as the two protagonists’ ‘gender’ roles are frequently switched.

Performing masculin féminin

It is significant that the film’s two protagonists sometimes assert themselves
through (reaffirming) traditionally feminine qualities and values, which are
presented as positive and powerful (such as caring, girlish fashion and
embroidery), while they also engage in activities traditionally associated
with men (fist-fighting, spitting, reckless driving and gambling). In other
words, Momoko and Ichigo assume conventionally ‘masculine’ and
‘feminine’, active and passive roles alternately.100 This is particularly
notable in the bonding scenes between the two girls, which are recurrent in
Shimotsuma. In these sequences, the concept of bonding is nearly always
interlaced with (traditionally) ‘female’ qualities. The concept of ‘bonding’
warrants special notice here: is it only a ‘masculine’ attribute?
Although female friendship and bonding, let alone bonding between men
and women, are common in reality, female bonding is, unlike male bonding,
still rarely depicted in mainstream Hollywood films, with the notable
exception of Thelma and Louise.101 This is because rather than showing
female friendships, ‘traditionally, films portray women mainly in terms of
their relationship to men’.102 Furthermore, most mainstream films that
show female friendship are ‘sentimental’ films where women’s friendship is
depicted largely as a means of integrating them into society.103 It must be
noted that depictions of female friendship and bonding, particularly in
relation to young women, are more common in contemporary Japanese
cinema than they are in Hollywood.104 Furthermore, as the commentary of
the director suggests, the bond between Momoko and Ichigo in Shimotsuma
is significantly less ‘sentimental’ than more stereotypical, sentimental girl
friendships.105 For this reason, Momoko and Ichigo’s bonding likely has a
‘masculine’ tone even in Japanese culture.
The most significant of these ‘masculine/feminine’ juxtapositions is
found in the climax sequence. We see Momoko clad in a simple, puff-
sleeved, lace-trimmed white pinafore dress with decorative ribbon lacing on
the bodice, wearing a white headdress, frilled high socks and a pair of white
platform shoes similar to Vivienne Westwood’s Rockin’ Horse boots. As
seen in Figure 5.4, she is driving her grandmother’s scooter fast. Her
mission is to rescue Ichigo, who is facing the danger of severe punishment
by her fellow bikie members for not fully conforming to the gang’s rules.
After seeing her, Ichigo valiantly confronts and fights the bikie members,
who are uniformly clad in tokkōfaku, and is then seriously bashed by them.
Momoko just stands there in utter amazement when Ichigo’s blood splashes
onto her and her white, frilly Lolita dress. She screams in a rather girlish
fashion with her hands on her ears and cheeks. ‘Shut up!’ One of the bikie
gangs throws Momoko into a large puddle. ‘Momoko!’ Ichigo shouts.
Momoko, her entire body plastered with muddy water, rises with a sharp
glare in a medium-close shot. Followed by a brief medium-long shot, the
film offers a very close-up shot of Momoko’s face, initially with her eyes
lowered, then looking up and staring straight, displaying a furious mien.
Against the exuberant elegance of Strauss’s The Blue Danube and her softly
spoken narration, which repeats, ‘Ideally, I would have been born in France
in the rococo period’, Momoko reveals her aggression. She confronts the
gang alone, first in a violent act by flourishing a metal baseball bat, then by
using lies and manipulations, and eventually she saves Ichigo. Significantly,
one scene after the fight sequence, we see Momoko return to her normal,
girlish self. This highlights her smooth transformation from ‘girlish’ to
‘masculine’, and back to ‘girlish’. The film ends with a close-up of the two
girls smiling girlishly, with their faces covered with bruises, blood and mud
– another juxtaposition of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ qualities, while their
physical closeness might signify their emotional closeness.
Figure 5.4 Clad in a white Lolita dress, Momoko drives a scooter with a serious mien.
From Shimotsuma Monogatari (2004), directed by Tetsuya Nakashima, produced by Yuji Ishida,
Takashi Hirano and Satoru Ogura. Toho Co., Ltd, Japan.

What draws my attention here is that Momoko’s transformation from

‘girlish’ to ‘masculine’ and back to ‘girlish’ in the fistfight scene involves
no sartorial metamorphosis. The significance of sartorial transformation is
accentuated in the convention of American superhero genre, from
Superman and Spiderman to the film The Matrix (1999).106 This seemingly
affirms the tradition of comic-book superheroes, for whom costume
operates as ‘a conductor for channelling powers’,107 and ‘in which changing
“into costume” functions as a “sign of inner change” from wimp to
superhero’.108 According to cultural historian Friedrich Weltzien, changing
dress as a presentation of masculinity has traditionally been depicted within
the context of fighting in this genre.109 Manliness is therefore ‘defined by
the virtues of the warrior, at the same time tested and confirmed by
violence’.110 Following this logic, I deduce that Momoko’s transformation
in this sequence without any significant sartorial change apart from the
stains of her dress with mud, water and blood elucidates her inner
changelessness. This means that both ‘girlish’ and ‘masculine’ attributes are
present in the character of Momoko.
 If we recall what Butler has said about gender performativity, neither
‘masculinity’ nor ‘femininity’ is fixedly inscribed on one’s body:

If the inner truth of gender is a fabrication and if a true gender is a fantasy instituted and inscribed
on the surface of bodies, then it seems that genders can be neither true nor false, but are only
produced as the truth effects of a discourse of primary and stable identity.111

Shimotsuma Monogatari and its portrayal of Momoko endorses Butler’s

theory in a less radical but perhaps more effective fashion. The absence of
sartorial metamorphosis in Shimotsuma offers an alternative to the idea that
‘gender’ is defined and redefined through clothes, while Momoko’s smooth
crossing between the borders of the two gender categories substantiates the
idea of the ‘gender’ boundary as both precarious and undefined.
Equally significant is Shimotsuma’s portrayal of a teenage girl dressed in
a highly girlish fashion engaging in the conventionally ‘masculine’ activity
of aggression.112 This significance is further emphasised by such recent
American films as Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) and James
Mangold’s Knight and Day (2010). The principal female characters in these
films, played by Mia Wasikowska and Cameron Diaz respectively, wear
dresses with bell-shaped, more than calf-length skirts at times in the films.
When they are seriously engaged with fighting, however, they undergo
sartorial transformation either into a ‘masculine’ armour (in Alice) or a
black, stylish trouser suit (in Knight). The implicit message that we might
encode here is that despite the rather ‘unrealistic’ settings of these films,
certain activities such as engaging in a fight while wearing highly
‘feminine’ or ‘girlish’ attires are next to unthinkable. This is particularly
notable in Alice in the sequence where Alice, like the legendary Joan of
Arc, wears a medieval or Renaissance-style armour in order to fight the
dragon-like Jabberwocky. The medieval/Renaissance-style armour is
integrated into the costume of American superheroes, which ‘is reminiscent
of imperial Roman armour but with apparent Renaissance influences’.113
Thus, as Weltzien has argued, it can be a signifier of heroic masculinity.
This raises the question: if a film is set in the world of nonsense where the
heroine can shrink and grow tall or animals and other creatures can speak a
human language, why can the heroine not defeat a monstrous creature while
wearing the gauzy, blue or red dresses with flounces that she had on earlier
in the film?
The equation of power, activity and authority with the concept of
‘masculine’, and inactivity with the concept of ‘feminine’ is arguably in
operation here. In reality, heavy Renaissance armour could be more
physically impeding than a filmy dress, but the discomfort associated with
men’s clothes has conveniently been overlooked.114 Hence, these examples
from American cinema uphold the validity of Allison’s contention that in
American popular culture, female heroes tend to dress and act in a
‘masculine’ fashion. On the contrary, as several authors have pointed out,
even if with certain limitations, girlish/feminine appearances and
traditionally ‘masculine’ attributes such as fighting are more compatible in
Japanese popular culture. With a young woman in a white gauzy dress who
valiantly fights in order to save her friend, Shimotsuma is a vivid
endorsement of this point.
It is simplistic to assume that these are only fictions, thus not mirroring
reality in any ways. Crane and Bulman assert that the constructed ideals,
biases or distortions demonstrated in cinema can themselves be part of the
society/culture which first produced them.115 ‘Although the fantasy world
of the cinema is obviously separate from the actual conditions of everyday
life’, writes sociologist Joanne Finkelstein:

the intermingling of fashions with aesthetic injunctions about femininity and masculinity suggests
that such images function mimetically… The close correspondence between women’s fashions and
cinematic depictions of femininity illustrates how the imagined and the imitated flow into one
another.116

As these ideas affirm, the comparison between the American films and
Shimotsuma Monogatari illustrate transcultural differences in conceiving
the relationship between ‘feminine’ clothing forms and strong activity.
Further affirmation of this point can be found in the fact that Shimotsuma
Monogatari is not a single example of this kind in Japanese popular culture.
Kozueko Morimoto’s manga series Deka One-ko (Detective One-ko or
Wan-ko, 2008 to the present) is a new addition to this plethora of ‘girlish’
heroines dwelling in conventionally ‘masculine’ genres in Japanese popular
culture. It centres around a newly recruited young female detective, Ichiko
Hanamori, who is blessed with olfaction as acute as a police dog, a genetic
inheritance from her father that enables her to solve crime cases.117 She is
dressed in a frilly dress all the time, which is stylistically not dissimilar to
Lolita fashion. An earlier TV drama series Fugō Keiji (Multi-millionaire
Detective, 2005–6), in which a young granddaughter of a multi-millionaire
joins the police force, might have inspired the comic book series. The
heroine Miwako, also played by Fukada, is dressed in a less frilly but
equally opulent, ‘feminine’ fashion.118 Although the author Morimoto has
never described the heroine’s style as Lolita, and perhaps it is not the
genuine Lolita style in the strict sense, Ichiko’s style is often named as
Lolita.119 When the story was adapted for the small screen in 2011, such
renowned Lolita brands as Putumayo (est. 1987, punk-Lolita) and Angelic
Pretty (est. 1979, sweet-Lolita) offered their clothes, further circulating the
conception that this is the story of a female detective clad in Lolita-like
fashion.120 Like Shimotsuma, Deka One-ko further reinforces the idea that
in Japanese popular culture, a young woman does not necessarily have to
leave her opulent, highly ‘girlish’ clothes at home in order to engage in
traditionally ‘masculine’ activities.
The manifestation of conventionally ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’
attributes through the character of Momoko in Shimotsuma poses another
question: does the characterization of Momoko, for whom the Lolita
fashion is a fundamental component, delineate a sense of ‘androgyny’?
Lolita fashion, perhaps with the exception of the ‘count (ōji)’ style,
accentuates ‘hyper-girlish femininity’. Lolita fashion can moreover be
understood as ‘exclusively a culture for girls – boys are not allowed’.121 All
of this implies that Momoko could not be understood in terms of
‘androgyny’. In the social-psychological definition of ‘androgyny’,
however, the answer can be affirmative.

Refashioning the ‘androgynous’ look

Social-psychological analysis implies a possibility that the concept of
‘androgyny’ might be manifested through women with fairly ‘feminine’
appearances or men with comparatively ‘masculine’ appearances. By
making distinctions from biological hermaphrodites, such an analysis
conceptualizes androgyny as a psychological state. It refers ‘to a specific
way of joining the “masculine” and “feminine” aspects of a single human
being’.122 And this unison takes place largely in an idealistic way. For
instance, Jungian analyst June Singer argued that:

Men and women function in certain ways; each has masculine and feminine functioning capacities.
In the process of living, these qualities, which for want of a better name we call ‘masculine’ and
‘feminine,’ are also convertible. The difference is that the conversions may proceed in a single
direction as with our plane, or the conversions may move backwards and forwards, oscillating so
swiftly that it is impossible to discern when ‘masculine’ functioning is in the superior position, and
when ‘feminine’.123

This is significant since ‘[t]he inner sexual duality has nearly always been
taken for granted’.124 Bem, who is noted for her influential work on
androgyny, defines ‘androgynous’ individuals as possessing both
stereotypically ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ qualities, unlike strongly sex-
typed individuals.125 Her research indicates that ‘androgynous’ individuals
are able to ‘engage freely in both masculine and feminine behaviours’ and
thus ‘come to define a new and more human standard of psychological
health’.126 Such analysis of ‘androgyny’ does not by any means subvert the
concept of gender. Rather, ‘androgynous’ individuals psychologically
possess and display attributes of both gender categories without much
conflict.
Although these psychological analyses of ‘androgyny’ date from the
1970s, they are still of considerable relevance for the conception of gender
today. Carrie Paechter, for instance, points out that we are unlikely to
diverge from two main genders, despite the indefinable nature of gender.
Each of us knows whether we are biologically male or female, or otherwise,
something different or in between.127 However, as argued by Bem and
Singer, many individuals possess both conventionally ‘masculine’ and
‘feminine’ qualities. Thus it is important to treat masculinities and
femininities ‘only as aspects of identity, and … not insist that [identity]
depends on them entirely, with one’s sense of oneself as male or female as
somehow secondary’.128
 In simplest terms, ‘androgyny’ describes a psychological state that is not
strongly or dominantly assigned to one category of gender. Bem also notes
that ‘[d]efined as gender inappropriate for females, for instance, is the
desire for autonomy and power; defined as gender inappropriate for males
are feelings of vulnerability, dependency, and affection for same-sex
others’.129 I have demonstrated that all the qualities Bem noted are unified
in the characters of Momoko and Ichigo. The emphasis of this
‘androgynous’ representation is highlighted by an established idea of
androgynous appearance. When it is applied to describe clothing styles or
the ‘look’, ‘androgynous’ appearance is, first and foremost, based on male
clothes.130 While the term androgyny means the combination of
‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ traits (andr- from the word meaning man and
gyné meaning woman in Greek), in modern times, the ‘androgynous’ look
often means both men and women dressing in men’s clothes. ‘Female
androgyny’ as an aesthetically pleasing look, Hollander argues, may not
aim to render women as looking fully ‘masculine’, but its appeal lies in
women’s assumption of a kind of beauty associated with the sexual
uncertainty of the adolescent boy.131 This means that the look of an
adolescent boy is perceived as connoting sexual ambiguity, while that of an
adolescent girl is not. In other words, the clothes that visibly connote
‘girlishness’ are highly gendered, and are not considered ‘androgynous’.
Shimotsuma Monogatari, on the other hand, endorses the ideas that despite
the fixity in our biological gender, all of us have both conventionally
‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ attributes. Hence, young women can display a
sense of ‘androgyny’ while being fully clad in a highly ornate girlish
fashion, without voluntarily embracing unwanted passivity or eroticization.
The film’s portrayal of an adolescent girl in full activity, dressed in
highly ornamental dresses, suggests that exquisitely frilled mini-dresses,
platform shoes or a lace, white headdress are by no means less facilitative
of movement, less worthy, less essential than more ‘masculine’ kinds of
garments as preferred by functionalist ideas. This inverts utilitarian
considerations where ‘beauty became equated with or reduced to utility, the
two being indistinguishable’.132 Like the Victorian women in Steele’s study,
most women who wear Lolita style, both in film and in real life, do so by
their own choice, for their own pleasures.133 Shimotsuma Monogatari and
its portrayal of Lolita fashion thus subverts the idea that women’s fashion
has a primary role to serve and please men’s erotic pleasures. This in turn
repudiates the preconceived equation of decorative girlish dresses with
derogatory female passivity. It is fair to say that the film sheds positive light
upon our understanding of the disparaged feminine clothing style.

Conclusion
Far from recreating the established idea that links female sartorial
ornamentation with subservience and repression, Shimotsuma Monogatari
offers a portrayal of an adolescent girl who is glittering with lace and
flounces while also being active and autonomous. In this film, dress not
only functions as a visual embellishment of the narrative, but also
represents the identity of the wearer. It is, then, significant that unlike the
tradition of the American comic book superhero or girl films, the heroines
display both ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ gender attributes without
undergoing any sartorial transformation. Girlish and ornamental dresses, in
this sense, do not have to be devoid of significance, essentiality or
substance. The emphasis of this film is particularly highlighted by the
notion that films and dress can both reflect and shape the culture that
creates them. In conclusion, my analysis of Shimotsuma Monogatari
suggests that the film sheds positive light upon our understanding of the
disparaged ornamental and ‘girlish’ sartorial style. This film offers us a new
way to consider such emphatically girlish fashion styles with the
extravagant opulence of ornamentation, and the aesthetic pleasures they
manifest.
 6
AN IVY BOY AND A PREPPY
GIRL: STYLE IMPORT-EXPORT*

Taking great care of appearance is the first step of every fashion.

—KAZUO HOZUMI, IVY Illustrated, 1980.1

The narratives hitherto constructed of the analysis of contemporary

Japanese clothing culture have two central intellectual concerns: firstly,
clothes are important for both men and women, and secondly, modern styles
of Japanese fashion manifest a process of transformation through the
reinvention of tradition. By appropriating and reinventing traditional styles
of European clothing, such fashion styles create new meanings. In this
chapter, I shall try to unite these two concerns by looking at the ‘Ivy style’.1
The Ivy style has occupied a special place in contemporary Japanese
men’s fashion since the 1960s. Because of its boyish yet classically elegant
fashion aesthetics, the style seems to be appreciated particularly by those
who locate themselves somewhere between boyhood and manhood. Culture
and lifestyle magazine for mature men Brutus, for example, has a fashion
issue devoted to preppy style (April 2012). In the magazine a chic beige suit
of Prada and a black jacket, a double cuff shirt with a black bow-tie, and a
plaid check trousers of Gucci are juxtaposed with Dolce & Gabbana’s
boyish set-up of a square mesh tank top and shorts with a pair of trainers.
Two almost opposing characteristics are reflected in how the Ivy style is
represented in contemporary Japan; the rugged boyishness associated with
the image of Ivy Leaguers and dressed-down styling is combined with the
suave charm of a suit and other clothing items connoting the classical past.
One of the enduring debates surrounding fashion is its definition. For
Elizabeth Wilson and Ulrich Lehmann, among others, fashion is about
change and novelty: ‘Fashion is dress in which the key feature is rapid and
continual changing of styles’, writes Wilson. ‘Fashion, in a sense, is
change.’2 In Tigersprung, Lehmann’s view on fashion seems to correspond
with Wilson’s. He writes: ‘sartorial fashion stands, almost by definition, for
the absolutely new – for permanent novelty and constant, insatiable
change’.3 My aim here is not to delve into the question of ‘What is
fashion?’. The idea of change and novelty as a quintessence of fashion,
however, does seem important when we look at the Ivy style in Japan.
Whether it is a navy blazer, a madras shirt with button-down collar or a
pair of off-white cotton trousers, the familiar look of the Ivy style appears to
refer to the past. Also, the Ivy style has continually appeared in Japanese
fashion culture ever since it became popular in the early 1960s. We might
ask: is the Ivy style a relic of the past? Or does it transcend history? The
answer is more subtle than a simple yes or no. As former president of the
venerated J. Press and maestro of the Ivy League style, Richard Press, says,
the Ivy style’s chief virtue is ‘[a] generational and historical continuity’,
which was in line with Japanese values.4 When asked why Japanese fashion
culture has such fondness for the style, Press’s answer is: ‘the sense of
tradition is such a valid philosophy in Japan’.5 Indeed, the history of the Ivy
style in Japanese fashion culture, and its contemporary revival in particular,
outlines both admiration for the past and the process of transformation.
I argue that the significance of the Ivy style embraced by Japanese
fashion culture is its manifestation of the processes of cultural globalization
and flows.6 That is, it is an ‘American’ style adopted and localized in Japan.
Through this cultural process of adoption and appropriation, the Ivy style
has transformed into a fashion style with characteristics of often opposing
concepts – past and innovation, unrefined boyishness and sophistication,
and ruggedness and suavity. The style has become a sign that is ready to
commingle with other similar yet different fashion concepts, resulting in the
creation of novel styles, including ones for women, and travelling again
outside Japan, notably ‘back’ to the United States. This process is
particularly documented through Japanese fashion publications.

Through a Japanese lens

What makes the Ivy style significant is the influence of Japanese culture in
the popularity of Ivy style today. The fashion writer David Colman, for
instance, writes in relation to the modern day ‘renaissance’ of the Ivy style
in the United States as follows: ‘What makes today’s prepidemic so
fascinating is how it is, surprisingly enough, so Japanese. The look has its
roots in the United States, to be sure. But the spirit, rigor and execution of
today’s prep moment is as Japanese as Sony.’7
Even the ‘term “trad” itself is said to have been coined by the Japanese’.8
Writer and artist W. David Marx goes even further by saying, ‘[s]ince the
1960s, Japan has been an important part of the story of the Ivy League
Look, and during a few dark periods the island nation has played an
important role in preventing the style from possible extinction.’9 The
popularity of Ivy style in Japan, and the Japanese fascination with the style,
is immortalized in the form of Take Ivy (1965), a picture book that was
presumably intended to serve as a style guide for Japanese youth of
American Ivy League styles.10 Take Ivy is often accredited with the
preservation of the Ivy style in the United States. The images are striking
for the way in which they capture the informality of collegiate life with a
crisp representation of the clothing specifics. According to Valerie Steele,
‘[i]n 1965, Kensuke Ishizu commissioned photographer Teruyoshi
Hayashida to travel to America and document the sartorial scene at Ivy
League colleges. The result was Take Ivy, a book that has now achieved cult
status among connoisseurs of traditional American menswear.’11
This ‘bible’ of Ivy League styles ‘has always been extremely rare in the
United States, a treasure of fashion insiders that can fetch more than $1,000
on eBay and in vintage book stores’.12 Up until the recent reissue, the
prevalence of the scanned images from Take Ivy online ‘aroused renewed
interest for its apparent prescience of preppy style’.13 In a sense, it may not
be a complete exaggeration to claim that today’s Ivy style is founded on the
Japanese romanticization and (mis)interpretation of the American style.14
We might, then, wonder how the Japanese fascination with the Ivy style
began and continues to operate.

Ivy goes to Japan

Up until the 1990s, the styles that evoke a degree of similarity to the Ivy
style made almost continual appearances in the culture of Japanese
clothing.15 The history of Japanese Ivy style is often said to have begun
with Kensuke Ishizu (1911–2005), who was the ‘architect’ of Take Ivy, and
‘a kind of Ralph Lauren avant la letter’.16 He founded the Ivy League-
inspired clothing brand company VAN Jacket in 1951. Not only was Ishizu
the owner of the company, but in his heyday he also designed VAN items
and frequently wrote for Otokono fukushoku (later renamed Men’s Club).17
In addition to producing its original clothes, VAN Jacket also imported
American fashion brands such as Gant and Spalding, with which it traded in
the 1970s until the company declared bankruptcy in 1978.18 ‘“Ivy Leaguers
wear clothes with pride, not fashion” is the philosophy he ultimately
distilled.’19
Rather than perceiving the Ivy League style as an entirely different,
‘exotic’ style, Ishizu articulated his belief that the style would be popular
among Japanese men on the basis that there were some similarities between
the two cultures. Ishizu located these similarities within the sartorial
philosophy of Ivy Leaguers and the philosophy of male students in pre-
World War II Japan. What Ishizu was referring to was the aesthetic of
bankara, which involved ‘intentionally dressing like a rustic, wearing a
ragged and dirty kimono’.20 Initially, bankara, in the late nineteenth
century, was a reaction against hikara (Western chic) and the movement of
Westernization, intentionally bringing back a style resembling the rough
and dishevelled rōnin (drifter samurai) in order to make gentlemanly hikara
men ‘effeminate’.21
This concept became particularly well associated with schoolboys of old
higher schools (kyūsei kōkō), which were exceptionally elite and exclusive
institutions at the time. The kimono was replaced by ‘a uniform modelled
after Prussian military uniforms: a black high-collared jacket with brass
buttons, trousers, and a cap with a brass badge’22 (Figure 6.1).Their
sartorial styles were often defined through the amalgam of privilege and
self-inflicted shabbiness. Sociologist Yumiko Mikanagi describes it as
follows:

while sanshu no jingi (three sacred objects) – a black school cap decorated with white lines, a
black cloak, and hōba no geta (clogs made from the Japanese big leaf magnolia) – symbolized
students’ privileged status, it was always worn torn and shabby as students cherished the hēihabō
[literally shabby clothes and torn cap] style.23

By the time Ishizu was a young man, the tough, violent aspect of bankara
was somehow downplayed and it instead blended with a new type of
masculine ideal, which Mikanagi terms as ‘self-cultivation (kyōyōshugi)
masculinity’.
While preserving the bankara aesthetic by wearing their school uniforms
often in a rugged and shabby condition, those elite schoolboys nevertheless
emphasized ‘the pursuit of knowledge in academic fields such as Western
literature, culture, philosophy, and art’.24 For Ishizu, the dandyism of Ivy
League style and the rusticity of bankara, both of which were founded on a
balancing act between the concepts of privileged sophistication and
ruggedness, were two sides of the same coin. Thus, this cross-cultural
affinity of male fashion aesthetics illustrates the claim made by Jan
Nederveen Pieterse that interactions of cultures are founded on cultural
affinities rather than on difference.25
VAN clothing, and hence the Ivy style, became popular in the mid–1960s
in Japan. The covers of earlier issues of Men’s Club are a visual testament
of this.26 The first issue of the men’s lifestyle magazine Heibon Punch also
featured Ayumi Ōhashi’s illustration of Ivy style boys on its cover in 1964.
Although strictly speaking different from the ‘Ivy Boys’, the fashionable
youth who sauntered around Miyuki Street in the famous fashion district of
Ginza, called Miyuki-Zoku (Miyuki Tribe), appeared, quite fleetingly, at the
same time.27 The tribe was divided primarily into two fashion groups. One
group of the males wore dressed-down Ivy style clothes with particular
emphasis on VAN items (including the brand’s paper bag), and short, clean-
cut hairstyles (Figure 6.2).
Figure 6.1 Bankara boys of old higher schools (kyūsei kōkō) in school uniform, c. 1930s. Photo
from author’s family collection.

The other group, though fewer in number, wore the ‘European

continental’ style with more flamboyant colours and styles like the ones
designed by another fashion brand JUN (est. 1958). Their fashion
inspiration might have been derived from the way James Bond, played by
Sean Connery, wore his suit in From Russia with Love (1963).28 From
today’s perspective, many of them dressed neat enough, and did not display
excessive ‘antisocial’ behaviours, but they were caught and admonished by
the police in September 1964, which marked the end of Miyuki Tribe. At
that time Tokyo was preparing to host the Olympic Games, and it was
allegedly part of the scheme to ‘clean up’ any culture that would look
socially disruptive to the eyes of foreigners. Rather surprisingly, those Ivy-
style clad young men and women were perceived as a moral threat by
people from older generations.29
In the aftermath of the hippy movement, a revaluation of the Ivy style
took place, and the style became associated with the readership of Popeye, a
fashion magazine for ‘city boys’ in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The
typical look of Popeye boys, as they were called from this time, included a
sporty European-branded polo shirt and a navy blazer, which became a
fashion symbol of college boys at that time.30 It was also in the late 1970s
that the ‘New Traditional’ styles for women emerged in the Kobe district,
and later in the Yokohama district. These styles were called ‘Yokohama
Traditional’ or ‘Hama-tra’.31 The Hama-tra style is said to be inspired by
the Northern American schoolgirl look, with a three-quarter-sleeved shirt,
wrap-around skirt, a pair of flat shoes (both of which are preferably made
by Fukuzo and Mihama, brands produced in Yokohama), and a Courrèges
shoulder bag.32 The style was believed to be either originated or
popularized by the students of Ferris University, a ‘privileged’ all-women
college in Yokohama, and this ‘trad’ style for young women was perceived
as ideal in order to showcase ‘innocent’ and ‘ladylike’ femininity.
Figure 6.2 ‘Miyuki Zoku’ in Tokyo, Japan. Fashion-conscious young Japanese people, called
‘Miyuki Zoku’, get together on Miyuki Dori Street in Tokyo’s posh Ginza district. The photo was
taken in the mid-1960s.
© Kyodo News

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was another fashion trend called
‘Shibuya Casual’ (abbreviated as ‘Shibu-caji’), allegedly made popular by
college and high school students in the upper-class areas of Tokyo
(yamanote). The orthodoxy of the style, which was largely unisex, consisted
of a navy blazer over a polo shirt, straight-fit jeans and a pair of loafers.33
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the Shibu-caji style was its preference
for American and European luxury brands. Despite the simple appearance,
items such as a Ralph Lauren jacket and shirt, jeans made by Levi’s, and a
Louis Vuitton bag were ‘musts’.34 A cheaper, simpler version with the
preference of black-and-white aesthetics called ‘French-casual’ emerged in
the early 1990s with the particular emphasis on the items of agnès b., but
this time led by a group of high school girls.35
The Ivy style is once again popular in the twenty-first century. This is
particularly true for those who appreciate the neat and conservative
(kireime) look and high-casual mode. This modern day revival of the Ivy
style was particularly evident in the years between 2007 and 2008, and
again in 2012 where Japanese men’s fashion magazines concurrently
featured the style (see for example, ‘New Preppy Standard’ edition of
Brutus, April 2012; ‘All About Rugged Trad’ edition of Free & Easy, April
2012). The November 2007 issue of Men’s non-no introduced the Ivy style
with a tight silhouette, which the magazine called a ‘Neo-Ivy style’. In the
fashion spreads, the model Takeshi Mikawai is neatly and stylishly dressed,
wearing a Cowichan sweater, a V-necked navy vest, a white shirt with
button-down collar, black tie and a pair of striped trousers. Some of the
pictures show Mikawai standing in front of an ivy-covered building, thus
maintaining and visually emphasizing the link between fashion
photography and the concept of Ivy League. We might wonder that the
garments – or at least some of them – that Mikawai is wearing in the
fashion spreads make him look more like a neat and elegant schoolboy than
an ‘uncouth’ American Ivy League freshman in the early 1960s. What does
this suggest? It seems that in Japanese fashion culture, Ivy style has become
a sign, a symbol that is ready to commingle with other similar yet different
styles or concepts. Indeed, the aesthetics of the ‘Ivy’ were amalgamated
with other styles and have produced a number of similar fashions with a
subtle nuance.

Dressing up for school: variations of the school

style
A brief list of commingled styles includes ‘college boy’, a boyish look for
grown-ups (Popeye November 2007); ‘new preppy’, with its white cricket
sweater, striped shirt, narrow black tie and pair of off-white cotton trousers,
all designed by UK brand Duffer of St. George, and worn in a dressed-
down way (Popeye, September 2007); casual, yet elegant ‘British
traditional’ (Men’s non-no, December 2007); and ‘French preppy’ with its
colourful Lacoste items visualizing the dual concept of sporty and elegance
(Fineboys, April 2010). One style that we might find rather unusual is the
‘dress preppy’ style. This comprises Takeo Kikuchi’s blue and yellow
frilled or pale pink lace-embroidered shirts with white collar, or a simple
coordination of a white shirt, grey narrow tie and navy cardigan, which are
‘dressed up’ with a pair of grey check trousers on which a brocade pattern
is printed (Popeye, April 2007).
A style named ‘school style’ is another example of Japanese
appropriation of the Ivy style. It is a ‘blanket’ term for styles including
‘Ivy’, ‘preppy’, ‘European traditional’ and ‘schoolboy look’.36 In the
simplest term, the styles coming with the coordination of a shirt and narrow
tie, jacket, letter sweater or pea coat could all be described as a school style.
As we have seen in Chapter 3, the popularity of such a style in
contemporary Japanese men’s fashion scene is also indicated by Milkboy
and its boyish yet edgy styles. The terms ‘Ivy’, ‘preppy’ and ‘school’ are
also used in Japanese men’s fashion magazines almost interchangeably.
These styles are likely to be created with intentions to market and sell the
fashion items rather than reflecting the actual fashion trend. One thing we
can deduce from looking at these fashions, however, is that these styles
combine sometimes opposing concepts of boyishness, casualness and
neatness with a touch of elegance. In other words, the definite essence of
the Japanese Ivy style is a rugged-suave look.
Arguably, one of the reasons for the perennial popularity and presence of
the Ivy style in Japan is the style’s detachment from class systems. In the
United States, the Ivy style and the items associated with the fashion, such
as a navy blazer, initially connoted an ideal dress identity for the army of
traditionalist American men of the early post-war era.37 In this sense, Ivy
style was less about fashion and more about the regalia of privileged,
conservative and conformist masculine identity. On the contrary, from the
beginning, the Japanese Ivy style was marketed as a stylish, consumable
fashion by such figures as Ishizu, Men’s Club and Heibon Punch. The
significance of the Japanese Ivy style lies in the fact that such a privileged,
suave male aesthetic has been recreated as everyday wear in Japan. It is fair
to say that Japanese fashion culture has incorporated the insignia of elite
Ivy Leaguers into their everyday style, making it available for virtually
everyone who can afford it.
What is striking about the Japanese embrace of the Ivy style is not only
its rescue of the style from possible extinction, but also its demonstration of
subtly nuanced changes and transformations. While in 1965, Take Ivy
defined Ivy Leaguers as uncouth dressers who ‘don’t bother looking neat
for classes’, today’s Ivy style boys are, judging from the images represented
in men’s fashion publications, significantly more suave.38 This process of
Japanese adoption and appropriation of the Ivy style can be illustrated by
the comparison between Take Ivy and another renowned Japanese
publication, Kazuo Hozumi’s IVY Illustrated. Hozumi, an established
fashion illustrator and men’s fashion expert, first created the distinct
characters of big-eyed and round-faced ‘Ivy Boy’ and ‘Ivy Girl’ in the early
1960s, which were subsequently adopted by VAN Jacket to accompany its
posters. His IVY Illustrated was, as he recollects later in 2003, originally
intended as a manual for young men to learn how to dress in a systematic
yet enjoyable way.39

Rugged suavity: Take Ivy and IVY Illustrated

Fashion critic Guy Trebay wrote in his New York Times article in 2010 that
Take Ivy is ‘[p]art style manual for Japanese fans of American “trad” style
and, somewhat inadvertently, an ethnographic study’ of the Ivy Leaguers in
the mid-1960s.40 Its aim was quite obviously to capture and introduce the
‘realistic’ aspects of the subcultural lives of Ivy Leaguers in the early-to-
mid 1960s. Published fifteen years after Take Ivy, Hozumi’s IVY Illustrated,
by contrast, revolves around idealized images of Ivy boys.
There are a number of differences outlined via a comparison between the
two Japanese publications. Take Ivy tells the reader that Ivy boys do not
‘bother looking neat for classes. They feel that they can get away with
dressing casually as long as they don’t look too shabby.’41 This contrasts
with the statement made in IVY Illustrated, which says, ‘Ivy Boys take a
great care of their appearance. A pleasant appearance is the first step of
every fashion.’42 There are subtle changes regarding the styles, too. Take
Ivy, for instance, documents that during the week, Ivy Leaguers seldom
wear ties and jackets, for it is trendy to dress casually on campus.43 Even on
Sunday, they would not wear a blazer. Instead, these young men would
wear a tie with a cotton jacket, tweed jacket with a pair of jeans and so
forth.44
 Hozumi’s IVY Illustrated says the opposite, for Ivy boys would wear a
blazer even in the summer to dress up.45 The Ivy Leaguers captured in Take
Ivy are ‘uncouth’ dressers who, in their everyday lives, tend to dress for
practicability rather than aesthetics. As we have seen, this is exactly what
Ishizu thought the aesthetics of Ivy style and Japanese bankara shared in
common. In contrast, Hozumi’s version of Ivy boys are neatly dressed
conservatives who respect tradition, and the foundations of their styles are
appropriated forms of British Edwardian dandies.46
As noted in Chapter 3, along with the Ivy style, ‘Neo-Edwardian’ dandy
style is a popular style frequently featured in contemporary men’s fashion
magazines like Popeye and Men’s non-no, as well as street menswear labels
like Milkboy. The male sartorial elegance that Neo-Edwardian dandy style
carries closely associates with the Japanese conceptualization of the Ivy
style. As a matter of fact, we see a striking resemblance between one of the
styles offered by Hozumi, a winter style for Ivy boys featuring a navy
blazer, grey flannel trousers, white shirt and regimental tie, and the ‘Neo-
Edwardian’ dandy look in Popeye that is discussed in Chapter 3.47 Only the
navy blazer is replaced, by a black trench coat.
It may not be surprising to see a link that unites the Ivy style and
historical European men’s fashions. The Ivy style that Japanese fashion
culture captured first of all in the 1960s and again in the 1980s, might have
been, as writer Madoka Yamazaki has pointed out, a product of the
admiration that White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) had a European
past.48 It needs to be noted, however, that Ishizu too thinks the origin of the
Ivy style could be traced to British men’s fashion. For instance, when he
entered university in 1929, Ishizu dressed in a British style: hand-woven
tweed three-piece suit, oxford shirt, club tie and Burberry coat. He recalled
this British fashion as perhaps signalling his first encounter with the Ivy
League style.49 The presence of fashion labels like Burberry Black Label
demonstrates that the ‘Edwardian Dandy’ styles, once ascribed to certain
social classes in England, have been claimed in contemporary Japan and
Hong Kong as elegant yet affordable men’s fashion. This further supports
the hypothesis that clothing forms, which initially were carriers of clear
social-class distinction, can be adopted and appropriated as a ‘fashion’, and
become consumed by greater number of individuals in Japan.
 The differences outlined via the comparison of these two Japanese
publications indicate that IVY Illustrated is concerned more about an
idealized and possibly ‘appropriated’ image of Ivy boys, which are
integrated into the Japanese conception of the Ivy style today. In other
words, Hozumi’s Ivy boys are more likely an outcome of the fifteen years
of fusion between American and Japanese cultures than a direct historical
representation. Evidently, Hozumi’s IVY Illustrated states that the spirit of
‘Ivy’ is to respect and appreciate traditions. Thus, as Hozumi writes, it
would be desirable for Japanese Ivy boys and girls to wear the kimono at
certain occasions such as at the summer festival, graduation ceremony and
wedding.50
The further flow of Ivy is evident in Colman’s perception of Ivy style. He
calls the combination of a blue blazer, button-down collar, Bermudas and
loafers the ‘full-on Japanese prep’ against the low-key version of the style
with plain boat shoes, a faded Lacoste shirt with jeans or an off-white suit
with a madras tie, the latter of which some American men still prefer. The
‘full-on Japanese prep’, according to Colman, requires ‘the attitude to carry
it off’ in order to look good outside the Japanese context.51 According to
this view, the non-Japanese-oriented styles of ‘Ivy’ have been adopted and
localized in Japan, and in turn, this blended style has been re-imported to
the United States. While the famous J. Press, a most respected ‘original’ Ivy
League clothier, was purchased by Onward Kashimaya of Japan in 1986 (in
an amicable agreement, according to Richard Press) and now sells roughly
six times as much as American-made J. Press merchandise there, it is not by
any means a Japan-only phenomenon.52 According to Patricia Mears, Ivy
style is about ‘the story of ostensible outsiders borrowing from and
bettering the holy tartan’, including the Italian-born Claudio Del Vecchio
family owning Brooks Brothers, and Jewish creativities demonstrated via
Band of Outsiders and Ralph Lauren, among others.53 Nevertheless, this
hints at both the popularity of preppy/Ivy style clothing in Japan and further
flows of Ivy style. Take Ivy and IVY Illustrated are important for our
understanding of the Ivy style in contemporary Japan, which often
combines the ideas conceptualized by the two publications – ‘uncouth’
casualness and neat elegance. Equally significant in relation to this
localizing process of the Ivy style in Japan is the strong presence of the
‘Ivy’ look for women.

Preppy girls
There is no written rule stating that Ivy style is boys-only, and there are
versions of the style marketed at and taken up by women. In recent times,
the character of Blair Waldorf in Gossip Girl is said to have contributed to
the popularization of a conservative, preppy-chic look for young women, to
note one example.54 Despite this, men still occupy centre stage of Ivy style
outside Japan. Perhaps reflecting this tendency, Take Ivy devotes a very
limited space to the fashion of female students. It is therefore significant
that six months after the illustrated work of Ivy boys, Hozumi published its
‘gal’ version. According to the author, the publication of the girls’ version
was to meet the demands of (female) readers, who wished to have style
guides for young women.55 Hozumi’s illustrated book can be construed as
symbolic of the strong presence of women within the Ivy style in Japan.
The basic style for ‘Ivy girls’ as described in both Take Ivy and IVY
Illustrated are similar. Take Ivy defines this style as a cotton dress, a plain
blouse and a banal, mass-produced, pleated skirt,56 and IVY Illustrated
introduces a plain and simple, puff-sleeved cotton dress as the all-time
favourite for Ivy gals.57 In both publications, neatness, simplicity and
youthfulness are the key for Ivy girls’ styles.
In modern times, the ‘Ivy/preppy girl’ style is commingled with the
schoolgirl-like kawaii (cute) aesthetics in Japan. Chapter 4 demonstrated
that certain kinds of kawaii aesthetics allow women to embrace the
‘infantile’ cute and almost saccharine fashion philosophy without hinting at
obvious sexual allure. With the kawaii aesthetic, Japanese girl culture has
reinvented such sartorial items as a beret, a blazer and a pair of argyle-
patterned socks as cute and girlish fashion items. As recently as October
2010, CUTiE, a magazine for young women who prefer mainstream street
fashion, offered the preppy style as a cute, schoolgirl style that would attract
boys. Perhaps exploring the style more flamboyantly, the November 2010
issue of another fashion magazine for young women, Zipper, offered a
modified preppy style. The imaginaries of these Japanese publications,
particularly the latter, allude to further processes of change and to the
continual remakings of the style. Now a preppy cardigan can be worn with
a tiger-patterned miniskirt or a navy ‘Ivy’ blazer with a pair of Dr Martens.
Similar to what I argued of male fashionability and possible motivations
in Chapter 3, the same aesthetic concept of ‘Ivy (preppy)’ can be interpreted
as both chic and appealing to men (CUTiE) and a showcase of more
flamboyant fashion senses (Zipper). This flexibility of ‘preppy girl style’ in
Japan illustrates the theory of ‘format’ and ‘product’ as articulated by Keiko
Okamura.58 According to this theory, the Ivy style has now become a
‘format’ ready to create a ‘product’ that reflects further processes of cultural
commingling, interaction and appropriation.
The styles for Ivy boys and Ivy girls are different in form. We have seen
variations of the Ivy style offered by men’s fashion magazines, some of
which are colourful and ornate, but the Ivy style for boys still tends to be
relatively conservative compared to the ‘Ivy girl style’. For one thing, it
does not include such items as a miniskirt or a beret, although the latter has
been part of other styles for men. Choki Choki, a fashion and hairstyle
magazine for salon-kei (salon-mode) conceptualizes this point. The
‘Ivy/preppy styles’ featured in Choki Choki include a navy fedora hat, a
black leather jacket, a dark green letter sweater, a pair of checked trousers
and a pair of second-hand red/brown shoes (November 2010, p. 85), a black
cardigan, a narrow black tie with polka-dot pattern and red trainers
(November 2010, p. 162), or a second-hand navy schoolboy jacket, a white
cricket sweater, a pair of wide-silhouetted beige chino trousers and a pair of
brown leather shoes (May 2011, p. 37). The sober simplicity of these ‘Ivy
styles’ indicates that like other fashion cultures, Japanese fashion is not
moving toward the extinction of gender distinctions. After all, as Steele has
rightly said, men and women appear differently, and what they wear may
reinforce or reflect gender roles.59
What the Japanese Ivy style illuminates, however, is the presence of a
certain degree of similarity between the styles adopted by men and women,
particularly their embrace of similar fashion aesthetics. Although it might
be a utopian view, I suggest that the Japanese version of Ivy style seems to
accept differences between men and women, and yet offers them almost
equal opportunities to appreciate the same (or at least very similar) fashion
aesthetics. As we have seen, this point is also supported by actual fashion
brands like Milkboy as well. It is plausible that this is another testament of
the notion that fashion is important for both men and women, and that
gender distinctions might be – even if only in very subtle degrees –
differently understood in contemporary Japanese culture.

Conclusion
Since its introduction by Kensuke Ishizu and his VAN Jacket brand in the
1950s, the Ivy style has achieved almost perennial popularity in Japanese
fashion culture. Beginning with the now-classic Take Ivy through delightful
IVY Illustrated to contemporary men’s fashion magazines, subtly nuanced
transformations in the Japanese Ivy style have been documented. Rather
than being attached to a certain social class where the style was initially
located, from the beginning, the Japanese Ivy style was marketed as stylish,
consumable fashion. In Japanese fashion culture, the Ivy style has become a
sign, a symbol that is ready to commingle with other similar yet different
fashions or concepts, resulting in the production of a number of similar
styles with a subtle nuance. It is fair to say that Japanese fashion culture has
incorporated the unofficial uniform of elite Ivy Leaguers into their everyday
style, making it available for virtually everyone who can afford it.
The Japanese version of the Ivy League style is a good example of a
global crossing. A cultural form is accepted in a different cultural context,
blended with ‘local’ characteristics, and then flows out again. Japanese
adoption and appropriation of the Ivy League style, as we have seen, tells of
a cultural process where ‘American’ clothing styles are blended with
‘Japanese’ aesthetic ideals and preferences. This cultural amalgam has in
turn been re-imported to non-Japanese countries like the United States,
thereby creating new meanings and new markets for this now perennial
style.
The Japanese Ivy style also illustrates that not only men but also women
take part in the style. This suggests that individuals of both genders may
engage with fashion in very similar, if not identical, ways. Principally men
and women in contemporary Japanese society dress and look differently.
But the availability of ‘Ivy/preppy style’ for both men and women in
Japanese fashion culture hints at the presence of almost equal opportunities
to appreciate the similar fashion aesthetics. In this sense, the Ivy style is a
notable interpretive illustration of fashion and change within a transnational
world.

*An earlier version of this chapter appeared as ‘Ivy in Japan: a regalia of non-conformity and
privilege’ in Patricia Mears (ed) Ivy Style: radical conformist (Yale University Press, 2012, pp. 175–
85). I thank Ms Patricia Mears for her permission to include it here.
 7
CONCLUDING JAPANESE
FASHION CULTURES, CHANGE
AND CONTINUITY

It is Ulrich Lehmann who articulates that fashion symbolizes ‘permanent

novelty and constant, insatiable change’.1 While the definite meaning of
fashion seems to be hard to grasp, changeable natures of fashion can be
observed in the case studies we have seen in this book. Men’s fashion
magazine Popeye has since undergone a makeover and now focuses more
on the aspects of culture and fashion while some magazines have ceased to
exist. Lolita fashion still remains a minority one in Japan, but its visibility at
an international level, however modest, seems growing. Brands like Baby
and Angelic Pretty have opened their overseas stores in Paris, San
Francisco and, for the latter, Shanghai, while the items of Innocent World
can now be purchased in places like Stockholm, Bilthoven and New York,
perhaps corresponding to where Japanese pop culture has become familiar
and accessible. On the other hand, continual a resurgence of Ivy style and
the presence of Milkboy, celebrating its fortieth birthday in 2014, along
with the seemingly ever-unfading concept of kawaii, are indications of
fashion being a process of transformation and continuity. Needless to say,
the styles I have analysed in this book are only a small portion of clothing
styles available in Japan. There are a number of different styles present for
both men and women, and some of them are, for example, regarded as more
revolving around romantic attraction while others might have creative
twists, with the desire to attract admirers being lower in priority. The
significance of the culture of Japanese clothing precisely lies in this
diversity.
Since this book has focused only on a portion of contemporary Japanese
popular culture and sartorial style, how individuals associate with these
styles in their real lives must be pursued in another context. Further
research on this issue will open a door to more critical and hence
trustworthy conceptions of clothing as a cultural metaphor that is complete
when animated by a body.
In the preceding chapters, I have identified some alternatives to the
anachronistic yet persistent preconceptions about how men and women are
assumed to engage with fashion. Such preconceptions adhere to the ideas
that men dress for utility rather than for aesthetics, while women’s
motivations for fashion are predominantly geared to attract and please men.
These ‘distorted’ conceptions have been firmly challenged by a series of
theories in both dress scholarship and sociology that attest that motivations
for dress, regardless of gender, can be more complex than that. Yet
fragments of these preconceptions are still somewhat culturally ingrained,
and persist in mainstream popular culture. My analyses of some select
manifestations of mainstream Japanese popular culture, in relation to
fashion, have, I hope, furthered those already established arguments. I have
shown that not only women but also men dress for both the eyes of public
and for themselves. I have demonstrated that a certain kind of ‘infantile’
cute aesthetics can be empowering. Finally, I have argued that an opulently
decorated, girlish fashion does not necessarily need to be read as symbolic
of female oppression and objectification. These points reinforce the
contention made by Entwistle that we dress for different motivations
depending on circumstances.2 Our motivation for dress involves myriad
factors rather than merely reflecting (often imposed) gender roles. Steele
has convincingly articulated this point:

For both men and women, whenever sex is an issue, so also is looking and being seen. Every
woman who has ever been accosted on the street knows the temporary desire to be invisible, just as
every person of either sex has posed in public, hoping to be regarded as attractive by his or her
peers.3
Thus, as the principles of fashion house Milkboy has stated, taking care of
one’s appearance can be done to attract and please admirers as well as for
one’s own pleasure, reinforcing what I discussed in Chapter 3.
This book makes the final point that whether it was an Edwardian dandy,
a Victorian upper-class girl, the rococo princess or the Ivy Leaguers in the
1960s, aesthetic essences of the romantic past are adopted, restyled and
given new meanings in contemporary Japanese culture. This attests to the
socio-cultural approaches that recognize the complexity of cultural
globalization, where ‘global’ and ‘local’ cultures interact instead of one
infiltrating the weaker others. Needless to say, the process of cultural
globalization might not always operate in ‘amicable’ ways. There still exist
issues of power and inequality, for example.4 But as Roland Robertson has
argued in relation to ‘glocalization’, the local is defined by the global, and
‘when one considers them closely, they each have a local, diversifying
aspect’.5 Building on Nederveen Pieterse’s theory of syncretism, I contend
that cultural syncretism is a fusion of cultural forms in which two forms
have changed and a ‘third’ cultural form has developed.6
This is what I hope my analyses of the selected clothing styles have
elucidated. The Japanese incorporation of ‘Neo-Edwardian’ dandy styles
into the field of mainstream men’s fashion has two significant meanings.
Namely, as the examples of Japanese men’s fashion publications and the
menswear brand Milkboy illustrate, such styles not only render these
pleasantly suave and stylish aesthetics available at wider, everyday levels,
but they also operate (consciously or otherwise) as an effective way to
reinvent a mode of masculinity that works in contrast to the worn-out,
dowdy ‘salaryman’. I have shown how the imagery of Lewis Carroll’s Alice
and the dress of Victorian young misses are deployed by a group of
Japanese young female performers in order to articulate ‘infantile’ cuteness,
in a manner largely detached from the heterosexual economy. I have
explained a synchronicity between the Victorian ‘little girls’ dresses’ and a
particular kind of Japanese kawaii aesthetic, and shown how it results in the
detachment of eroticism from the representation of ‘sweet’ and ‘girlish’
sartorial styles. In addition, I have asserted that it also serves as an
alternative to the established multiple binaries of sexualization, assertion
and subservience in which women tend to be represented.
 In similar fashion, Japanese Lolita style, which is quite ostensibly a style
drawing strongly on the conceptualization of European historic dress
aesthetics, can be read as a quintessential cultural amalgam. The film
Shimotsuma Monogatari and its portrayal of the style attest to this. The
teenage heroine, who is dressed almost thoroughly in the extravagantly
opulent fashion, engages in both conventionally masculine and feminine
activities quite fluently. This interpretation of the elaborate girlish fashion
not only reinforces the established theories that argue against the
preconception that accuses decorative femininity and its alleged
impracticability of limiting women, but also reinforces the socio-
psychological definition of androgyny. Such a definition of androgyny tells
us that, contrary to the apparent fixity in our biological gender, most of us
have both conventionally masculine and feminine attributes. Expressions of
these ‘gender’ attributes, then, do not necessarily have to be connected to
the traditional sartorial modes. This arguably inscribes new and, by and
large, more innovative meanings, to historical, opulently decorated
women’s dresses.
Finally, the Japanese embrace of the ‘Ivy style’ within this theme
illustrates that both men and women may engage with fashion in very
similar, if not identical, ways. This is a testament to what the cultural and
social-psychological analysis of gender has argued. While the presence of
biological distinctions between men and women is incontestable, as human
beings, these theoretical perspectives believe that such differences might be
less significant than differences created by individuality. This book has
demonstrated that principally men and women in contemporary Japanese
society dress and look differently. But their motivations for dress, whether
to impress and attract admirers, to serve their own pleasures or to manifest
their ‘revolt’ against cultural preconceptions could be shared by individuals
regardless of gender. To a certain degree, this brings men and women
closer. Hollander expressed in 1994 that ‘any true account of clothing must
consider both sexes together’, because ‘[f]ashion has affected both sexes
equally, and nobody with eyes escapes it’.7 My analyses of clothing and
Japanese cultural texts attest that many of Hollander’s wide-ranging
perspectives on fashion and gender are still credible today, and equally so in
Japanese fashion cultures.
 NOTES

1. Introducing Japanese fashion, past and present

1 Phil Hammond, ‘The Mystification of Culture: Western Perception of Japan’, Gazette, 61(3–4),
1999, p. 312.
2 Koichi Iwabuchi, ‘Complicit Exoticism: Japan and Its Other’, Continuum, 8(2), 1994.
3 Oscar Wilde, ‘The Decay of Lying: An Observation’ in Oscar Wilde Plays, Prose Writings and
Poems (London: David Campbell Publishers, 1991 [1891]) p. 94.
4 Alistair Phillips and Julian Stringer, ‘Introduction’, in A. Phillips and J. Stringer (eds),
Japanese Cinema: Texts and Contexts (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), p. 14.
5 Diana Crane, The Production of Culture: Media and the Urban Arts (Newbury Park, London
and New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1992), p. 96.
6 Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange (Maryland: Roman &
Littlefield Publishers, 2004), p. 46.
7 Margaret Maynard, Dress and Globalization (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004),
p. 3.
8 Toby Slade, ‘Clothing Modern Japan’ (PhD Thesis, University of Sydney. 2006); Ken’ichiro
Hirano, ‘The Westernization of Clothes and the State in Meiji Japan’, in K. Hirano (ed.), The
State and Cultural Transformation: Perspectives from East Asia (Tokyo: United Nations
University Press, 1993).
9 Keiko Okamura, Gurohbaru shakai no ibunka-ron (Cross-cultural Theory in Global Societies)
(Kyoto: Sekaishiso-sha, 2003), pp. 137–49.
10 Kazuo Hozumi, IVY Illustrated (Tokyo: Aiiku-sha, 2003 [1980]), p. 132. Quote translated by
Masafumi Monden.
11 Peter McNeil, ‘Introduction: Late Medieval to Renaissance Fashion’, in P. McNeil (ed.),
Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources, Volume 1 (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers,
2009), p. xxxiii.
12 Elizabeth Wilson, ‘Fashion and Postmodern Body’, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds), Chic Thrills:
A Fashion Reader (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), p. 5.
13 Wilson, ‘Fashion and Postmodern Body’, p. 6.
14 Ivan Morris, The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan (New York, Tokyo,
London: Kodansha International, 1994 [1964]), pp. 194, 204.
15 Seiki Nagasaki, Kasane no irome (The Combination of Colors in Layers: The Aesthetics of
Color in the Heian Period) (Kyoto: Seigensha, 2001 [1987]).
16 Lady Murasaki, Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji), trans. A. Waley, Volume 1 (London:
George Allen & Unwin LTD, 1973 [1935]), p. 152.
17 Fusae Kawazoe, Hikaru genji ga aishita ouchou brand hin (The dynastic brand artifacts
Prince Genji loved) (Tokyo: Kadokawa Gakugei Shuppan, 2008), p. 157.
18 A hakama is a long pleated divided skirt worn over the kimono. This description is largely
based on Tengai Kosugi’s novel Makaze Koikaze (1903), as cited in Melanie Czarnecki’s ‘Bad
Girls from Good Families’.
19 Rebecca L. Copeland, ‘Fashioning the Feminine: Images of the Modern Girl Student in Meiji
Japan’, U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, 30–1, 2006, p. 18.
20 Alisa Freedman, Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2011), p. 29.
21 Copeland, ‘Fashioning the Feminine’, p. 22.
22 Melanie Czarnecki, ‘Bad Girls from Good Families: The Degenerate Meiji Schoolgirl’, in L.
Miller and J. Bardsley (eds), Bad Girls of Japan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). The
term ‘high collar’ (haikara) originally referred to a man’s European shirt and the men who
wore it at the turn of the twentieth century. It became jargon for describing individuals who
were ‘Westernized’ or modern and chic. Today, the term is most often associated with
schoolgirls who were dressed in the style similar to the one described here.
23 See, for example, Slade, ‘Clothing Modern Japan’; Hirano, ‘The Westernization of Clothes and
the State in Meiji Japan’.
24 Llewyen Negrin, Appearance and Identity: Fashioning the Body in Postmodernity (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 30.
25 Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams (London: Virago, 1985), p. 117.
26 Vera Mackie, ‘Transnational Bricolage: Gothic Lolita and the Political Economy of Fashion’,
Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 20, April 2009.
27 Joanne Entwistle, The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), p. 140.
28 Judith Butler, ‘Bodily Inscriptions, Perfomative Subversions’, in S. Salih and J. Butler (eds),
The Judith Butler Reader (Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2004 [1990]), p. 114.
29 Butler, ‘Bodily Inscriptions, Perfomative Subversions’, p. 115.
30 Carrie Paechter, ‘Masculine Femininities/Feminine Masculinities: Power, Identities and
Gender’, Gender and Education, 18(3), 2006; Drucilla Cornell, At the Heart of Freedom:
Feminism, Sex, and Equality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 80.
31 Joanne B. Eicher, ‘Dress, Gender and the Public Display of Skin’, in J. Entwistle and E.
Wilson (eds), Body Dressing (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2001), p. 244.
32 Entwistle, The Fashioned Body, p. 141.
33 Sandra L. Bem, The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 151, 148. It is significant that Valerie
Steele and Marjorie Garber both note that this gendered scheme of colour is a recent historical
cultural and construction, as boys would wear pink and girls blue before World War I (Garber,
1992: 1). See also V. Steele, ‘Appearance and Identity’, in C. B. Kidwell and V. Steele (eds),
Men and Women Dressing the Part (Washington: Smithonian Institution Press, 1989), p. 6.
34 Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits (NY: Knopf, 1994), p. 33.
35 Entwistle, The Fashioned Body, p. 157.
36 Hollander, Sex and Suits, p. 40.
37 Hollander, Sex and Suits, p. 40.
38 Hollander, Sex and Suits, p. 40.
39 For more detailed accounts of Japanese history of dress, see Liza Dalby, Kimono: Fashioning
Culture (London: Vintage, 2001 [1993]); Toby Slade, Japanese Fashion: A Cultural History
(London and New York: Berg, 2009); Valerie Steele, Japan Fashion Now (New York: Yale
University Press, 2010).
40 Liza Dalby, Kimono: Fashioning Culture (London: Vintage, 2001 [1993]), p. 28.
41 The Heian period lasted for approximately 390 years, from 794 to 1192.
42 Morris, The World of the Shining Prince, p. 194.
43 Norio Yamanaka, The Book of Kimono (Tokyo, New York and San Francisco: Kodansha
International, 1982), pp. 34–5. A hakama is a long divided skirt worn over the kimono.
44 Dalby, Kimono, p. 39.
45 The Edo period lasted for more than 250 years, from 1603 to 1868.
46 Dalby, Kimono, p. 45.
47 Donald. H. Shively, ‘Sumtuary Regulation and Status in Early Tokugawa Japan’, Harvard
Journal of Asiatic Studies, 25, 1964–5, p. 133.
48 Shively, Sumtuary Regulation, p. 123; Dalby, Kimono, p. 57.
49 Shively, Sumtuary Regulation, p. 134.
50 Shively, Sumtuary Regulation, p. 129.
51 Dalby, Kimono, p. 289.
52 The obi is a sash worn with the kimono. The width of women’s obi increased as the length of
the kosode’s sleeves grew longer in the Genroku period.
53 Dalby, Kimono, p. 289. Female actors were banned from appearing on the kabuki stage in
1629, due to concerns about moral decline.
54 Japan Youth Research Institute, ‘Koukousei no seikatsu to ishiki ni kansuru chousa (Survey of
the lifestyles and consciousness of high school students)’, 2004
[http://www1.odn.ne.jp/%7Eaaa25710//research/index.html]. [Last accessed 18 May 2014]
55 Susan. J. Napier, ‘Vampires, Psychic Girls, Flying Women and Sailor Scouts: Four faces of the
Young Female in Japanese Popular Culture’, in D. P. Martinez (ed.), The World of Japanese
Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 104–5.
56 Laura Miller, Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006).
57 For the relationship between 1970s manga culture and (romanticized) Europe, see Keiko
Takemiya, ‘1970 nendai no shōjo manga ni okeru geijutsusei e no shikō to sono mokuteki
(1970s shōjo manga’s preference for artistry and its purpose)’, Bijutsu Forum 21 (Tokushū:
Manga to manga, soshite geijutsu (special issue: Manga, Comics and Art), guest-edited by J.
Berndt), 24, 2011, pp. 96–8. I thank Professor Jaqueline Berndt for suggesting this article.
58 Patricia Mears, ‘Formalism and Revolution: Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto’, in V.
Steele, Japan Fashion Now (New York: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 142.
59 Lise Skov, ‘Fashion Trends, Japonisme and Postmodernism’, in J. W. Treat (ed.),
Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture (London: Cuzon, 1996), p. 151.
60 Leela Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998),
pp. 126–7.
61 David Morley and Kevin Robins, Space of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes and
Cultural Boundaries (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 173.
62 Morley and Robins, Space of Identity, p. 173.
63 Iwabuchi, ‘Complicit Exoticism’.
64 See, for example, Nederveen Pieterse, Globalization and Culture; Arjun Appadurai,
‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’, in B. Robbins (ed.), The
Phantom Public Sphere (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).
65 Okamura, Gurohbaru shakai.
66 Ulf Harnnerz, ‘The Cultural Role of the World Cities’, in A. Cohen and K. Fukui (eds),
Humanizing the City? (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1993), p. 138.
67 Christopher Breward, The Hidden Consumers: Masculinities, Fashion and City Life 1860–
1914 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 17.
68 Peter McNeil, ‘Art and Dress’, in Lise Skov (ed.), Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and
Fashion, Volume 8: West Europe (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2010), pp. 522–7.
69 Elisabeth Bronfen, Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic (Manchester:
Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 65.
70 Paul A. S. Harvey, ‘Nonchan’s Dream: NHK Morning Serialized Television Novels’, in D. P.
Martinez, The World of Japanese Popular Culture, Shifting Boundaries and Global Cultures
(Cambridge and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 133.
71 Ulrich Lehmann, Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), p.
299.
72 Crane, The Production of Culture, p. 106.
73 R. C. Bulman, Hollywood Goes to High School: Cinema, Schools, and American Culture (New
York: Worth Publishing, 2005), p. 6.
74 Bulman, Hollywood Goes to High School, p. 6.
75 Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (New York: The Viking Press, 1978), p. 451.
76 Elizabeth Wilson, ‘Magic Fashion’, Fashion Theory, 8(4), p. 376.
77 Nederveen Pieterse, Globalization and Culture, p. 48.
78 Wilde, ‘The Decay of Lying’, p. 94.

2. Lost in a gaze: young men and fashion in

contemporary Japan
 1 Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (London: Penguin Books, 1996 [1818]), p. 22.
2 The targeted readership of these publications is a heterosexual male. This is made obvious
through the heterosexual discourse they deploy throughout. These magazines often run features
with such titles as ‘The styles that attract girls’ or ‘What fashion items girls like’, and young
women’s perspectives on men’s fashion styles are often incorporated. The absence of images or
contents related to sexuality in many of these magazines including Popeye and Men’s non-no,
particularly in their fashion content, nevertheless may attract men regardless of their sexual
orientations. In the strict sense of the term, narcissism means one’s pathological attachment to
or interest in one’s own appearance. However, the word vanity, too, inevitably conveys
negativity – excessive pride in or admiration of one’s own appearance. In this chapter,
narcissism or narcissistic concern is used to describe one’s strong concern for appearance,
which does not necessarily invoke negativity.
3 See, for example Laura Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, in M. G. Durham and
D. Kellner (eds), Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001
[1975]); Susan Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, in Z. P. Brand (ed.), Beauty
Matters (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000); E. A. Kaplan, Women and Film: Both
Sides of the Camera (New York and London: Methuen, 1983).
4 Laura Miller, Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006).
5 John Clammer, ‘Consuming Bodies: Constructing and Representing the Female Body in
Contemporary Japanese Print Media’, in L. Skov and B. Morean (eds), Women, Media and
Consumption in Japan (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1995), p. 210.
6 Mariko Morimoto and Susan Chang, ‘Western and Asian Models in Japanese Fashion
Magazine Ads: The Relationship with Brand Origins and International Versus Domestic
Magazines’, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 21(3), 2009, p. 179.
7 According to Brian Moeran (2006: 229), more than fifty major new titles were launched in
2002 alone.
8 Fashion Magazine: Men’s Fashion Zassi Gaido (Men’s Fashion Magazine Guide).
(http://www.magazine-data.com/menu/oyazi.html). As of 18 May 2014, this website lists forty
monthly men’s magazines currently sold in Japan.
9 Brian Moeran, ‘Elegance and Substance Travel East: Vogue Nippon’, Fashion Theory, 10(1/2),
2006, p. 229.
10 Bunkyō-dō (http://bignet2.bunkyodo.co.jp/bignet2/magranking.asp?id=dajoh). Bunkyō-dō is
currently one of the biggest chains of bookstores in Japan.
11 JMPA Magazine data: Dansei Life Design. Survey periods: 1 October 2011 to 30 September
2012. Available at http://www.j-magazine.or.jp/data_002/m2.html#002 [accessed 5 October
2013].
12 Fineboys, August 2007, pp. 121–8. According to the magazine, over 600 men participated in
the survey. Since it is an informal survey and no information regarding survey methodology is
provided, its credibility might be in question. However, it offers a picture of how the
magazine’s editors perceive and conceptualize their male readers.
13 Kensuke Ishizu, Itsumo zero kara no shuppatsudatta (I always made my start from nothing)
(Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Centre, 2010), pp. 54–5.
14 The magazine was originally published bimonthly and now weekly.
15 Fabienne Darling-Wolf, ‘The Men and Women of non-no: Gender, Race and Hybridity in Two
Japanese Magazines’, Cultural Studies in Media Communication, 23(3), 2006, p. 185.
16 Keiko Tanaka, ‘The Language of Japanese Men’s Magazines: Young Men Who Don’t Want to
Get Hurt’, in B. Benwell (ed.), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2003), p. 224.
17 Across Editorial Office (ed.), Street Fashion 1945–1995 (Tokyo: Parco, 1995), p. 184.
18 Across Editorial Office, Street Fashion, pp. 200–2.
19 Germaine Greer, The Beautiful Boy (New York: Rizzoli, 2003), p. 7.
20 Christopher Breward, The Hidden Consumers: Masculinities, Fashion and City Life 1860–
1914 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1999).
21 Breward, The Hidden Consumers, p. 50.
22 Christopher Breward, ‘Mode of Manliness: Reflections on Recent Histories of Masculinities
and Fashion’, in G. Riello and P. McNeil (eds), The Fashion History Reader: Global
Perspectives (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 301–2.
23 Peter McNeil, ‘Introduction: Late Medieval to Renaissance Fashion’, in P. McNeil (ed.),
Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources, Volume 1 (Oxford and New York: Berg Publishers,
2009), p. xxxiii.
24 G. Bruce Boyer, Elegance: A Guide to Quality in Menswear (New York and London: W. W.
Norton & Company, 1985), p. 48.
25 Joanne Entwistle, ‘From Catwalk to Catalog: Male Fashion Models, Masculinity, and Identity’,
in H. Thomas and J. Ahmed (eds), Cultural Bodies: Ethnography and Theory (Malden and
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), p. 57.
26 See for example Alice Newbold, ‘London Men Stake Their Place in the Fashion Spending
Arena’, Telegraph, 14 June 2012; Asher Moses, ‘“Ignored” Men Now in Fashion Online’, The
 Sydney Morning Herald, 15 August 2012.
27 Joanne Entwistle, The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), p. 186.
28 Sean Nixon, ‘Exhibiting Masculinity’, in S. Hall (ed.), Representation: Culture Representation
and Signifying Practices (London: Sage, 1997), p. 296. Needless to say, this ‘androcentrism’
also provides a demanding definition of ‘a real woman’. As Bem (1993: 151) indicates, since it
defines women ‘in terms of their domestic and reproductive functions, women who are unable
to have children almost inevitably experience a sense that they are not real women’.
29 John Beynon, Masculinities and Culture (Philadelphia: Open University, 2002), p. 15.
30 Sandra. L. Bem, The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 151.
31 Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits (New York: Knopf, 1994), p. 10.
32 Hollander, Sex and Suits, p. 11.
33 Christopher Breward, ‘“On the Bank’s Threshold’’: Administrative Revolutions and the
Fashioning of Masculine Identities at the Turn of the Century’, Parallax, 3(2), 1997, p. 121.
34 Valerie Steele, ‘Clothing and Sexuality’, in C. B. Kidwell and V. Steele (eds), Men and Women
Dressing the Part (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989), p. 62.
35 Sean Nixon, Hard Looks: Masculinity, Spectatorship and Contemporary Consumption (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), p. 167.
36 Tim Edwards, ‘Consuming Masculinities: Style, Content and Men’s Magazines’, in P. McNeil
and V. Karaminas (eds), The Men’s Fashion Reader (New York: Berg. 2009), p. 467; Federico
Boni, ‘Framing Media Masculinities: Men’s Lifestyle Magazines and the Biopolitics of Men’s
Lifestyle Magazines and the Male Body’, European Journal of Communication, 17(4), 2002, p.
469.
37 The policies of Popeye, when it was issued in 1976, included that the magazine would not
include nude images (Shiine, 2008: 46).
38 Feona Attwood, ‘“Tits and Ass and Porn and Fighting’’: Male Heterosexuality in Magazines
for Men’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 8(1), 2005, p. 85.
39 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 147.
40 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 127.
41 Susan. M. Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies: Branded Masculinity in Men’s Health Magazines’,
Sociological Perspectives, 46(4), 2003, p. 540. Her research is based on Mediamark Research
(2002), and the age distribution is as follows: 23 per cent aged 18–24, 25 per cent aged 25–34,
23 per cent aged 35–44, 18 per cent aged 45–54, and 11 per cent aged 55+.
42 Shadan-hōjin nihon zasshi-kyōkai (Japan Magazine Organisation). The survey period was 1
October 2008 to 30 September 2009.
43 The Men’s non-no website offers the profiles of its models. As of 18 May 2010, fifty-two
models are currently hired by the magazine, forty-eight of whom offer their date of birth. The
oldest model was thirty-four years old and the youngest seventeen.
44 For instance, Leon features Panzetta Girolamo, an Italian celebrity in his late forties living in
Japan, as its ‘muse’ while Hiroshi Abe, who was the first exclusive model of Men’s non-no in
the 1980s, now appears regularly in Uomo. Abe is fifty years old as of July 2014.
45 Paul Hodkinson, ‘Youth Cultures: A Critical Outline of Key Debates’, in P. Hodkinson and W.
Deicke (eds), Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes (New York: Routledge, 2007), p.
1.
46 Merry White, ‘The Marketing of Adolescence in Japan: Buying and Dreaming’, in L. Skov and
B. Moeran (eds), Women, Media, and Consumption in Japan (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon
Press, 1995), p. 225.
47 Roland Kelts, Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), p. 164.
48 JJ, women’s fashion magazine launched in 1975, became popular by using posh yet ‘ordinary’
female university students and young female office workers as its models. Such models made a
stark contrast to an an and non-no, both of which predominantly used non-Japanese or
Eurasian models at that time.
49 The majority of male figures appearing in magazines like Choki Choki are amateur models.
50 Joanne Entwistle, ‘From Catwalk to Catalog: Male Fashion Models, Masculinity, and Identity’,
in H. Thomas and J. Ahmed (eds), Cultural Bodies: Ethnography and Theory (Malden and
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), p. 60.
51 Michael Carter, Fashion Classics: From Carlyle to Barthes (New York and Oxford: Berg,
2003), p. 67.
52 Llewyen Negrin, Appearance and Identity: Fashioning the Body in Postmodernity (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 16.
53 Fineboys, April 2010, pp. 42–9.
54 Fineboys, April 2010, pp. 42–9.
55 Men’s non-no, February 2008, pp. 142–55.
56 See, for example Men’s non-no, May 2007, pp. 50–1; Men’s non-no, January 2008, pp. 50–3.
57 Moeran, ‘Elegance and Substance’, p. 248.
58 Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies’, p. 541.
59 Moeran, ‘Elegance and Substance’, p. 245.
60 G. Kress and T. van Leeuwen, Reading Images (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), pp.
118–19.
61 Nixon, Hard Looks, p. 178.
62 Susan Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, in Z. P. Brand (ed.), Beauty Matters
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), p. 129.
63 Kress and van Leeuwen, Reading Images, pp. 124–6.
64 Hiroshi Abe, a now-famous actor, was crowned non-no Boyfriend (a male model position in
non-no) and made his modelling debut in 1986, subsequently gracing the cover of Men’s non-
no forty-three consecutive times until December 1989 (Men’s non-no, 2006: 160).
65 Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies’, p. 541.
66 Darling-Wolf, ‘The Men and Women of non-no’, p. 187.
67 Merry White, Material Child (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1993), p.
121.
68 Shadan-hōjin nihon zasshi-kyōkai (Japan Magazine Organisation).
69 As of 2010, Popeye and Men’s non-no have female chief editors while Fineboys has a male
editor-in-chief. Since mid–2012, Popeye also has a male editor-in-chief.
70 Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, p. 131.
71 Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies’, p. 541.
72 Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies’, p. 541.
73 Darling-Wolf, ‘The Men and Women of non-no’, p. 189.
74 Fineboys, March 2011, pp. 24–55.
75 Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, p. 135.
76 Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies’, p. 541.
77 Boni, ‘Framing Media Masculinities’, p. 472.
78 Nixon, ‘Exhibiting Masculinity’, p. 314.
79 Negrin, Appearance and Identity, p. 158.
80 Greer, The Beautiful Boy, p. 7.
81 Mulvey, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, p. 398.
82 Kaplan, Women and Film, p. 30.
83 Kaplan, Women and Film, p. 31.
84 Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, p. 142.
85 Kaja Silverman, ‘Masochism and Subjectivity’, Framework, 12, 1980.
86 Peter McNeil and Vicki Karaminas, ‘Introduction’, in P. McNeil and V. Karaminas (eds), The
Men’s Fashion Reader (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009), p. 8.
87 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 155.
88 Tomoko Aoyama, ‘Transgendering Shōjo Shōsetsu: Girls’ Inter-text/Sex-uality’, in M.
McLelland and R. Dasgupta (eds), Gender, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan (London
and New York, Routledge, 2005), p. 50.
89 Aoyama, ‘Transgendering Shōjo Shōsetsu’, p. 50.
90 Tanaka, ‘The Language of Japanese Men’s Magazines’, p. 233.
91 Kress and van Leewen, Reading Images, p. 130.
92 Men’s Club, March 2010, pp. 132–9.
93 See for example Leon, September 2010, pp. 100–6.
94 The heterosexual context of Leon is largely constructed through the image of Girolamo
Panzetta. He has created the public image of an amorous philanderer.
95 Julie Anne Springer, ‘Art and the Feminine Muse: Women in Interiors by John White
Alexander’, Woman’s Art Journal, 6(2), p. 4.
96 Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (New York: Avon Books, 1978), p. 412.
97 Chris Straayer, ‘The Talented Poststructuralist: Heteromasculinity, Gay Artifice, and Class
Passing’, in P. Lehman (ed.), Masculinity: Bodies, Movies, Culture (New York: Routledge,
2001), p. 117.
98 Michael Warner, ‘Homo-Narcissism; or, Heterosexuality’, in J. A. Boone and M. Cadden (eds),
Engendering Men: The Question of Male Feminist Criticism (New York and London:
Routledge, 1990), p. 190.
99 Warner, ‘Homo-Narcissism’, p. 191.
100 Warner, ‘Homo-Narcissism’, p. 192.
101 Warner, ‘Homo-Narcissism’, p. 192.
102 Jacques Lacan, ‘The Mirror-phase as Formative of the Function of the I’, trans. J. Roussel, in
S. Žižek (ed.), Mapping Ideology (London and New York: Verso, 1994 [1949]), p. 94.
103 Lacan, ‘The Mirror-phase as Formative of the Function of the I’, p. 94.
104 Warner, ‘Homo-Narcissism’, p. 194.
105 Warner, ‘Homo-Narcissism’, p. 198.
106 Warner, ‘Homo-Narcissism’, pp. 193, 198.
107 Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era to the
Jazz Age (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 29.
108 Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes, p. 391.
109 Megumi Ushikubo, Sōshoku-kei danshi [ojō-man] ga nihon wo kaeru (Herbivorous Men
(Ladylike Man) Change Japan) (Tokyo: Kōdansha +α shinsho, 2008), pp. 4–5.
110 Ushikubo, Sōshoku-kei danshi, p. 121.
111 GQ Australia, Spring/May 2010, p. 91.
112 Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, pp. 137–8; Negrin, Appearance and Identity, p.
158.
113 Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, p. 137.
114 Attwood, ‘Tits and Ass and Porn and Fighting’, p. 88.
115 Attwood, ‘Tits and Ass and Porn and Fighting’, p. 88.
116 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 155.

3. Boy’s elegance: a liminality of boyish charm

and old-world suavity
1 Milkboy Staff’s Blog, 2013, available at http://ameblo.jp/mb-staff/page-67.html#main [accessed
7 October 2013]. The texts are translated by Masafumi Monden.
2 Michael Carter, Fashion Classics: From Carlyle to Barthes (Oxford: Berg, 2003), p. 116.
3 Michel Foucault, ‘The Concern for Truth’, in S. Lotringer (ed.), Foucault Live (Interviews,
1966–84, trans. J. Johnston (New York: Semiotext(e), 1989 [1984]), p. 298.
4 As in the previous chapter, narcissism or narcissistic concerns are used in this chapter to
describe one’s strong concerns for appearance, which does not necessarily invoke negativity or
pathology.
5 Ken’ichiro Hirano, ‘The Westernization of Clothes and the State in Meiji Japan’, in K. Hirano
(ed.), The State and Cultural Transformation: Perspectives from East Asia (Tokyo: United
Nations University Press, 1993), p. 123.
6 Reader-models (dokusha models) are amateur models whose occupations are other than
professional models (e.g. students, retail sales assistants and hairdressers).
7 Laura Miller, Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2006), p. 149.
 8 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 149.
9 See, Meredith Jones, Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery (New York: Berg, 2008), p.
41; Sharon Kinsella, ‘Black Faces, Witches, and Racism Against Girls’, in L. Miller and J.
Bardsley (eds), Bad Girls of Japan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 147.
10 Yamato Shiine, Popeye Monogatari (The Story of Popeye) (Tokyo: Shincho-sha, 2008), p. 12.
11 For instance, the August 2007 issue of Popeye runs a short interview with Jun’ichi Okada,
member of V6, a Johnny’s boy band, and five-paged fashion shoots.
12 See for example Popeye, January 2008, p. 50.
13 Arjun Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’, in B. Robbins
(ed.), The Phantom Public Sphere (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), pp.
271–2.
14 Mariko Morimoto and Susan Chang, ‘Western and Asian Models in Japanese Fashion
Magazine Ads: The Relationship with Brand Origins and International Versus Domestic
Magazines’, Journal of International Consumer Marketing, 21(3), 2009, p. 178.
15 Morimoto and Chang, ‘Western and Asian Models in Japanese Fashion Magazine Ads’, p. 178.
16 This tendency is also supported by other men’s magazines such as men’s egg and Choki Choki.
These magazines predominantly feature ‘domestic’ brand items and are full of Japanese
amateur-models.
17 Miller, Beauty Up, 149.
18 Jones, Skintight, p. 41.
19 Megumi Fukumitsu, ‘yase & usui danshi nanka ōishi’ (Skinny and Thin Boys are Somehow
Increased), Asashi Shinbun Weekly, 15 January 2007, pp. 38–41.
20 Fabienne Darling-Wolf, ‘The Men and Women of non-no: Gender, Race and Hybridity in Two
Japanese Magazines’, Cultural Studies in Media Communication, 23(3), 2006, p. 186.
21 Based on my calculation of all the models with their height and weight listed in Men’s non-no
website. See http://www.mensnonno.jp/data/modelfile. These data are based on thirty-five
models whose heights and weights are mentioned on the Men’s non-no website. The tallest
model is 192 cm with a weight of 63 kg, the shortest model is 170 cm and 52 kg, which is also
the lightest as of May 2010. The heaviest model weighs 75 kg and their height is 189 cm
[accessed 18 May 2010].
22 See, for example, the September 2007 issue of Men’s non-no, pp. 128–33, and the April 2008
issue of Fineboys, pp. 134–6.
23 ‘Tekido ni hikishimatta utsukushii’ describes particularly a male physique that is skinny but fit,
and is often referred by these magazines as the ideal male physique.
24 Joanne Entwistle, ‘From Catwalk to Catalog: Male Fashion Models, Masculinity, and Identity’,
in H. Thomas and J. Ahmed (eds), Cultural Bodies: Ethnography and Theory (Malden and
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), p. 60; Susan M. Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies:
Branded Masculinity In Men’s Health Magazine’, Sociological Perspectives, 46(4), 2003, p.
541.
25 Models.com, http://models.com/model_culture/50topmalemodels/index.cfm [last accessed 19
October 2013].
26 Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies’, p. 541.
27 Llewyen Negrin, Appearance and Identity: Fashioning the Body in Postmodernity (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 158.
28 Entwistle, ‘From Catwalk to Catalog’, pp. 59–60.
29 Entwistle, ‘From Catwalk to Catalog’, p. 59.
30 Entwistle, ‘From Catwalk to Catalog’, p. 60.
31 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, The Survey Results of Health and Nutrition of the
Nation for 2008, 2011, p. 184.
32 See, for example: F. Boni (2002), ‘Framing Media Masculinities: Men’s Lifestyle Magazines
and the Biopolitics of Men’s Lifestyle Magazines and the Male Body’, European Journal of
Communication, 17(4), 2002, p. 472; S. Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, in Z. P.
Brand (ed.), Beauty Matters (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000), p. 186.
33 T. S. Freson and L. B. Arthur, ‘Fashioning Men’s Bodies: Masculinity and Muscularity’, in A.
Reilly and S. Cosbey (eds), The Men’s Fashion Reader (New York: Fairchild Books, 2008), p.
339.
34 R. Martin, ‘Robert Pattinson Wants you to Know He’s Going to Get a Six Pack’, Marie Claire,
13 September 2013.
35 See, for example famous male models like Mathias Lauridsen, and Garrett Neff who is
renowned for his work with Calvin Klein. They have a boyish semblance and considerably
masculine physique.
36 Beth Eck, ‘Men are Much Harder: Gendered Viewing of Nude Images’, Gender & Society,
17(5), pp. 691–710.
37 Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (New York: The Viking Press, 1978).
38 Lise Skov, ‘Fashion Trends, Japonisme and Postmodernism’, in J. W. Treat (ed.),
Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture (London: Cuzon, 1996), p. 155.
39 The Heian Period lasted approximately 390 years, from AD 794 to 1192.
40 Ivan Morris, The World of the Shining Prince: Court Life in Ancient Japan (New York, Tokyo,
London: Kodansha International, 1994 [1964]), p. 202.
41 Fineboys, October 2010, p. 82.
42 Many actors and singers publish photobooks in Japan. Photobooks of actresses, swimsuits
models (gravure idols) and singers are predominantly targeted at the heterosexual male market,
with images of the stars in swimsuits often included. The publication of photobooks of male
celebrities is also on the increase, aimed primarily at the heterosexual female market.
43 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 151.
44 D&G is a slightly more casual line of the Dolce & Gabbana brand.
45 Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, Reading Images (London and New York: Routledge,
1996), pp. 118–19.
46 Alexander, ‘Stylish Hard Bodies’; Boni, ‘Framing Media Masculinities’.
47 Popeye, ‘The Cowboy Way’, April 2010, pp. 166–73.
48 Shaun Cole, ‘Macho Man: Clones and the Development of a Masculine Stereotype’, in P.
McNeil and V. Karaminas (eds), The Men’s Fashion Reader (Oxford and New York: Berg,
2009), p. 392.
49 Keiko Okamura, Gurohbaru shakai no ibunka-ron (Cross-cultural Theory in Global Societies)
(Kyoto: Sekaishiso-sha, 2003), pp. 137–49.
50 Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange (Maryland: Roman &
Littlefield Publishers, 2004); R. Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-
Heterogeneity’ in M. Featherstone, S. Lash and R. Robertson (eds), Global Maternities
(London: Sage Publications, 1994), p. 34; Appadurai, ‘Disjuncture and Difference’.
51 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 127.
52 Jan Bardsley, ‘The Oyaji Gets a Makeover: Guides for Japanese Salarymen in the New
Millennium’, in J. Bardsley and L. Miller (eds), Manners and Mischief: Gender, Power, and
Etiquette in Japan (California: University of California Press, 2011), pp. 115–16.
53 Romit Dasgupta, ‘Performing Masculinities? The “Salaryman” at Work and Play’, Japanese
Studies, 20(2), 2000, p. 193.
54 Examples include comic book (manga) series Kenshi Hirokane’s series Kachō Shima Kōsaku
(Section Chief Kōsaku Shima) and Kimio Yanagisawa’s Tokumei Kakarichō Tadano Hitoshi
(Mission Section Chief Hitoshi Tadano), both of which were later made into TV series and
films.
55 Dasgupta, ‘Performing Masculinities?’, p. 199.
56 James Roberson, ‘Fight!! Ippatsu!!: “Genki” Energy Drinks and the Marketing of Masculine
Ideology in Japan’, Men and Masculinities, 7, 2005, p. 369.
57 Megumi Ushikubo, Sōshoku-kei danshi [ojō-man] ga nihon wo kaeru (Herbivorous Men
(Ladylike Men) Change Japan) (Tokyo: Kōdansha +α shinsho, 2008); Bardsley, ‘The Oyaji
Gets a Makeover’, p. 133.
58 Ushikubo, ojō-man, 2008; Futoshi Taga, ‘Rethinking Male Socialisation: Life histories of
Japanese male youth’, in K. Louie and M. Low (eds), Asian Masculinities (Abingdon:
RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 142.
59 S. Nixon, Hard Looks: Masculinity, Spectatorship and Contemporary Consumption (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), p. 189.
60 Popeye, May 2008, p. 78.
61 Men’s non-no, April 2010, p. 149.
62 Ellen Moers, The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm (London: Secker & Warburg, 1960), p. 298.
63 Moers, The Dandy, p. 299.
64 Bardsley, ‘The Oyaji Gets a Makeover’, pp. 114–16.
65 Toby Slade, ‘Clothing Modern Japan’, PhD Thesis (University of Sydney, 2006); Hirano, ‘The
Westernization of Clothes’, pp. 121–31.
66 Toby Slade, ‘The Japanese Suit and Modernity’, in P. McNeil and V. Karaminas (eds), The
Men’s Fashion Reader (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009), p. 295.
67 Slade, ‘The Japanese Suit and Modernity’, p. 295.
68 Valerie Steele, Japan Fashion Now (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), p.
7. See also Peter N. Dale, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness (New York: St. Martin’s Press,
1986).
69 Nederveen Pieterse, Culture and Globalization, p. 72.
70 Men’s non-no, March 2008, pp. 66–7.
71 Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits (New York: Knopf, 1994), p. 55.
72 Moers, The Dandy, p. 289.
73 Foucault, ‘The Concern for Truth’, p. 298.
74 Tiffany Godoy, Style Deficient Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion Tokyo (San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 2007), p. 37. Harajuku is a district in Shibuya ward in Tokyo Prefecture,
which has become known for youth fashion subcultures.
75 Kenji, ‘History of Milkboy’, email correspondence, October 2013.
76 Milkboy website, ‘Our Brand and History’, http://www.milkboy.net/about/index.html
[accessed 28 September 2013].
77 Hitomi, cited in a Skype interview with Kenji of Milkboy’s Design and Art Direction Team, 29
November 2013.
78 Popeye, December 2006, pp. 198–203.
79 Hitomi, cited by Kenji, Skype.
80 spoon., August 2013, pp. 18–25.
81 spoon., December 2013, pp. 14–31.
82 Milkboy Staff’s Blog, http://ameblo.jp/mb-staff [accessed 2 November 2013].
83 Kenji, ‘History of Milkboy’, email correspondence, 1 October, 2013.
84 Kenji, Skype.
85 spoon., August 2013, p. 29.
86 Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, The Survey Results of Health and Nutrition of the
Nation for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. The given percentages are calculated by averaging the
results from these four years.
87 Anne Hollander, Feeding the Eye (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
2000), pp. 153, 157.
88 Hitome, cited by Kenji, Skype.
89 Kenji, Skype. I thank Mr Kenji for sharing an important story and information about Milk and
Milkboy.
90 G. Bruce Boyer, Elegance: A Guide to Quality in Menswear (New York and London: W. W.
Norton & Company, 1985), pp. 251–5.
91 spoon., December 2013, p. 31.
92 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 127.
93 Ushikubo, Sōshoku-kei danshi, pp. 41, 44–5.
94 Ushikubo, Sōshoku-kei danshi, pp. 126–7.
95 Miller, Beauty Up; Bardsley, ‘The Oyaji Gets a Makeover’, p. 123.
96 Fineboys, October 2010, pp. 79–86.
97 Men’s non-no, April 2010, pp. 62–9.
98 For example, the May 2011 edition of Choki Choki (pp. 71–8) runs a story titled: ‘Build an
attractive body that looks good even when unclothed! Pump up only the parts girls love’, in
which the magazine allegedly surveyed 100 young women about which part of a male body
 they are attracted to. The story then offers training methods for the five most popular areas:
abdomen, arms, back, hip and chest.
99 Popeye, April 2008, pp. 195–9.
100 Foucault, ‘The Concern for Truth’, p. 298.
101 Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era to the
Jazz Age (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 142.
102 Fineboys, August 2007, pp. 152–5.
103 Fineboys, December 2010, pp. 82–3.
104 Fineboys, July 2007, p. 19.
105 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 127
106 Keiko Tanaka, ‘The Language of Japanese Men’s Magazines: Young Men Who Don’t Want to
Get Hurt’, in B. Benwell (ed.), Masculinity and Men’s Lifestyle Magazines (Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, 2003), p. 228.
107 See for example John Beynon, Masculinities and Culture (Philadelphia: Open University,
2002), p. 13; Bordo, ‘Beauty (Re)Discovers the Male Body’, p. 122; Sean Nixon, ‘Exhibiting
Masculinity’, in S. Hall (ed.), Representation: Culture Representation and Signifying Practices
(London: Sage, 1997), p. 314; Miller, Beauty Up, p. 151.
108 Sandra. L. Bem, The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 151.
109 Feona Attwood, ‘Tits and ass and porn and fighting’: Male heterosexuality in magazines for
men’ International Journal of Cultural Studies, volume 8, issue 1, 2005, p. 85.
110 Hollander, Sex and Suits, p. 40.
111 Slade, The Japanese Suit and Modernity, p. 293.
112 Adrian Clark, ‘editor’ Loaded Fashion, Spring/Summer 2005, p. 25. Loaded Fashion was
originally an offshoot of Loaded.
113 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 157.
114 Miller, Beauty Up, p. 157.
115 Ushikubo, Sōshoku-kei danshi, p. 88.
116 Elizabeth Wilson, ‘Fashion and Postmodern Body’, in, J. Ash and E. Wilson, (eds), Chic
Thrills: A Fashion Reader (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992),
p. 6.
117 Ushikubo, Sōshoku-kei danshi, pp. 126–8.
4. Glacé wonderland: cuteness, sexuality and
young women
1 Hitomi, quoted and explained by Kenji of Milkboy during a Skype interview, 29 November
2013. I thank Kenji for sharing this important story.
2 The lyrics of the song were written by Tommy February, and the music was composed by
Malibu Convertible. The Japanese parts of the lyrics were translated by the author.
3 In order to make distinctions, Alice stands for the children’s story and Alice for the character.
4 Angela McRobbie, ‘The Rise and Rise of Porno Chic’, The Times Higher Education, 2 January
2004, http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=182087&sectioncode=26.
[Last accessed 4 July 2014]
5 See for example Christiane R. Yano, Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Track Across the Pacific
(Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013). I thank Dr Emerald King for suggesting
this reading.
6 Numéro Tokyo, 13, April 2008, p. 81.
7 Laura Miller, ‘Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan’, International Journal of Japanese
Sociology, No. Issue 1, 2011, p. 24.
8 Brian J. McVeigh, Wearing Ideology: State, Schooling and Self-presentation in Japan (Oxford
and New York: Berg, 2000), p. 135.
9 Laura Miller, ‘Perverse Cuteness in Japanese Girl Culture’, paper presented at Japan Fashion
Now Symposium at The Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology, 2010. I thank Professor
Miller for sharing this paper; Inuhiko Yomota, Kawaii-Ron (Theory of Cute) (Tokyo: Chikuma
Shobo, 2006).
10 Reiko Koga, Kawaii no teikoku (The Empire of Kawaii) (Tokyo: Seido-sha, 2009), pp. 134–5.
11 Sharon Kinsella, ‘Cuties in Japan’, in L. Skov and B. Moeran (eds), Women, Media, and
Consumption in Japan (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1995), p. 220.
12 Kinsella, ‘Cuties in Japan’, p. 229.
13 Merry White, Material Child (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1993), p.
129.
14 Koga, Kawaii, p. 56.
15 Roland Robertson (1995: 28) explains that the term ‘glocal’ is derived from the Japanese term
dochaku-ka, ‘originally the agricultural principle of adopting one’s farming techniques to local
conditions’.
16 Tiffany Godoy, Style Deficient Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion Tokyo (San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 2007), p. 37.
17 Hitomi, cited in a Skype interview with Kenji of Milkboy, 29 November 2013.
18 Godoy, Style, p. 38.
19 Across Editorial Office (ed.), Street Fashion 1945–1995 (Tokyo: Parco, 1995), pp. 152–3.
20 See, for example non-no, 15–16, 2010, pp. 18–22.
21 Kyoko Koizumi, Panda no An-An (Tokyo: Magazine House, 1997), pp. 112–13.
22 Kinsella, Cuties, p. 226.
23 Alessandro Gomarasca, ‘Under the Sign of Kawaii’, in F. Bonami and R. Simons (eds), The
Fourth Sex: Adolescent Extremes (Milan: Charta, 2003), p. 262.
24 Hitomi Tsuchiya Dollase, ‘Early Twentieth Century Japanese Girls’ Magazine Stories:
Examining Shojo Voice in Hanamonogatari (Flower Tales)’, Journal of Popular Culture, 36(4),
2003, p. 733.
25 Koga, Kawaii, pp. 26–8.
26 Utsukushiku ikiru: Nakahara Jun’ichi sono bigaku to shigoto (Live Beautifully: The Aesthetics
and Works of Jun’ichi Nakahara) (Tokyo: Heibon-sha, 1999), pp. 40, 45 and 54.
27 Yomota, Kawaii-Ron, pp. 33–6.
28 Donald Keene mentions irregularity, simplicity and perishability as the other three
characteristics.
29 Donald Keene, ‘Japanese Aesthetics’, in N. G. Hume (ed.), Japanese Aesthetics and Culture:
Reader (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 31.
30 Jaqueline Berndt, ‘Considering Manga Discourse: Location, Ambiguity, Historicity’, in M.
MacWilliams (ed.), Japanese Visual Culture (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2008), p. 299.
31 Mizuki Takahashi, ‘Opening the Closed World of Shōjo Manga’, in M. W. Macwilliams (ed.),
Japanese Visual Cultures: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime (New York: M.E.
Sharpe, 2008), p. 122.
32 Tomoko Aoyama, ‘Transgendering Shōjo Shōsetsu: Girls’ Inter-text/Sex-uality’, in M.
McLelland and R. Dasgupta (eds), Gender, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan (London
and New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 50.
33 Dollase, ‘Early Twentieth Century Japanese Girls’ Magazine Stories’, p. 727.
34 Helen Kilpatrick, ‘Envisioning the shôjo Aesthetic in Miyazawa Kenji’s “The Twin Stars” and
“Night of the Milky Way Railway”’, Portal: Journal of Multidisciplinary International
Studies, 9(3), 2012, p. 3.
35 Masuko Honda, ‘The Genealogy of Hirahira: Liminality and the Girl’, in Tomoko Aoyama and
Barbara Hartley (eds), Girl Reading Girl in Japan, trans. T. Aoyama and B. Hartley (New
York: Routledge, 2010 [1980]), p. 36.
36 Rebecca L. Copeland, Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Japan (Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 2000), p. 26.
37 Shuko Watanabe, Shōjo-zō no tanjō – kindai nihon ni okeru ‘shōjo’ no keisei (The Birth of the
Images of Shōjo – The Construction of Shōjo in Modern Japan) (Tokyo: Shinsen-sha, 2007, pp.
112–14).
38 Sarah Frederick, ‘Not That Innocent: Yoshiya Nobuko’s Good Girls’, in L. Miller and J.
Bardsley (eds), Bad Girls of Japan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 67.
39 Frederick, ‘Not That Innocent’, p. 68.
40 Asako Takabatake, ‘Takabatake kasho no kodomo no enitsuite no ikkou: arisu tono douitsusei
wo megutte’ (A thought on Kasho Takabatake’s art works on children: About the kindred
qualities with Alice), Bigakujutushi ronshū, 19 (2011), p. 73.
41 Karen Nakamura and Hisako Matsuo, ‘Female Masculinity and Fantasy Spaces: Transcending
Genders in the Takarazuka and Japanese Popular Culture’, in J. E. Roberson and N. Suzuki
(eds), Men and Masculinities in Modern Japan: Dislocating the Salaryman Doxa (New York:
Routledge, 2002), p. 69; Aoyama, ‘Transgendering Shōjo Shōsetsu’, p. 53.
42 Watanabe, Shōjo, p. 59.
43 John Whittier Treat, ‘Yoshimoto Banana Writes Home: The Shôjo in Japanese Popular
Culture’, in J. W. Treat (ed.), Contemporary Japan and Popular Culture (Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press, 1996), pp. 281–2.
44 Catherine Driscoll, Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), p. 296.
45 Nakamura and Matsuo, ‘Female Masculinity’, p. 69.
46 Minako Saito, Modern-Girl Ron (The Theory of Modern Girls) (Tokyo: Bunshūb-bunko,
2003), first published 2000.
47 Melanie Czarnecki, ‘Bad Girls from Good Families: The Degenerate Meiji Schoolgirl’, in L.
Miller and J. Bardsley (eds), Bad Girls of Japan (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 61;
Alisa Freedman, Tokyo in Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2010), p. 29.
48 Czarnecki, ‘Bad Girls from Good Families’, p. 61.
49 Miller, Cute, p. 24. Sanrio is the company that designs and manufactures products such as
Hello Kitty.
50 Miller, Cute, p. 24.
51 Laura Miller, ‘You are Doing Burikko!: Censoring/Scrutinizing Artificers of Cute Femininity
in Japanese’, in J. Shibamoto Smith and S. Okamoto (eds), Japanese Language, Gender, and
Ideology: Cultural Models and Real People (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
52 Miller, ‘You are Doing Burikko!’, p. 148.
53 Sharon Kinsella, ‘What’s Behind the Fetishism of Japanese School Uniforms?’, Fashion
Theory, 6(2), 2002.
54 M. Kawado, ‘Meiji no Ruisu Kyaroru’ (Lewis Carroll in the Meiji Period), Honyaku to rekishi,
2 (2000), 30 September. See also Masafumi Monden, ‘Being Alice in Japan: Performing a
Cute, “Girlish’’ Revolt’, Japan Forum, 26(2), 2014, p. 267.
55 Kawado, Meiji no Ruisu Kyaroru.
56 K. Sakakibara, Alice no hon’yaku-shi 1899–2004 (The History of Alice Translation), n.d.
57 Sō-en, October 2007, pp. 26–47.
58 Sō-en, October 2007, p. 26.
59 Emily Temple Cute is a brand division of Shirley Temple. It was established in 1998 in order to
cater for slightly older consumers.
60 Emily Temple Cute, Wonderland (Tokyo: Kadokawa Publishers, 2009).
61 Will Brooker, Alice’s Adventures (New York and London: Continuum, 2005).
62 Brooker, Alice’s Adventures, p. 145.
63 Driscoll, Girls, p. 43.
64 Sumiko Yagawa, Fushigi no kuni no Alice (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) (Tokyo:
Shincho-sha, 1994), p. 181.
65 Elizabeth Ewing, History of Children’s Costume (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1977), p. 96.
66 Brooker, Alice’s Adventures, p. 143.
67 Brooker, Alice’s Adventures, p. 105.
68 Jo Elwyn Jones and Francis J. Gladstone, The Alice Companion: A Guide to Lewis Carroll’s
Alice Books (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 74–5.
69 Ewing, Children’s Costume, p. 97.
70 For more detailed account of Alice as a symbol of Victorian adolescence, see Driscoll, Girls,
pp. 42–6.
71 Japanese singers who have performed a song about Alice include: Yoshimi Iwasaki, My Name
is Alice (1980); Seiko Matsuda, Alice in Time-Land (1984); Asami Kobayashi, Lolita Go Home
(1984); Shoko Nakagawa, Through the Looking-Glass (2008).
72 Oricon Style Website [http://www.oricon.co.jp/prof/artist/198535/ranking/cd_single/].
73 Marquee, 71, 2009, pp. 50–1.
74 Although the differences are now blurring.
75 Kawase adapts the imagery of Alice again in 2009. In the music videos of her song Wait For
Me There (from the album I Kill My Heart), she, as both Tommy Heavenly and February, is
seen dressed almost exactly like Disney’s Alice. Kawase dresses slightly differently in the
February version and Heavenly version.
76 Carol Vernallis, Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2004), p. 3.
77 Vernallis, Experiencing Music Video, p. 101.
78 Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (New York: The Viking Press, 1978), p. 427.
79 Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes, p. 387.
80 Clare Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750 (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd, 1989), p. 131.
81 Hiromi Tsuchiya Dollase, ‘Kawabata’s Wartime Message in Beautiful Voyage (Utsukushii
tabi)’, in R. Hutchinson (ed.), Negotiating Censorship in Modern Japan (Abingdon and New
York: Routledge, 2013), p. 80.
82 Rose, Children’s Clothes, pp.126–7.
83 It should be noted that in Victorian times, working-class women and women at costume balls
did wear short skirts. See Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty
from the Victorian Era to the Jazz Age (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985),
p. 114.
84 Roland Barthes, ‘The Disease of Costume’, in Critical Essays, trans. R. Howard (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1972), p. 46.
85 White, Material Child, pp. 123, 185; See also Laura Miller’s comment in Patrick St Michel,
‘For Japan’s Justin Biebers, No Selena Gomezes Allowed’, The Atlantic, 15 August 2012.
86 Toby Slade, Japanese Fashion: A Cultural History (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009), pp.
115–16.
87 James Welker, ‘From The Cherry Orchard to Sakura no sono: Translation and the
Transfiguration of Gender and Sexuality in Shōjo Manga’, in T. Aoyama and B. Hartley (eds),
Girl Reading Girl in Japan (New York: Routledge, 2009), p. 168. See also Honda, Hirahira, p.
34.
88 Justin Wyatt, ‘Weighing the Transgressive Star Body of Shelley Duval’, in E. Meehan and E.
R. Riordan (eds), Sex and Money: Feminism and Political Economy in the Media
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002), p.155.
89 It is noteworthy that Kimura has stated that her ‘muse’ is Twiggy. Indeed, Kimura has short
hair, which is reminiscent of Twiggy’s short, androgynous haircut, making a contrast to the
long hair displayed by the other two performers.
90 White, Material Child, p. 172.
91 Jeffrey J. Arnett, ‘The Sounds of Sex: Sex in Teens’ Music and Music Videos’, in J. D. Brown
et al. (eds), Sexual Teens, Sexual Media: Investigating Media’s Influence on Adolescent
Sexuality (Mahwah: L. Erlbaum, 2002), p. 256.
92 Christenson and Roberts, 1998, cited in Arnett, ‘The Sounds of Sex’, p. 257.
93 L. M. Ward et al., ‘Contributions of Music Video Exposure to Black Adolescents’ Gender and
Sexual Schemas’, Journal of Adolescent Research, 20(2), 2005, p. 144.
94 M. Tiggemann and A. S. Pickering, ‘Role of Television in Adolescent Women’s Body
Dissatisfaction and Drive for Thinness’, International Journal of Eating Disorders, 20(2),
1996, p. 200.
95 J. Anderson, cited in Martin, Brough and Orrego, Get It On, 2004.
96 S. Burman, cited in Get It On, 2004.
97 McRobbie, ‘The Rise and Rise of Porno Chic’; Linda Duits and Liesbet van Zoonen,
‘Headscarves and Porn-chic: Disciplining Girls’ Bodies in the European Multicultural
Society’, European Journal of Women’s Studies, 13(2), 2006, p. 112.
98 Feona Attwood, ‘Pornography and Objectification: Re-reading “the Picture that Divided
Britain”’, Feminist Media Studies, 4(1), 2004, p. 14.
99 Amy Wilkins, ‘So Full of Myself as a Chick: Goth Women, Sexual Independence, and Gender
Egalitarianism’, Gender & Society, 18(3), 2004, pp. 328–49; McRobbie, ‘The Rise and Rise of
Porno Chic’.
100 Lauraine Leblanc, Pretty in Punk: Girls’ Gender Resistance in a Boys’ Subculture (New
Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 2001).
101 Duits and van Zoonen, ‘Headscarves and Porn-chic’, p. 111.
102 Duits and van Zoonen, ‘Headscarves and Porn-chic’, p. 111.
103 Duits and van Zoonen, ‘Headscarves and Porn-chic’, p. 111.
104 Duits and van Zoonen, ‘Headscarves and Porn-chic’, p. 111.
105 For the criticism of kawaii, see, for example; Koga, Kawaii, pp. 206–7; Kimiko Akita,
‘Cuteness: The Sexual Commodification of Women in the Japanese Media’, in T. Carilli and J.
Campbell (eds), Women and the Media (Lanham: University Press of America, 2005, pp. 44–
57).
106 Anne Cooper-Chen and Miiko Kodama, Mass Communication in Japan (Ames: Iowa State
University Press, 1997), p. 20.
107 Brian Cogan and Gina Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity in Japanese Popular Music: 1980–
2000’, Popular Music and Society, 29(1), 2006, p. 82.
108 K. Schomer and Y. Chang, ‘The Cult of Cute’, Newsweek, 28 August 1995.
109 Deborah Merskin, ‘Reviving Lolita? A Media Literacy Examination of Sexual Portrayals of
Girls in Fashion Advertising’, American Behavioral Scientist, 41(1), 2004, p. 123.
110 Brooker, Alice’s Adventures, p. 90.
111 Brooker, Alice’s Adventures, p. 72.
112 Brooker, Alice’s Adventures, p. 64.
113 H. Haughton, ‘Introduction’, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-
Glass. London: Penguin. 1998, xli; Donald Serrell Thomas, Lewis Carroll: A Portrait with
Background (London: John Murray, 1996), p. 365.
114 Thomas, Lewis Carroll, p. 8.
115 Appel, quoting Nabokov, The Annotated Alice: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through
the Looking-Glass (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), p. 377.
116 Elizabeth Prioleau, ‘Humbert Humbert: Through the Looking Glass’, Twentieth Century
Literature, 21(4), 1975, p. 434.
117 Mary A. Knighton, ‘Down the Rabbit Hole: In Pursuit of Shōjo Alices from Lewis Carroll to
Kanai Mieko’, US-Japan Women’s Journal, 40, 2011, pp. 59–89.
118 See for example Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ Don’t Come Around Here No More (1985,
in which then 21-year-old actress Wish Foley played the role of Alice) and German industrial
rock band Oomph!’s Labyrinth (2008). Japanese rock band Buck-Tick’s music video to Alice
in Wonder Ground (2007) also offers a more sophisticated yet similar depiction of Alice. In
British duo Erasure’s Breath of Life (1991), an adolescent, sylphlike Alice takes the role of the
white rabbit.
119 Sō-en, October 2007, p. 41.
120 See, for example, White, Material Child, p. 126; McVeigh, Wearing Ideology, p. 146.
121 By Wagnerian I mean very loud.
122 Kinsella, Cuties, p. 243.
123 Joan Riviere, ‘Womanliness as Masquerade’, in A. Hughes (ed.), The Inner World and Joan
Riviere: Collected Papers: 1920–58 (London: Karnac Books, 1991 [1929]).
124 McVeigh, Wearing Ideology, p. 143.
125 The term ‘idol’ ‘has a specific meaning in Japan different from the one that native English
speakers know. Generally speaking, idols are young performers targeted at teenagers. In
addition to their youthfulness, they usually sing bubble-gum pop and their physical
attractiveness is a very important ingredient of their ‘idolness’. See Philip Brasor and Masako
Tsubuku, ‘Idol Chatter: The Evolution of J-Pop’, Japan Quarterly, 44(2), 1997, p. 55.
126 Cogan and Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity’, pp. 73–4.
127 Cogan and Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity’, p. 82.
128 Cogan and Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity’, p. 71.
129 Carolyn Stevens, Japanese Popular Music: Culture, Authenticity, and Power (London and
New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 53.
130 Cogan and Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity’, p. 82.
131 Alisa Mizuki official website, http://www.avexnet.or.jp/alisa/special/history_dvd. [Last
accessed 2 July 2014]
132 Alisa Mizuki official website, [Last accessed 17 May 2014].
133 Cogan and Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity’, p. 85.
134 Cogan and Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity’, p. 74.
135 Cogan and Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity’, p. 85.
136 Cogan and Cogan, ‘Gender and Authenticity’, p. 85.
137 Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen, Reading Images (London and New York: Routledge,
1996), p. 126.
138 SWITCH, 23(8), 2005, p. 107.
139 EYESCREAM, February 2007, pp. 30–1.
140 Miller, Burikko, p. 155.
141 Marquee, 50, 2005, p. 17.
142 Marquee, 71, 2009, pp. 52–4.
143 Miller, Burikko, p. 156.
144 Ewing, Children’s Costume, p. 94.
145 Hollander, Clothes, pp. 374, 380.
146 Stella Bruzzi, Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies (London and New
York: Routledge, 1997), p. xvii.
147 Duits and van Zoonen, ‘Headscarves and Porn-chic,’ p. 111.
148 Diane Reay, ‘“Spice Girls,” “Nice Girls,” “Girlies,” and “Tomboys”: Gender Discourses, Girls’
Cultures and Femininities in the Primary Classroom’, Gender and Education, 13(2), 2001, p.
 163.

5. Ribbons and lace: girls, decorative femininity

and androgyny
1 Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (London: Penguin Books, 2000 [1934]), p. 10.
2 From the film dialogue, translated by Masafumi Monden.
3 Clare Hughes, Dressed in Fiction (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2006), p. 7.
4 Valerie Steele, Gothic: Dark Glamor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 73.
5 Masafumi Monden, ‘The Nationality of Lolita Fashion’, in F. Nakamura, M. Perkins and O.
Krischer (eds), Asia Through Art and Anthropology (London and New York: Bloomsbury,
2013), p. 166.
6 For different styles of Lolita, see Monden, ‘The Nationality of Lolita’, pp. 166–7; K. A. Hardy
Bernal, ‘Japanese Lolita: Challenging Sexualized Style and the Little Girl Look’, in S. Tarraant
and M. Jolles (eds), Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 2012), p. 118; Laura Miller, ‘Cute Masquerade and the Pimping of Japan’,
International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 20, 2011, p. 21.
7 Kyoko Fukada in Shimotsuma Story (Tokyo: Pia, 2004), p. 110.
8 Kyoko Fukada in Shimotsuma Story, p. 112.
9 Tiffany Godoy, Style Deficient Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion Tokyo (San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 2007), p. 144.
10 Vera Mackie, ‘Transnational Bricolage: Gothic Lolita and the Political Economy of Fashion’,
Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific, 20, April 2009.
11 Valerie Steele, Japan Fashion Now (New York: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 34.
12 It is significant that the childlike doll of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century
often led or acted as a trendsetter of contemporary fashion (Peers, 2004: 78).
13 Toby Slade, Japanese Fashion: A Cultural History (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009), p.
101.
14 Ulrich Lehmann, ‘Walter Benjamin’, in V. Steele (ed.), Berg Companion to Fashion (London
and New York: Berg, 2010), p. 69.
15 Street Mode Kenkyukai, ‘History of Baby, The Stars Shine Bright’, in STREET MODE BOOK
(Tokyo: Graphic-sha, 2007), p. 66.
16 Masuko Honda, ‘The Genealogy of Hirahira: Liminality and the Girl’, in Tomoko Aoyama and
Barbara Hartley (eds), Girl Reading Girl in Japan, trans. T. Aoyama and B. Hartley (New
York: Routledge. 2010), pp. 28, 35. I thank Dr Lucy Fraser for making the link between
Honda’s theory and Lolita fashion.
17 Margaret Maynard, Dress and Globalization (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004),
p. 22.
18 Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, official website:
http://www.babyssb.co.jp/shopping/baby/onepiece/134317.html. [accessed 16 May 2012].
19 Peter McNeil, ‘The Appearance of Enlightenment: Refashioning the Elites’, in M. Fitzpatrick,
P. Jones, C. Knellwolf and I. McCalmn (eds), The Enlightenment World (Oxfordshire and New
York: Routledge, 2004), p. 384.
20 Valerie Steele, Paris Fashion: A Cultural History (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2nd ed.,
1998), p. 35.
21 Innocent World, official website: http://innocent-w.jp/shopping/093709/index.html.
22 Aileen Ribeiro, ‘Fashion in the Eighteenth Century: Some Anglo-French Comparisons’, Textile
History, 22(2), 1991, p. 331.
23 Aileen Ribeiro, Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe 1715–1789 (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 2002 [1985]), p. 140.
24 Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era to the
Jazz Age (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 65. The robe à la
polonaise in the 1770s with the skirt bustled at the back was considered just as practical.
25 Slade, Japanese Fashion, p. 100.
26 E. Ewing, History of Children’s Costume (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd. 1977), p. 96; Steele,
Victorian, p. 114.
27 Clare Rose, Children’s Clothes Since 1750 (London: B. T. Batsford Ltd. 1989), pp. 126–7.
28 KERA MANIAX, 13, 2009, p. 16.
29 Isaac Gagné, ‘Urban Princesses: Performance and “Women’s Language” in Japan’s
Gothic/Lolita Subculture’, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 18(1) (2008), p. 134.
30 Ribeiro, Dress, p. 136.
31 For the link between Japanese girls’ culture and ballet costumes, see Masafumi Monden,
‘Layers of the Ethereal’, Fashion Theory 18(3), 2014, pp. 251–96.
32 Street Mode Kenkyukai, ‘History of Baby, The Stars Shine Bright’, p. 69.
33 Steele, Victorian, p. 3.
34 Thorstein Veblen, cited in Michale Carter, Fashion Classics: From Carlyle to Barthes (New
York and Oxford: Berg, 2003), p. 48.
35 Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1975
[1949]), p. 543; James Laver, 1950, cited in Carter, Fashion Classics, p. 137.
36 See, for example Marnina Gonick, ‘Between “Girl Power” and “Reviving Ophelia”:
Constituting the Neoliberal Girl Subject’, NWSA Journal, 18(2), 2006, pp. 15–16.
37 P. J. Bettis and N. G. Adams, ‘Landscape of Girlhood’, in P. J. Bettis and N. G. Adams (eds),
Geographies of Girlhood: Identities In-between (Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates),
2005, p. 11.
38 Catharine Lumby, ‘Watching Them Watching Us: The Trouble with Teenage Girls’,
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 15(1), 2001, pp. 49–55.
39 Sharon R. Mazzarella and Norma O. Pecora, ‘Girls in Crisis: Newspaper Coverage of
Adolescent Girls’, Journal of Communication Inquiry, 31(1), 2007, pp. 6–27.
40 Diane Reay, ‘“Spice Girls”, “Nice Girls”, “Girlies”, and “Tomboys”: Gender Discourses, Girls’
Cultures and Femininities in the Primary Classroom’, Gender and Education, 13(2), 2001.
41 Drucilla Cornell, At the Heart of Freedom: Feminism, Sex, and Equality (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1998), p. 16.
42 Sheila Jeffreys, Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West (London and
New York: Routledge, 2005), p. 87.
43 Suzanne Dorfield, ‘Brisbane “Lolitas” Change Fashion Landscape’, The Age, 5 November
2010; Masafumi Monden, ‘Transcultural Flow of Demure Aesthetics: Examining Cultural
Globalization through Gothic and Lolita Fashion’, New Voices, 2, 2008, pp. 21–40; Momo
Matsuura, Sekai to Watashi to Lolita Fashion (The World, Lolita Fashion and I) (Tokyo:
Seikyu-sha, 2007).
44 Steele, Japan, p. 48.
45 Godoy, Style, p. 144.
46 Monden, ‘Transcultural Flow of Demure Aesthetics’, p. 28.
47 Godoy, Style, p. 135.
48 For more detailed accounts on ethnographic study of Lolitas, see Isaac Gagné, ‘Bracketed
Adolescence: Unpacking Gender and Youth Subjectivity through Subcultural Fashion in Late-
Capitalist Japan’ (Japan), and Sophia Staite, ‘Femme Infantile: Australian Lolitas in Theory
and Practice’ (Australia), both in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific,
32, 2013. Available at http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue32_contents.htm [last accessed 2
February 2014].
49 Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity (London: I. B. Tauris, 1985), p.
224.
50 Llewyen Negrin, ‘The Self as Image: A Critical Appraisal of Postmodern Theories of Fashion’,
Theory, Culture & Society, 16(3), 1999, p. 106.
51 Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (New York: The Viking Press, 1978), p. 339.
52 Joanne Entwistle, The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), p. 158.
53 Steele, Victorian, p. 3.
54 Steele, Victorian, p. 91.
55 Steele, Victorian, p. 91.
56 B. G. Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), p. 79.
57 Smith, Ladies of the Leisure Class, p. 55.
58 Steele, Victorian, p. 4.
59 Steele, Victorian, p. 4.
60 Steele, Victorian, p. 143.
61 Steele, Victorian, pp. 93–4.
62 Anne Allison, ‘Sailor Moon: Japanese Superheroes for Global Girls’, in T. J. Craig (ed.), Japan
Pop! (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), p. 275.
63 See, for example, Allison, ‘Sailor Moon’; Susan J. Napier, ‘Vampires, Psychic Girls, Flying
Women and Sailor Scouts: Four Faces of the Young Female in Japanese Popular Culture’, in D.
P. Martinez (ed.), The World of Japanese Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998), pp. 91–109.
64 Allison, ‘Sailor Moon’, p. 275.
65 For some participants of Lolita fashion, the film and Takemoto’s original novel do not offer an
accurate portrayal of the fashion. Some of them are also critical of these texts’ stereotypical
representation of a young woman who is devoted to Lolita fashion (see, for example;
Matsuura, Sekai, pp. 14–15). The film has been received more favourably by Lolitas outside
Japan. See Sophia Staite, ‘Lolita: Atemporal Class Play with Tea and Cakes’, MA Thesis
(University of Tasmania, 2012), p. 51.
66 In this chapter, I focus mainly on the film version of Shimotsuma Monogatari because of its
intricate position between mainstream and cult films. I believe the film is a significant example
of a cult-theme brought into the mainstream cultural arena, and has acquired both popularity
and recognition.
67 The Ibaraki Prefecture is located in the northeast of the Kantō region on Honshū island.
68 As Ikuya Satō (1991: 108) notes, the origin of the word yankee, which is used to describe
delinquent youth in Japanese culture, is unknown, and a certain analogy between a yankee and
a bōsōzoku (bikie gang) is sometimes assumed. That is the case in Kamikaze Girls.
69 Steele, Japan, p. 29.
70 One of the notable characteristics of bōsōzoku costumes is tokkōfuku, a jacket with long hems
upon which a ‘group name is usually sewn with gold or silver thread on the backs of tokkōfuku
jackets. It may also be stitched into the upper sleeve or onto the upper left pocket’ (Satō, 1991:
63). Such embroidery often used ‘complicated Chinese characters with multiple meanings,
much as American fraternity boys use Greek letters to create a sense of mystery and
exclusivity’ (Steele, 2010: 30). Steele (2010: 29) argues that ‘their “outrageous paraphernalia”
is intended primarily to enhance their tough image’.
71 Negrin, ‘The Self as Image’, p. 111.
72 Llewyen Negrin, Appearance and Identity: Fashioning the Body in Postmodernity (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 30.
73 Negrin, Appearance and Identity, p. 31.
74 Elizabeth Wilson, ‘Fashion and Postmodern Body’, in J. Ash and E. Wilson (eds), Chic Thrills:
A Fashion Reader (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 8–9.
75 Ikuya Satō, Kamikaze Biker: Parody and Anomy in Affluent Japan (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1991), p. 110.
76 Georg Simmel, ‘The Philosophy of Fashion’, trans. K. H. Wolff in D. Frisby and M.
Featherstone (eds), Simmel on Culture (London: Sage Publications, 1997 [1905]), p. 191.
77 Carter, Fashion Classics, p. 47.
78 Carter, Fashion Classics, p. 48.
79 Ribeiro, Dress, p. 165.
80 Ribeiro, Dress, p. 136.
81 Ribeiro, Dress, p. 53.
82 Steele, Paris, pp. 24–5.
83 Stephen Jones, The Eighteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 17.
84 Melissa Hyde, Making Up the Rococo: François Boucher and His Critics (Los Angeles: Getty
Publications, 2006), p. 92.
85 Daniel Roche, ‘Popular Dress’, in P. McNeil (ed.), Fashion: Critical and Primary Sources the
Eighteenth Century (Oxford and New York: Berg. 2009), p. 90.
86 Kamikaze Girls US official website: www.kamikazegirls.net/interviews.html [accessed 24
April 2008].
87 Tetsuya Nakashima, ‘Cinema’, in Men’s non-no, June 2006, p. 147.
88 See, for example; Catherine Driscoll, Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture and
Cultural Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002); Gina Fournier, Thelma and
Louise and Women in Hollywood (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2007), pp. 375–6.
89 Contrary to the original novel’s depiction of Ryūji, he is portrayed (intentionally) as very
comical if not ridiculous in the film. This is via visual elements such as his fashion sense and
especially his highly exaggerated ‘rockabilly’ hairstyle.
90 Merry White, Material Child (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1993), p.
194.
91 de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, p. 543. The original novel portrays Momoko’s dislike of boys
and men at an almost ‘pathological’ level. This point is made clear in Mackie’s analysis of the
novel (2010). In the film this part is almost omitted completely.
92 Honda, Hirahira, p. 34. See also Mackie, ‘Transnational Bricolage’.
93 Stella Bruzzi, Undressing Cinema: Clothing and Identity in the Movies (London and New
York: Routledge, 1997), p. 14.
94 James Laver (1950), cited in Carter, Fashion Classics, p. 137.
95 Slade, Japanese Fashion, pp. 115–16.
96 I thank Dr Fuyubi Nakamura and Dr Olivier Krischer for suggesting this point.
97 Laura Miller, Beauty Up: Exploring Contemporary Japanese Body Aesthetics (Berkeley, Los
Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2006), p. 78.
98 Yukari Fujimoto, Watashi no ibasho wa doko ni aru no? Shojo manga ga utsusu kokoro no
katachi (Where Do I Belong? The Shape of the Geart as Reflected in Girls’ Comic Books)
(Tokyo: Gakuyo Shobo, 1998), pp. 177–89.
99 In many cases, these girls are long-separated sisters, and their romantic feelings are thus
justified as sisterly affections.
100 My aim here is to use the terms ‘masculinity’ and ‘femininity’ as codes to describe certain
attributes and activities that are conventionally believed to be, but are not necessarily,
associated with either gender.
101 For further reading on the rarity of female bonding in mainstream Hollywood cinema, see
Fournier, Thelma and Louise; Barry Keith Grant, Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology
(London: Wallflower Press, 2007), p. 81; Karen Hollinger, ‘From Female Friends to Literary
Ladies: The Contemporary Woman’s Film’, in S. Neal (ed.), Genre and Contemporary
 Hollywood (London: British Film Institute, 2002), pp. 77–90; Michael O’Shaughnessy, Media
and Society: An Introduction (South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 98.
102 O’Shaughnessy, Media and Society, p. 98.
103 Hollinger, ‘From Female Friends’, p. 79.
104 See, for example; Shun Nakahara’s Sakura no sono (The Cherry Orchard, 1990), Nami
Iguchi’s InuNeko (Dogs and Cats, 2004), Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Linda Linda Linda (2005) and
Yuichi Sato’s Simsons (2006).
105 DVD commentary included in Shimotsuma Mnogatari (2004).
106 C. Springer, 2005, p. 89 cited in Sarah Gilligan, ‘Becoming Neo: Costume and Transforming
Masculinity in the Matrix Films’, in P. McNeil, V. Karaminas and C. Cole (eds), Fashion in
Fiction (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009), p. 154.
107 V. Karaminas, 2005, p. 6, cited in Gilligan, ‘Becoming Neo’, p. 153.
108 R. Reynolds, 1994, p. 32, cited in Gilligan, ‘Becoming Neo’, p. 153.
109 Friedrich Weltzien, ‘Masque-ulinities: Changing Dress as a Display of Masculinity in the
Superhero Genre’, Fashion Theory, 9(2), 2005, p. 243.
110 Weltzien, ‘Masque-ulinities’, p. 243.
111 Judith Butler, ‘Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions’, in S. Salih and J. Butler (eds),
The Judith Butler Reader (Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 2004 [1990]), p. 111.
112 Needless to say, aggression is not restricted to men in reality. Yet it is often (stereotypically)
perceived as ‘masculine’ particularly in contemporary popular culture.
113 Weltzien, ‘Masque-ulinities’, p. 238.
114 Entwistle, The Fashioned Body, p. 158.
115 Diane Crane, The Production of Culture: Media and the Urban Arts (Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Publications, 1992); Robert C. Bulman, Hollywood Goes to High School: Cinema, Schools,
and American Culture (New York: Worth Publishing, 2005).
116 Joanne Finkelstein, After a Fashion (Carlton South, Victoria: Melbourne University Press,
1996), p. 36.
117 One-ko is a pun. It is a slang for a dog in Japanese while the name of the heroine, Ichiko, is
written as , which can be pronounced as wan( is one in Japanese)-ko ( ). One-ko is
thus her nickname in the story.
118 In the original novel of Yasutaka Tsutsui, published in 1978, the principal character was a
young man, not a young woman.
119 Morimoto writes in the first volume that she merely wanted to create a heroine who is dressed
in a frilly dress, and wanted to place her in the least likely workplace where men would feel
uneasy about working with such a female colleague.
120 Sō-en, February 2011, p. 35.
121 Kumiko Uehara, interviewed by Valerie Steele, March 2010, in Steele, Japan, p. 38.
122 Julie Singer, Androgyny: Toward a New Theory of Sexuality (New York: Anchor Press, 1976),
p. 22.
123 Singer, Androgyny, p. 27.
124 Elémire Zolla, The Androgyne: Reconciliation of Male and Female (New York: Cross Road,
1981), p. 15.
125 Sandra L. Bem, ‘Sex Role Adaptability: One Consequence of Psychological Androgyny’,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 31(4), 1975, pp. 634–43.
126 Bem, ‘Sex Role Adaptability’, pp. 635, 643.
127 Carrie Paechter, ‘Masculine Femininities/Feminine Masculinities: Power, Identities and
Gender’, Gender and Education, 18(3), p. 254; Cornell, At the Heart of Freedom, p. 80.
128 Paechter, ‘Masculine Femininities’, p. 261.
129 Sandra L. Bem, The Lenses of Gender: Transforming the Debate on Sexual Inequality (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), p. 146.
130 Negrin, Appearance and Identity, p. 148; Anne Hollander, Feeding the Eye (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), p. 157.
131 Hollander, Feeding the Eye, pp. 153, 157.
132 Negrin, ‘The Self as Image’, p. 102.
133 Steele, Victorian, p. 143.

6. An Ivy boy and a preppy girl: style import-

export
1 For more reading on the Ivy style, see Patricia Mears (ed.), Ivy Style: Radical Conformist (New
York: Yale University Press, 2012).
2 Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams (London: Virago, 1985), p. 3.
3 Ulrich Lehmann, Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), p.
9.
 4 Richard Press, an interview with Christian Chensvold, in Mears, Ivy Style: Radical Conformist,
p. 90.
5 Press, Ivy Style, p. 80.
6 Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’, in M.
Featherstone, S. Lash and R. Robertson (eds), Global Maternities (London: Sage Publications,
1994), p. 34; Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange (Maryland:
Roman & Littlefield Publishers, 2004).
7 David Colman, ‘The All-American Back From Japan’, The New York Times, 17 June 2009
(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/fashion/18codes.html?pagewanted=print) [last accessed
6 April 2014].
8 J. Pompeo, ‘Trad Men’, The New York Observer, 8 September 2009
(http://www.observer.com/2009/fashion/trad-men) [last accessed 6 April 2014].
9 W. David Marx, ‘The Man Who Brought Ivy To Japan’, Ivy Style, 31 August 2010.
(http://www.Ivy-style.com/the-man-who-brought-Ivy-to-japan.html).
10 T. Hayashida, S. Ishizu, T. Kurosu and H. Hasegawa, Take Ivy (New York: powerHouse Books,
2010 [1965]), p. 66.
11 Valerie Steele, Japan Fashion Now (New York: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 13.
12 Colman, ‘The All-American’.
13 Colman, ‘The All-American’.
14 Madoka Yamazaki, ‘Preppi to iu koto’ (About Being a Preppy), en-Taxi, 31 (2010), p. 162.
15 Keita Fukasawa ‘Men’s ni manabu Trad kouza’ (The Lecture on Trad Style Learning through
Men’s Fashion), Numéro Tokyo, 41 (November 2010), pp. 64–5.
16 Colman, ‘The All-American’.
17 Kensuke Ishizu, Itsumo zero kara no shuppatsudatta (I Always Made My Start from Nothing)
(Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Centre, 2010), p. 66.
18 Ishizu, Itsumo zero, pp. 77–8.
19 Leonard Koren, New Fashion Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1984), p. 78.
20 Ken’ichiro Hirano, ‘The Westernization of Clothes and the State in Meiji Japan’, in K. Hirano
(ed.), The State and Cultural Transformation: Perspectives from East Asia (Tokyo: United
Nations University Press, 1993), p. 128.
21 Yumiko Mikanagi, Masculinity and Japan’s Foreign Relations (Boulder and London: First
Forum Press, 2011), p. 28. As Mikanagi (2011: 26) writes, bankara is ‘a play on the word
haikara, with “ban” meaning barbarous’.
22 Steele, Japan Fashion Now, p. 9.
23 Mikanagi, Masculinity and Japan’s Foreign Relations, p. 45.
24 Mikanagi, Masculinity and Japan’s Foreign Relations, p. 29.
25 Pieterse, Culture and Globalization, p. 72.
26 The cover images of Men’s Club from 1954 to 1964 are available from Ishizu Kensuke
daihyakka (Encyclopedia of Kensuke Ishizu), available at
http://www.ishizu.jp/gallery3/work3/w11_3/w11main3_2.html [last accessed 6 February
2014].
27 Yoichi Akagi, Heibon Punch 1964 (Tokyo: Heibon-sha, 2004), pp. 112–13.
28 Across Editorial Office (ed.), Street Fashion 1945–1995 (Tokyo: Parco, 1995), pp. 86–8.
29 Across Editorial Office (ed.), Street Fashion, p. 88.
30 Across Editorial Office (ed.), Street Fashion, p. 184.
31 Kobe is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture on the southern side of the main island of Honshū,
Island. Yokohama is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture, located about 30 km from central
Tokyo.
32 Kazuo Hozumi, IVY Illustrated: Gals (Tokyo: Aiiku-sha, 2003 [1980]), p. 174.
33 Across Editorial Office (ed.), Street Fashion, p. 216.
34 Across Editorial Office (ed.), Street Fashion, p. 216.
35 Across Editorial Office (ed.), Street Fashion, pp. 228–9.
36 Fineboys, December 2007, p. 13.
37 Daniel D. Hill, American Menswear: From the Civil War to the Twenty-first Century (Texas:
Texas Tech University Press, 2011), p. 215.
38 Hayashida et al., Take Ivy, p. 66.
39 Kazuo Hozumi, IVY Illustrated (Tokyo: Aiiku-sha, 2003 [1980]), p. 188.
40 Guy Trebay, ‘Prep, Forward and Back’, The New York Times, 23 July 2010
(http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/fashion/25Prep.html) [last accessed 6 April 2014].
41 Hayashida et al., Take Ivy, p. 66.
42 Hozumi, Ivy, p. 134.
43 Hayashida et al., Take Ivy, p. 58.
44 Hozumi, Ivy, p. 126.
45 Hozumi, Ivy, p. 49.
46 Hozumi, Ivy, p. 10.
47 See for example Popeye, December 2006, p. 96.
48 Yamazaki, ‘Preppi’, p. 162.
49 Ishizu, Itsumo zero, p. 21.
50 Hozumi, Ivy, p. 51.
51 Colman, ‘The All-American’.
52 Colman, ‘The All-American’.
53 Mears, Ivy Style, p. 158.
54 Both in and outside Japan, American traditional styles for women tend to be called ‘preppy’
rather than ‘Ivy’.
55 The Ivy style for ‘gals’, according to Hozumi, is the one embraced by students of the ‘Seven
Sisters’, seven liberal arts colleges in the Northeastern United States. They are Barnard
College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College,
Vassar College and Wellesley College. Historically these are women’s colleges. For references
to fashion, femininity and Radcliffe students, see Deirdre Clemente, ‘“Prettier Than They Used
to Be”: Femininity, Fashion, and the Recasting of Radcliffe’s Reputation, 1900–1950’, The
New England Quarterly, 82(4), 2009, pp. 637–66.
56 Hayashida et al., Take Ivy, p. 126.
57 Hozumi, Ivy, p. 39.
58 Keiko Okamura, Gurohbaru shakai no ibunka-ron (Cross-cultural Theory in Global Societies)
(Kyoto: Sekaishiso-sha, 2003), pp. 137–49.
59 Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era to the
Jazz Age (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 246.

7. Concluding Japanese fashion cultures, change

and continuity
1 Ulrich Lehmann, Tigersprung: Fashion in Modernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000), p.
9.
2 Joanne Entwistle, The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory
(Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), p. 186.
3 Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism: Ideals of Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era to the
Jazz Age (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 247.
4 Chris Barker, Television, Globalization and Cultural Identities (Buckingham and Philadelphia:
Open University Press, 1999), p. 43.
5 Roland Robertson, ‘Glocalization: Time-Space and Homogeneity-Heterogeneity’, in M.
Featherstone, S. Lash and R. Robertson (eds), Global Maternities (London: Sage Publications,
1994), p. 34.
6 Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange (Maryland: Roman &
Littlefield Publishers, 2004), pp. 72–3.
7 Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits (New York: Knopf, 1994), pp. 6, 11.
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v. Films
Alice in Wonderland. Walt Disney Pictures, directed by Tim Burton, starring Johnny Depp, Mia
Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter. 2010, USA.
Knight and Day. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, directed by James Mangold, starring Tom
Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard. 2010, USA.
Orphée. Andre Paulve Film, Films du Palais Royal, directed by Jean Cocteau, starring Jean Marais,
François Périer, María Casares, Marie Déa. 1950, France.
Plein Soleil (Purple Noon). Robert et Raymond Hakim, Paris Film, directed by René Clément,
starring Alain Delon, Marie Laforêt, Maurice Ronet. 1960, France and Italy, based on the novel by
Patricia Highsmith, 1955.
Shimotsuma Monogatari (Kamikaze Girls). Toho, directed by Tetsuya Nakashima, starring Kyoko
Fukuda, Anna Tsuchiya, based on the novel by Novala Takemoto. 2004, Japan.
Taxi Driver. Columbia Pictures Corporation, directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro,
Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd. 1976, USA.
Thelma and Louise. MGM, directed by Ridley Scott, starring Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis, Harvey
Keitel. 1991, USA.

vi. Music video clips

February, Tommy. ‘Bloomin’!’. 2003.
Kimura, Kaela. ‘Snowdome’. 2007.
Lavigne, Avril. ‘Alice’. Dir. Dave Meyers. 2010.
Mizuki, Alisa. ‘Eden no machi’ (Town of Eden). 1991.
Oomph!. ‘Labyrinth’. 2008.
Perry, Katy. ‘California Gurls’. Dir. Mathew Cullen. 2010.
Stefani, Gwen. ‘What You Waiting For?’. Dir. Francis Lawrence. 2004.
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Deka One-ko (Detective One-ko). Japan. Nippon Television. Starring Mikako Tabe, Yuya Tegoshi,
Ikki Sawamura. 2011.
Fugo Keiji (Millionaire Detective). First Season. Japan. Televi-Asahi. Starring Kyoko Fukada, Shinji
Yamashita, Isao Natsuyagi. 2005.
Martin, M., Brough, B. and Orrego, P. Get It On (Documentary), Canada, Chuma Television, 2004.

viii. Novels
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Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. London: Penguin.
1998.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. London: Vintage
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Lady Murasaki, Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji), trans. A. Waley, volume 1, London: George
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Rhys, Jean. Voyage in the Dark. London: Penguin Books. 2000 [1934].
Takemoto, Novala. Shimotsuma Monogatari (Kamikaze Girls). Tokyo: Shōgakkan. 2004 [2002].

ix. Japanese Manga (comic books)

Morimoto, Kozueko. Deka One-ko (Detective One-ko). Volumes 1–8, Tokyo: Kōdan-sha. 2008–
present.
Oshima, Yumiko. Banana Bread no Pudding (Banana Bread Pudding). Tokyo: Hakusen sha. 1995
[1977–8].
x. Periodicals
an an (2010)
Brutus (2012)
CanCam (2007, 2010)
Choki Choki (2010–11)
CUTiE (2010)
EYESCREAM (2007)
Fineboys (2006–11)
GQ Australia (2010)
KERA MANIAX (2007–10)
Marquee (2005–10)
Men’s non-no (2006–11)
non-no (2007, 2010)
Numéro Tokyo (2008, 2010)
Popeye (2006–11)
Sō-En (2004–10)
spoon (2013)
SWITCH (2005)
Zipper (2006–10)
 INDEX

Abe, Sadao 125

Akimoto, Ryutaro 63, 71
Alexander, Susan M 27, 33, 53, 159n. 41
Alice in Wonderland (Burton) 99, 130
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll) 2, 15, 76–8
and a sense of agency 87–8,
and fashion 86, 88
and Lolita fashion 109
and music videos (Anglo-western) 98–100 see also Kawase, Tomoko, Kimura, Kaela, Mizuki,
Alisa
Disney adaptation 86, 88–91
in Japan 86–7, 151
Jan Švankmajer’s adaptation 86,
Under Ground (Carroll) 88
see also Lolita (Nabokov)
Allison, Anne
female superheroes 9, 117, 130
American music video
sexualized contents 94–5
androgyny 5
female 94, 109, 132–3, 151, 171n. 89
male 9, 34, 45, 52–3, 57–8, 68–9
Angelic Pretty (fashion label) 131, 149
Aoki, Misako 112
Aoyama, Tomoko 36
Appadurai, Arjun 51
Arena 26
Attwood, Feona 95
Austen, Jane
Northanger Abbey 17–18

Baby, The Stars Shine Bright 109–10, 115, 149

Elizabeth dress 119
see also Lolita fashion
bankara 138–9, 143, 181n. 21
Bardsley, Jan 61
Barry, Madame du 122
Barthes, Roland
The Diseases of Costume 93
Beardsley, Aubrey 61
Beat Crusaders 102
Beaton, Cecil
on Edwardian Dandyism 60
Bem, Sandra L.
on androgyny 132–3,
on gender construction 24, 73, 158n. 28
Benjamin, Walter 110
Berndt, Jaqueline 82
Boni, Federico 34
Bordo, Susan
gender, gaze and discourse 35, 37, 41
on male models’ postures 31, 33–4
Boucher, François 111
Boyer, G. Bruce 23, 70
Breward, Christopher 12, 23
Bronfen, Elisabeth 12
Brooker, Will 87, 97
Brutus (magazine) 135, 141
Bruzzi, Stella 126
Bulman, Robert C.
on film theory 13, 131
burikko (feigned innocence) 85, 102
Butler, Judith 5–6, 108, 129–30
see also gender performativity

Carroll, Lewis 2, 77, 86–9, 97–9, 107, 109, 151

see also Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Carter, Michael 121
Chabernaud, Clément 75
Chiba, Yudai 71
Choki Choki 21, 26, 51, 73, 146, 163n. 16, 166n. 98
and amateur (dokusha) models 28, 54, 56, 159n. 49
Clammer, John
on Japanese men’s fashion magazines 19, 21
Cogan, Brian and Gina Cogan 102
Cole, Shaun 58
Colman, David 136, 144–5
Comme des Garcçons 64, 110
conceptions of nudity in Japan 55–7
Connery, Sean
From Russia with Love 140
Cooper, Bradley
masculine ideal 54
Crane, Diana 2, 13, 131
cultural globalization 10–12, 136, 150
CUTiE 146
Czarnecki, Melanie 85

D&G advertising campaign (menswear) 58–60

Daitō, Shunsuke
Fineboys model 49
Dalby, Liza 7–9
Darling-Wolf, Fabienne 33
Dasgupta, Romit
on ‘salaryman’ masculinity 59
de Beauvoir, Simone 126
Deka One-ko (Morimoto) 131, 179n. 119
dokusha (amateur) models 18, 27–8, 45, 49, 54, 65, 71, 112, 159n. 48, 159n. 49, 162n. 6
Dornan, Jamie
on Calvin Klein advertising campaign 55, 57
Douglas, (Lord) Alfred Bruce 61
Dress
representations and 12–14
gender stereotypes and 18
Driscoll, Catherine 84, 87
Duits, Linda and Liesbet van Zoonen 95, 104
Dworkin, Andrea
infantilization of young women 96, 100

Eck, Beth
on male nudity 55
Edwardian dandy 10, 60, 62, 69, 71, 144, 150
see also Neo-Edwardian dandy
Eicher, Joanne B. 6
Emily Temple Cute 87, 170n. 59
Entwistle, Joanne 23, 108, 116, 150
on male fashion models 29, 53
Ewing, Elizabeth 88, 111

femininity 5–6, 15, 73–4, 141

balancing between ‘modest’ and ‘sexualized’ femininity 96, 104
cross-cultural conceptions of 99
decorative 108, 114–15, 151
girlish 9, 78, 80, 93–4, 96, 100, 103–4, 121, 126; see also shōjo
negative conceptions of 95, 114–15
performance and 85, 127–32, 178n. 100
sexualization and 9, 15, 78, 85, 94–9, 104, 151
simultaneous denial of womanhood and emphasis of 94
Fineboys
see Japanese men’s fashion magazines
Finkelstein, Joanne 131
Flügel, J. C. 48, 75
Foucault, Michel
‘The Concern for Truth’ 48, 64, 72
Free & Easy 141
Freedman, Alisa
on schoolgirls in the early 1900s Japan 85
FRUiTS 1
Fugō Keiji 131
Fukada, Kyoko 109, 117, 126–7, 131
Fukumitsu, Megumi
on male slenderness in Japan 52

Gagné, Isaac 113

Gandhi, Leela
on colonialism 11
gender and the objectifying gaze
in Anglo-Western culture 35–6
in Japanese culture 36–8
gender distinction, sartorial 5, 6
gender performativity 5–6, 16, 108, 128–31
see also Butler, Judith
generation Y males
fashion consciousness and 23
glocalization (dochaku-ka) 59, 162, 168n. 15
Godoy, Tiffany 1, 64, 80
Gomarasca, Alessandro
on kawaii 80–1
GQ 26, 53, 56
Australian 40, 42
Greer, Germaine
on Anglo-Western culture’s perception of male beauty 35–6

Harada, Atsushi
Fineboys model 49
Harajuku 64, 71, 165n. 74
Heian period 4, 7
and the conception of human nudity 55–6
and cuteness (kawaii) 82
Heibon Punch (magazine) 21, 138, 142
Hello Kitty
embodiment of kawaii 78
Higa, Hiroto
Men’s non-no model 41–2
Hirano, Ken’ichiro 5
Hitomi (Okawa, Hitomi)
Milk 77, 79–80
Milkboy 64–6, 68–9; see also Milkboy
Hollander, Anne
dress and gender 6–7, 69, 89, 115, 133, 151–2
dress and nudity 55–6
dress and visualization 89
mirror 40
suits 62
Honda, Masuko
girlish (hirahira) aesthetics 82–3, 94, 110
Hozumi, Kazuo
Ivy Illustrated 3, 135, 143–5
see also Ivy style

idols
deemphasizing sexuality and 93
kawaii and 80, 96, 101
male 32
parody of 102–3
iki (elegant chic)
a link with dandyism 61
Innocent World
the pompadour bustle dress 111, 149
see also Lolita fashion
Ivy Illustrated see Hozumi, Kazuo
Ivy style 21
as elegant style 62
Ishizu, Kensuke 137–8, 142–4, 159, 181n. 26
miyuki zoku 138, 140
school style 142
 Take Ivy 136, 137, 143, 145, 147
Take Ivy and Ivy Illustrated 143–5
transcultural flow and 135–6, 150–1
VAN Jacket 137–8, 143, 147
women’s style 141, 145–7, 182n. 55

Jane Marple (fashion label) 86, 110

Japanese men’s fashion magazines
history of 21
age sensitivity 27–8
amateur (dokusha) models 27–8, 45, 49, 54, 65, 71, 162n. 6
average physical size of male models 53
conformity and individuality 29–31
content analysis 25–7
cross-cultural difference on appreciating slender male aesthetic 58–60
desires to attract admirers and increase self-confidence 72–5
elastic attitude towards beauty consumption 41–2
‘face-off’ posture 31–3, 36–7, 65
‘lean’ posture 33–7, 55, 58
negotiation of local/internationality 50
non-Asian/Eurasian models 48–9, 54
representations of women 26
slender male aesthetic 48
social affinity 29
‘wholesome’ masculinity 33, 35–7
Jeffreys, Sheila 115
Joan of Arc 130
Johnny’s & Associate (talent agency) 32, 50
Kimura, Takuya (SMAP) 38, 60
Okada, Jun’ichi (V6) 162n. 11
Sakurai, Sho (Arashi) 57
jojo-ga (lyrical illustrations) 83
Jones, Meredith
on globalized beauty standards 51
Jones, Stephen 122
jumeau (doll)
 and Lolita fashion 110, 174n. 12

Kaplan, E. Ann 35
kawaii (cute) aesthetics
and girls’ autonomy 85
as a revolt 100–4
criticism of 96
general/history 79–80
infantile kind 77
men and 64–5, 67–8
women and 77–8
Kawase, Tomoko (Tommy) 83, 90, 93, 102–3, 167n. 2, 170n. 75
‘Bloomin’!’ 77, 89, 91, 94, 100
Kawazoe, Fusae 4
Keene, Donald
on Japanese aesthetics 82, 168n. 28
Kenji
Milkboy 46, 63, 65–70
Kera MANIAX 112
Kika (Almodóvar) 126
kimonos 4, 144
gender and 7–8, 74, 126
hakama 4–5, 7, 154n. 18
obi 155n. 52
Kimura, Kaela 89, 91–4, 100–3
‘Snowdome’ 89, 92, 102
Kinsella, Sharon 86, 100
kireime (neat and conservative style) 20, 62, 141
Knight and Day (Mangold) 130
Knighton, Mary A. 98
Koga, Reiko 79
Koike, Eiko 125
Koike, Teppei 57
Koizumi, Kyoko
pop idol 79
Kress, Gunther and Theo Van Leeuwen
 on visual analysis 31
Kuki, Shūzō 61
Kuramata, Shirō 64
Kyary Pamyu Pamyu 68
Kyūsei kōkō (old higher schools) 138–9
see also bankara

Laver, James 126

Lavigne, Avril
Alice 99
Lehmann, Ulrich 13, 135–6, 149
on Walter Benjamin 110
Leon (magazine) 28, 37, 159n. 44, 161n. 94
Lolita (Nabokov)
Alice (Carroll) and 97–8
Lolita fashion and 115
Lolita fashion 149
aesthetics 111–14
Alice and 86, 109
criticism 115–16
and cultural influences 110
definition 108–9
endorsing the egoism and cruelty of childhood 115
European dress influences and 109
gender and 151
sexualization and 115, 126
Shimotsuma and 107, 117–18, 120–4, 126–9, 131–3; see also Shimotsuma monogatari
Loos, Adolf 108
Louis XV, King of France 111, 122

‘man-kidness’ 65
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France 109, 113, 122
Maruyama, Eikan 86
Marx, W. David. 136
masculinity 5–6, 75, 131
ambivalence and 58
 bankara 138
constructions of 9, 15, 24, 36, 74, 108, 115, 129, 130
the gaze and 27
Japanese representations of 19, 31–4, 37, 42, 48
performance and 125, 127, 178n. 100
‘salaryman’ 49, 59–62, 64, 151
schoolboy 65, 67, 69–71, 138, 141–2
slender 52–4, 65, 71; see also Neo-Edwardian
vanity and 38, 40–1
Matsumoto, Masayuki (Marquee) 103
Matsuzaka, Tōri 30
Maynard, Margaret 3, 113
McNeil, Peter 12
McNeil, Peter and Vicki Karaminas 35–6
McVeigh, Brian J. 1, 78–9, 100
Mears, Patricia 11, 145
Meiji period 5, 49, 83
Men’s Club (otokono fukushoku) 21, 28, 37, 137–8, 142
Men’s Health 27, 34, 53, 56, 58
Men’s non-no
see Japanese men’s fashion magazines
Merskin, Deborah 97
Mikanagi, Yumiko 138, 181n. 21
Mikawai, Takeshi 30, 141
Milkboy
in men’s fashion magazines 26
four stylistic essences 65
history and design philosophy of 64–6, 69, 71–2, 149–50
kawaii aesthetics and 45–6, 149
liminality between boyhood and manhood 69
suave yet edgy male aesthetic 58, 63–4, 66–7, 70–1, 142, 144, 151
unisex appeal and flexible conceptions of gender 53, 68–9, 73, 79, 147
Miller, Laura 1
on cuteness (kawaii) and performance 78, 85, 101–3
on Japanese men and the gaze 9, 36, 49, 51, 57, 59, 71, 74
mirror
 and Freud’s homo-narcissism 38–9
and Lacan’s Mirror-phase 39
and vanity 38–40
Mizobata, Junpei 32
Mizuki, Alisa 89, 90–1, 93–4, 100–3
Town of Eden (Eden no machi) 89–90, 93
Legendary Girl (Densetsu no shōjo) 89, 101
Moeran, Brian 30
Moers, Ellen
The Dandy: Brummell to Beerbohm 61
Morimoto, Mariko and Susan Chang 51
Morris, Ivan
on The Tale of Genji 56
mote-kei (conservative style) 79
Mukai, Osamu 32
Mulvey, Laura
on cinema and gaze 35, 125

Nakahara, Jun’ichi 40, 81–2, 92

Nakamura, Karen and Hisako Matsuo 84
Nakashima, Tetsuya 123–4
Nakata, Hidetoshi
on Calvin Klein underwear advertising campaign 57
Napier, Susan J. 9
Nederveen Pieterse, Jan 2–3, 61, 138, 150
Negrin, Llewellyn 5, 34, 41, 53, 118–19
Neo-Edwardian dandy
re-invention of 15, 7, 144, 150–1
aesthetics 69, 75
stylistic definition 60
Nixon, Sean 23, 34, 60

Okada, Yoshinori 125

Okada, Masaki 32
Okamura, Keiko 3, 58, 146
see also the ‘format’ and ‘product’ theory
Olive
magazine for romantic girls 79–80
Orphée (Cocteau) 38
Oshima, Yumiko
The Star of Cotton Land 110

Pattinson, Robert
on the masculine ideal 54
Pease, Bob 6
Pejic, Andrej 75
Perry, Katy
California Gurls 95
photobooks (shashinshū) 164n. 42
Pink House (fashion label) 79
Plein Soleil (Clément) 38
Pompadour, Marquise de (Poisson, Jeanne) 111–12, 122–3
Popeye
see Japanese men’s fashion magazines
porn-chic 77, 104
as female empowerment 5
Press, Richard 136
Punk
challenging ‘normative’ femininity 95, 104
in Japan 64–5, 68, 80
Putumano
an association with Deka One-ko 131

Remi
Men’s non-no model 36–7
Rhodes, Musashi, Milkboy’s model 45–7, 65–70
Rhys, Jean 107
Ribeiro, Aileen 122
Riviere, Joan 100
robe à la française 111, 122
Robertson, Roland 150
Roche, Daniel 123
rococo style 111, 122–3
Ronaldo, Christiano
on Armani advertising campaign 55, 57
ryōsai kenbo (good wife, wise mother) 83, 85

Satō, Ikuyaon Japanese bikie gang 177n. 68, 177n. 70

schoolgirl fashion (Meiji/Taisho periods) 4–5, 154n. 22
Shimotsuma monogatari (Nakashima) 2, 15, 105, 107–9, 151
a sense of independence in 123–4
and androgyny 132–4
and fashion/identity 119–21
and female agency 125–6
female bonding and 127–8
and gender performativity 128–31
and rococo aesthetics 122–3
synopsis 117–8
Shingo
Milkboy 46, 63, 65–7, 70
Shirley Temple (fashion label) 79
Shively, Donald H.
on the sumptuary laws in Edo period 8
shōjo (girl) 36, 76, 78, 86–7
aesthetics 80, 81–3, 110
Alice and 87–8
and de-sexualization 85–6
history of 82–6
popular culture and 126
Silverman, Kaja 35
Simmel, Georg
The Philosophy of Fashion 29, 30, 120
Singer, June 132, 134
Skov, Lise 11
Slade, Toby 1
de-sexualization of fashion 94
fashion and modernity in Japan 5, 74, 111
on iki and dandyism 61
Smith, Bonnie G. 108, 116
Sō-en 86
socio-cultural analysis of fashion 23–4
Steele, Valerie
on early modern French fashion 122
on fashion and gender 146, 150, 154n. 33
on Japanese fashion 1, 110, 137, 177n. 70
on Victorian women 40, 72, 108, 116, 133
Stefani, Gwen 98–9
sukeban style 118–19

tachiyomi (stand-reading) 31
Takabatake, Kashō 83
Takahashi, Macoto 82
Takahashi, Mizuki
on girls’ manga 82
Takehisa, Yumeji 83
Takemoto, Novala
Shimotsuma Monogatari 117, 176n. 65
Tatum, Channing
masculine ideal 54
Taxi Driver (Scorsese) 38
Tenniel, (Sir) John 86, 88–91, 98, 99
Tezuka, Osamu
Princess Knight 84
the ‘format’ and ‘product’ theory 3, 12, 58–9, 97, 146
the bustle style 90, 111–12, 116, 175n. 24
The Checkers 79
the Japan Youth Research Institute
teenagers and gender conceptions 9–10, 68
the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Japan
The Survey Results of Health and Nutrition of the Nation 52, 68
the prom dress 113
the suit
as a symbol of masculinity 24
youthful reinvention of 64
The Tale of Genji (Lady Murasaki) 4, 56
Thelma and Louise (Scott) 125, 128
tokkōfuku (bikie garment) 118, 120, 128, 177n. 70
Tommy February/Heavenly
see Kawase, Tomoko
‘traditional men’s interests’ in magazines 26
Treat, John Whittier 83–5
Tsuchiya, Anna 118, 127
Tsurimoto, Yota
Milkboy staff 66–7, 70

Ushikubo, Megumi 40, 71, 74

Veblen, Thorstein 108, 121

Victorian Maiden (fashion label)
Rose Lace Blouse Dress 113
see also Lolita fashion
Victorian women
dress and 116
influences on Lolita fashion 109, 111, 113, 171n. 83
‘little girls’ dress style 10, 90–2, 99, 103, 171n. 83; see also Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Warner, Michael
on Freud’s homo-narcissism 39–40
Watanabe, Shūko
on the history of shōjo 83
Weltzien, Friedrich
on masculinity and American superhero costumes 129–30
Wenke, Benjamin
Australian fashion model 58–60
Westwood, Vivienne 26, 64
Rockin’ Horse shoes 107, 109, 128
White Rabbit (Jefferson Airplane) 98
White, Merry 28, 32
Wilde, Oscar 1, 14, 61–2
Wilson, Elizabeth 3, 23, 74, 108, 115, 119, 135–6
Yagawa, Sumiko
on Alice 87
Yamaguchi, Jun 30
Yamazaki, Madoka
on Ivy style 144
yankee style 118, 120–1, 124, 177n. 68
see also Satō, Ikuya
Yoshiya, Nobuko 127

zipper (magazine) 146

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: HB: 978-1-4725-3621-1

PB: 978-1-4725-3280-0
ePDF: 978-1-4725-8673-5
ePub: 978-1-4725-8672-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Monden, Masafumi.
Japanese fashion cultures: dress and gender in contemporary Japan / Masafumi Monden.
pages cm – (Dress, body, culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4725-3280-0 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-4725-3621-1 (hardback) — ISBN 978-1-
4725-8673-5 (epdf) 1. Fashion-Japan-History. 2. Clothing and dress–Japan–History. 3. Clothing
and dress–Social aspects–Japan. I. Title.
GT1560.M63 2015
 391.00952—dc23
2014010741

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