Yahoo! Japan Fashion/繊研新聞：お兄系ブランド09年春夏　来るか？！オラオラ系　上下黒スエットでワルな男
(Oniikei Brands for SS ‘09 - Coming soon? Ora-Ora-kei - Bad Boys in Sweatsuits)

Elastic: オラオラ系が流行る？
(Will Ora-Ora-kei Come into Style?)

Ora-Ora-kei is an offshoot of the O-nii-kei “Big Brother” yankii style that has been unexpectedly popular in recent years. Ora-ora is a gruff Japanese male word/sound used — mostly by delinquents and gangsters — to intimidate others. According to fashion blogger Dale of Elastic, there is a recent phrase “ora-nyan” used to describe guys who act tough in front of their friends, but show a soft side with their ladies. “Ora-Ora-kei” fashion, however, is 100% ora gruff and tough.

In the context of Oniikei fashion, Ora-Ora-kei seems to focus more around a foreboding black palette and a baggier silhouette, with the effect of looking somewhat terrifying. The idea is not to attract girls, but just look like a badass. Senken Shimbun says, “This is the style of guys outside of Tokyo, so it has a great possibility of reaching a wide audience.” I think this is being too kind. Ora-ora-kei is basically just celebrating the clothes already worn by rural and suburban working-class delinquents, squatting in front of a convenience store near you. The days of Tokyo effetes leading national fashion trends may be numbered.

Whatever the case, 2009 promises to be another year of “wild & sexy” lads in yankii-derived clothing, but this time around, much more angry and scary-looking. As Yonehara told us, “Things get much more yankii when the economy gets bad.” So expect both an increased number of delinquent guys in Ora-Ora-kei, and also, lots of middle-class guys who think the Ora-Ora-kei look is worth imitating.

テキスタイルへの挑戦！

JFWで、神秘的な作品で観客を魅了したAGURI SAGIMORI。彼女は若干22歳の可憐な少女だ。

まだ汗ばむ陽気の10月末日、恵比寿でAGURI SAGIMORIの展示会が開かれた。コレクションテーマの「文字」を、薄いシルクのオーガンジーに染めた涙で滲んだような表情は、日本の伝統染め技法「有松絞り」の職人さんと長い月日をかけて試行錯誤を繰り返し、「嵐絞り」に辿り着いたもの。また、小説をプリントではなく難しいジャガード織りにして柄のように表現できたのも、大阪の織物屋さんの全面的な協力のおかげだと話してくれた。

そんな苦労の賜を近くで見ると、テキスタイルの細かなディテールの奥深さに感動すら覚える。読書家の彼女が表現したかった繊細な世界は、デザインはもちろん、テキスタイルへの挑戦でもあったのだ。

「私は日本の伝統工芸にこだわっていません。ただ、日本の染め物屋さん、織物屋さんの仕事の細かさや丁寧さは世界一だと思います。そのクオリティを取り入れると自ずとMade in JAPANになるだけ。これからもオリジナルのテキスタイルで作品を発表したい」。最後にこう付け加えてくれた彼女の顔は、世界を見据えた22歳の素敵な女性だった。

At the young age of 22, fashion designer Aguri Sagimori may strike some as merely a dainty young woman, but her mysterious creations continue to wow larger and larger audiences at each successive Japan Fashion Week.

I visited Sagimori’s post-show exhibition back in October. The collection theme for SS ‘09 is “words,” so she printed Japanese characters — that looked to have been blurred by tears — on thin silk organdy. She apparently spent a long time working with an artisan of the arimatsu shibori traditional Japanese dyeing technique, and after a long process of trial and error, was lead to a technique called arashi shibori (storm dyeing). She told me that she wanted to take the contents of an entire novel and print them on fabrics, but thanks to the help of an Osaka textile company, she instead was able to weave the Japanese characters as a pattern into a complicated jacquard.

When you look closely at the result of such hard work, it’s easy to be moved. The detail in the textile is so fine. Sagimori — an avid reader — really wanted to challenge herself by not just putting her world-view into the design but also the textiles.

She told us, “I am not particularly obsessed with Japanese traditional crafts. But, I believe that the intricate work of Japanese dyers and textile designers is the best in the world. It’s just that wanting to employ that level of quality means it has to be ‘Made in Japan.’ In my future shows, I want to keep presenting original textiles.”

This “dainty young woman” surely has her eyes on the world. We look forward to her upcoming JFW show on March 24.

Previously on MEKAS.: Aguri Sagimori SS 2009 Collection - Japan Fashion Week

We started a Twitter feed for MEKAS. today:

http://twitter.com/mekas

本日、トゥイッターで配信をはじめました。日本語もたまにあります。

The “Trad-loving Foreigner in Japan”-blog Heavy Tweed Jacket has a great post with photos from “Take Ivy ‘82, Sports Scene” — a special feature in the February 1982 issue of Men’s Club. As part of their decades-long research on Ivy League student fashion, the Men’s Club editors flew to Brown U. and Cornell U. to do some campus pictorials, with a special focus on game day. In the early 1980s — years before the Plaza Accord and the “DC Boom” obsession with designer European and avant-garde Japanese brands — East Coast trad style was still solidly at the heart of Japanese menswear.

Of course, Men’s Club — nominally Japan’s first men’s fashion magazine — has always been keen to the more dapper, dandy side of clean educated salarymen fashion. But if you look at Popeye from 1976-1983, the content shares a focus on sporty lifestyles and the United States. Contemporary Popeye would never ever visit an American university to gather any fashion wisdom. Perhaps that’s the students’ fault for all wearing sweatpants and flip-flops to class instead of Madras shorts and pennyloafers. But more critically, the Japanese industry reinvented fashion in the mid-1980s to mean “high-end European fashion,” making Ivy and American trad look like philistine rags compared to the sophisticated cuts of Dior Homme and Comme des Garçons.

Ivy, however, remains strong in the Japanese fashion DNA. Maybe so strong that youth are still rebelling against it now.

最近、トラッド系好き日本在住外国人の「ヘビー・ツイード・ジャケット」というブログの中に、82年2月号の【メンズクラブ】、“Take Ivy ‘82、Sports Scene”特集からの写真が見られる。長年に渡る「アイビー系ファッション」の研究の一つとして、その編集者はブラウン大学とコーネル大学を訪ねて、アメフトファンのファッションなどを撮ってきた。プラザ合意やDCブーム以前の1980年代初めは、アメリカ東海岸のトラッドスタイルがまだまだ日本のメンズファッションの核だった。

もちろん【メンズクラブ】にそのアイビーの影響が特に強かったのは確かだが、その時代の【POPEYE】を見ても、アメリカとスポーティーなライフスタイルに対する憧れにそう違いはない。今の【POPEYE】が、ファッション情報を集めるためにアメリカの大学へ行くなんてことはまずあり得ない。それはアメリカの大学生のせいかもしれない。というのも、昔はマドラスチェックの短パンとローファーというスタイルで授業に出ていたのが、今ではスエットパンツとビーサンに変わってしまった。しかしもっと決定的なのは、1985年ぐらいから「ファッション」という言葉の認識が「モード」に変わった、ということだ。その結果、コム・デ・ギャルソンやディオール・オムと比べると、アイビーが俗物的なボロ服に見えてしまう。

アイビーは日本のファッションDNAに溶け込んでいるが、過去の大ブームの反動で、今の若者はそれに対立しているのかもしれない。

I have a quote in a Japan Times article from today’s edition about famed youth shopping building Shibuya 109.

For more on Shibuya 109, Check out the original MEKAS. profile of Shibuya 109 in tutorial “Tokyo Fashion Buildings” and our article on “Gyaru Resurgence.”

(Photo by the article’s writer Brett Bull.)

Now this is the best recessionary solution to luxury I have seen so far: just make a Hermès Birkin bag out of old newspapers and paper bags.

Original: 不景気バーキン (”Recession Birkin”)

地位を高めるファストファッション。

ユニクロやH&Mが話題をさらった2008年アパレル業界。ファストファッションが地位を高める中、私が紹介したいブランドがある。

その名は『YEVS』。服や雑貨のオリジナルブランドを多数展開する大阪の「遊心クリエイション」が、昨年の10月2日に関東にオープンした大型SC「AEON　Lake Town」で『YEVS』の1号店をデビューさせた。店内はシックでありながら無機質な感じがせず、上品に商品をディスプレイしている。手頃な価格ではあるが、縫製・素材のクオリティは高く、つい春物を衝動買いしてしまった。斜行天竺のハイゲージタートルニットは、襟元と袖口・裾部分に特殊縫製を施し適度なシワ感とボリューム感が洗練された雰囲気。袖が長目なので重ね着が楽しめるデザイン。このクオリティで4,095円！！！大満足の一品だ。ヘビーローテーション間違いなし！（画像はYEVSオンラインストアから引用）

去年12月の売上予算比50％増の阪急西宮ガーデンズに開設した2号店に比べると、認知度の低い関東での1号店は少し劣るが、これから注目を浴びるブランドだと思う。今後は知名度を高める為に、この春の『神戸コレクション』に参加が決定している。MEKAS.でも取材を予定しているが、どんなコレクションを魅せてくれるのか楽しみである。

News from the Japanese apparel industry in 2008 mostly focused on Uniqlo and H&M, making the year a big one for fast fashion in Japan. In that spirit, I would like to introduce a new entry to the category.

Yevs is an original apparel and accessories brand from Osaka-based apparel company Yushin Creation. The brand launched October 2 of last year within large-scale shopping center AEON LakeTown in Koshigaya, Saitama. The interior of the Yevs store is very chic without feeling too sterile, and the items are displayed very elegantly. Prices are extremely reasonable, and the sewing and fabrics appear to be high quality.

I impulsively bought something from the Yevs spring collection when I was there the other day — a 100% cotton high-gauge knit turtleneck sweater with special stitching on the collar, cuffs, and bottom, with just the right amount of volume. The cuffs are cut extra long so you can play around with layering. And it’s only 4,095! A very satisfying buy. I will be using it a lot. (The image above is from Yevs’ website.)

Yevs is apparently doing great in Western Japan, but still isn’t well known in Tokyo. So to increase recognition, Yevs will be a featured brand in this year’s Kobe Collection. We plan on being there anyway, so we look forward to seeing what they present.

Our spur-of-the-moment model was just returning from an interview with an apparel company. Her favorite brands are Forever21 and Victoria’s Secret, even though neither are particularly available in Japan. Maybe that’s the appeal. She’s an avid reader of Glitter, a magazine that looks to the U.S. for style inspiration.

先取りファッションは忍耐力？！

北風が吹けば体感温度5℃ぐらい？！のとにかく寒い1月中旬。

セール品が片隅に追いやられたショップ店内には早くも春服が並び、明るく爽やかな軽い雰囲気につい吸い込まれそうになる。が…外は真冬。街ゆく人もコートやダウン・ロングブーツで寒さから身を守っていた。そんな中、春をファッションに取り入れる際に考えることといったら…コートのインナーに明るい色のセーターや薄手素材の重ね着など、とにかく温かい工夫をしそうなものだ。

しかし、私が多く目撃した若い女性はちょっと違う。オシャレは足もとから？！。タイツやソックスを履かずに、素足にパンプスのコーディネイト。我慢大会さながらの無理をしているようにしか見えないけど、真冬の素肌はとても新鮮で重い色のコーディネイトを軽く見せる効果がある。

不況が不安をあおる中、ファッションにお金をかけられない若者が春を先取りする発想。それは忍耐力の一言に尽きるかもしれない。

Is being ahead of the fashion curve all about perseverance?

Mid-January in Tokyo is pretty cold. When the northern winds blow, it feels like 5˚C.

In a lot of shops, all the sale-price goods are already being pushed into a corner, and they’re lining up products from the spring collection. It’s easy to get sucked into the new products’ bright and refreshing vibe. But, c’mon, it’s the dead of winter outside. Everyone on the streets is protecting themselves from the cold with down coats and long boots. To use any of these spring items right now means doing it in a warm way, like maybe wearing light fabrics or brightly-colored sweaters under a coat.

This, however, is not the approach I see most young women doing on the street. They say style these days is all about leg-wear, but so many girls now coordinate their pumps with bare feet — no tights, no socks. It looks like they are in some epic struggle to see who can endure the most cold. But actually, the “bare skin in mid-winter” style looks pretty fresh. It lightens up an otherwise heavy-colored winter wardrobe.

As the recession heightens anxieties, I guess this is what the kids came up with as a way to start using spring fashion without spending any money. The whole thing’s come down to endurance.

Aha! I knew cutting-edge Japanese fashion was secretly an instrument of conservative propaganda!

I am browsing through the February issue of Men’s Nonno, when on page 53 (above), I spot a dapper half-Japanese model clutching a book. On closer inspection, he is reading Mark Royden Winchell’s 1984 hagiography of William F. Buckley, Jr. — the recently-deceased father of modern American conservatism. Is there something more political at heart of this “denim shirt mix up” style? Perhaps a plea for less government and more personal responsibility?

I suspect coincidence in the library selection, although Buckley’s ethos surely matches with the bow-ties and cardigans so central to Japanese styling at the moment. This is certainly less incongruous, however, than when I saw a hipster girl in Harajuku years back obliviously wearing a “Rush is Right” trucker hat.

やっぱり！日本の最先端ファッションは秘密に保守主義のプロパガンダだ！

２月号の『メンズノンノ』を読んでいて、５３ページでモデルが本を抱えているところを発見。よく見ると、去年亡くなった「アメリカの現代保守主義の重鎮」ウィリアム・Ｆ・バックリーの１９８４年に出版された伝記だ。『メンズノンノ』の「デニムシャツミックス」にもっと深い政治的なメッセージがあるのだろうか。政府の規模を小さくする説教かな。

まあ、本が偶然に選ばれた理由の方が適切だと思うが、確かに最近の蝶ネクタイとカーディガンの流行は、バックリーの精神に合っている。でも、今回の場合は、何年か前の原宿お洒落キッズの女性が「Rush is Right」（ラッシュ・リンボウは正しい！）という帽子を被っているほど不調和じゃない。