Doodles

Some doodles from the Easter break. I didn’t do much drawing or painting when I was back home.

It was good to get back to the good old pen. Drawing the PowerPuff Girls and DeeDee from Dexter’s Lab felt strangely good and nostalgic.
There’s a lot of stuff in there, including Ramona Flowers, Heisenberg, Pinkman’s girlfriend, my OC Vasarley Rocket, my friend Carys, and other random sketches.

Obsession: the Drive of the Harajuku Subculture

Abstract

In this essay I have investigated different aspects of the Harajuku street style, focusing on what shapes the fashion and what drives the people of Harajuku to look the way they do. In my research I found out that the two most influential factors are the kawaii, the cute, and the Western trends. The Japanese obsession with cuteness exists in both mainstream and underground cultures and, depending on how it’s displayed, it is therefore praised or disliked by society. During my research on Japan and the West and their influences it became clear that both sides take from one another, rather than just one being influenced by the other. The West is just as big an obsession in Japan as Japan is in the West. We live in a system of constant style-swapping where ‘nothing is purely innovative or imitative and the process of repetition always introduces an element of metamorphosis’ (Groom, 2011). The Japanese have proved to exceed at changing the meaning and mixing and matching items which do not suit one another at a first glance. Like their city, they combine East and West, past and present with a skill which speaks of an un-rushed intensity.

 

an essay by Sara Christova

lecturer: Cath Davies

 

Introduction

When visiting Japan, Tokyo is stop number one and in Tokyo the Harajuku area, Shibuya and Shinjuku are some of the most interesting places to see. As the epicentre of street fashion, they can be considered stages for the unprofessional enthusiasm of the Japanese who have been branded as the weird, the strange, the quirky; the deviants of Tokyo. The Harajuku subculture, if we could call it such, can be easily recognized by the vivid, unorthodox outfits of its followers, which are personally, carefully designed to stand out. Although when we refer to it as a single subculture we make a mistake, for the different styles, fashions and trends within it are too distinct to be filed under the same category. Each subculture is centred around a certain idea, an idea which has become the obsession of its members – the kawaii, or the ‘cute’ of the Decora, the anime and manga of the Otaku, the lace and Victorian-era clothing of the Lolitas, the leather and crazy hairstyles of the Punk.  The subcultures of Harajuku, however different from one another, also possess similar qualities – they all have a complicated web of connotations, enforced by the numerous layers, accessories, colours and patterns that they use, where each and every item or piece of clothing comes with its own meaning and personal value. These items are specifically chosen, mixed and matched with others and placed in a distinct way in order to give a certain impression or invoke different thoughts or emotions.

The un-rushed delicate intensity with which the Japanese go about their everyday lives is what makes the style what it is.  Picking and combining the right accessories is a time-consuming practice which proves the dedication and reverence with which these people regard their style. The trends are religion, the accessories are relics and the best dressed people are deities.

Kawaii, the Fatal Attraction to Cuteness

Ever-changing, ever-growing and developing, the Harajuku fashion is dictated by its own followers. This is the place where the fashion icons aren’t the models on the billboards but the very people on the streets we walk on. It is common in Tokyo to be approached by photographers who want to take pictures of you for one magazine or other. It’s what drives these teenagers to dress the way they do. The brighter you shine, the better your chance is of being noticed, of being recognized as different. Like most young adults in the world, that is one of our strongest drives – the wish to be seen as unique but also to be accepted as such. Harajuku is a place that is in a way dedicated to that purpose. As a part of Tokyo, the Harajuku style is strongly influenced by, the kawaii, or the ‘cute’, as it is an obsession that goes from the most commercial mainstream circles to the deepest underground communities. The idea behind it may be twisted and represented in different lights depending on the individual preferences and ideas of each person, but it exists everywhere.

Kawaii usually translates to “cute”. Whenever a girl sees something she really likes and/or finds cute, she would exclaim that word. Whatever you may think, kawaii isn’t a brand or a style in which something is made. Kawaii is, according to a girl in the Shibuya district “a state of mind and a lifestyle. My whole life is about being kawaii. I’m always thinking about how I can make myself even more kawaii.” (Kawamura, 2006, p795) Kawaii cannot be exactly defined but ‘a feeling’ is a good way to describe it. You can’t explain it, but when you see it you’ll immediately know.

Mary L., 18, who is familiar with the Japanese culture and subcultures from firsthand experience, explained that the people of Harajuku are viewed as degenerate and appalling by the non-Harajuku Japanese. There is a parallel between Harajuku and kawaii, but there is a thin line separating what is acceptable and what isn’t, since kawaii is part of the mainstream culture as well as the Harajuku subcultures – it is expected of  Japanese girls to be kawaii, and if they aren’t they are considered too masculine. If they have ‘too much kawaii’, like the Decoras for example, they are frowned upon. Just like how you have to be weird to fit in at Harajuku/Shibuya/Shinjuku, you have to be normal to fit in everywhere else. It is incredibly uncommon to see a person dressed in Harajuku fashion outside their designated territories and it’s slightly less uncommon to see a person like that on a weekday during work hours anywhere, even in the defined Harajuku places (except for the people that work in the industries catering to these styles, like the shops on Takeshita Dori).

Obsession with Style

A former managing editor of Tokion, a fashion and art magazine in Tokyo, Alex Wagner, says that “Japanese culture is very ritualistic. They get hung up on one thing and then it becomes this feverish race to get as many of those things as possible’ (Kawamura, 2006). Once they decide a certain person is a fashion icon, they religiously keep up with every little piece of information – like the latest Tweeter posts, Instagram photos or Facebook status updates. In a world dominated by technology, social networking has become one of the easiest ways to get the latest info on the newest items and the freshest trends.

The world of Harajuku, just like any other, is ruled by clique exclusivity, and different styles occupy different territories.  Upon closer inspection you see a division between the members of the subculture. In Shinjuku people mostly dress up as Goths and Lolitas; in Shibuya the leading fashion is western subculture fashion (Punk, B-boy, Emo, Mod, Skinhead, etc.) either on its own but exaggerated, naturally, or fused with newer, more popular, sometimes even more mainstream, fashion. The result can be stunning and frightening and sometimes both at the same time.

While people (foreigners or locals with less knowledge of the subcultural trends and tendencies) often refer to the three parts as the singular Harajuku, the actual Harajuku area is where the most interesting and creative mixes often appear. The streets there are the home of the Shironuri (or ‘whiteface’) and Decora (from ‘decoration’). Both being very similar in their over-decorative tendencies – Shironuri and Decora just can’t get enough accessories! Hundreds of pins, bracelets, socks with different patterns, lengths and styles, countless pins and key chains, and earrings, and ribbons, and hairbands, and every possible mini-accessory; they’re just not enough. The only significant difference between the Shironuri and the Decora for us, the unenlightened, is that the faces of the Shironuri are painted in white.

Minori is a very famous Shironuri in Harajuku, who, despite her unearthly appearance, is an ordinary 23 year-old girl with exceptional skills as an artist (she is her own makeup artist, her own designer, decorator, she makes her own clothes and works in her own style to create series of conceptual photographs starring her in different artistically captivating outfits, also an illustrator in the meantime). Not everyone will appreciate the lengths to which this girl is willing to go in order to maintain the image she has created for herself in society – she wears amounts of makeup that even actors and clowns don’t wear, and she does that every single day just in order to feel like herself. It sounds hard but when someone’s obsession is how they look, they will do whatever they can to feel comfortable and if that includes wearing a ton of makeup and unorthodox, flowing dresses and gowns, and looking cute, then so be it.

Apart from the Shironuri and the Decora, there are a lot more fashion groups that roam the streets of Harajuku. One of them would be the people who dress in the latest western fashion, but of course, that comes with the Japanese specialty of mix & match. Harajuku-type hipsters and people who look like they could model on the pages of world renowned fashion magazines such as Vogue, Marie Claire or Elle walk casually, waiting for people to go say hi and talk to them, and appreciate each other’s kawaii-ness. There is actually a series of photos of some Harajuku fashion innovators, which were originally shot for Vogue.com, during the Tokyo Fashion Week in March (Tokyofashion.com, 2014) and as we know, to say that Vogue is a leading influence on Western fashion would be an understatement.

The East/West Obsession Paradox

In 1954 Frank Lloyd Wright said: ‘I have never confided to you the extent to which Japanese print per se has inspired me. I never got over my first experience with it and I shall never, probably, recover. I hope I shan’t.’ Japan and the Western cultures have a long history of artistic influencing. ‘Japonisme’ is a word which best describes that relation. It was ‘coined’ by the French author and collector Philippe Burty ‘to designate a new field of study of artistic, historic and ethnographic borrowings from the arts of Japan’. To eyes sated with Neoclassicism and the Gothic revival, Japanese art was far more than a refreshing visual novelty (Lambourne, 2005). So where does that leave us today? “A Ping-Pong match between Eastern and Western” (Stefani, 2004) is a very exact way of putting it.We can see a lot of influence from Eastern street culture and a very obvious example is Gwen Stefani’s album, Love.Angel.Music.Baby.  from 2004, where the Harajuku style is openly praised, especially in the song Harajuku Girls. Another very clear example would be Avril Lavigne’s new song Hello Kitty, where she exclaims “k-k-k-kawaii!” between every verse and is dressed in what seems to be a Punk/Lolita/Decora mix fashion. The interesting part in this case is that people weren’t surprised by the style itself, because it is something we’re all familiar with, even if remotely. The big surprise came from Avril’s choice to engage in that subcultural style. The music industry today, being as dependent on appearances as it is, has started popularizing unconventional looks and behaviour, which is best represented by Lady Gaga’s unnatural and frankly shocking costumes and performances, followed by Rihanna, Katy Perry and Nicki Minaj’s exaggerated looks, along with Paramore lead singer Hailey Williams and her sugary new style, shocking, unnatural and unorthodox ways of dressing have become something more usual and familiar, and therefore something easier for us to comprehend.

Just like the popularization of the Japanese comic books known as manga and their invasion in the Western market, this style breaks the boundaries of the two cultures. By influencing each other, they reach a state of constant style-swaps. They’re almost trying to outweird each other, like Johnny Depp once said about him and Helena Bonham Carter. Donald Richie writes in his book Tokyo that “…Tokyo insists on its modernity. It always has. For a century now Tokyo has been known as ‘the city of contrasts’ or ‘the capital of the old and the new’. Ever since its opening to the outside world in the middle of the last century, Tokyo has with increasing skill combined East and West, past and present.” The evidence of this statement can be seen not only in the architecture, technology and culture (sports and arts) but also in fashion, both on the billboards and in the subcultural underground scene.

Tokyo’s street fashion innovators flawlessly combine traditional Japanese items like the “kimono, obi belts, kanzashi hairpins and geta sandals” (Aoki, 2001) modern avant-garde, Japanese couture, contemporary and retro Western fashion (Groom, 2011) and thus create completely new trends (such as Wa-Mono) and original looks that are meant to be unique, innovative, interesting, and most importantly, to stand out.

Conclusion

Harajuku, Shibuya and Shinjuku are doubtless interesting places to see and valuable artistic resources, no matter what people say. While the West views Harajuku as a street fashion heaven and a stage for even the weirdest of tastes, the non-Harajuku Japanese see it as a degenerative and unpleasant place. That fortifies the idea of the Harajuku subculture. Although we refer to it as a single item, the different styles, fashions and trends within it are too distinct to be filed under the same category. Harajuku can be best described as a subculture comprised of a number of different subcultures, sublimated and Japanized but subcultures nonetheless. It is undeniable that the subcultures of Harajuku possess similar qualities – they all have a complicated web of connotations, enforced by the numerous layers, accessories, colours and patterns, where each item comes with its own meaning and personal value. These items are specifically chosen, matched with others and placed in order to give a certain impression or invoke a certain thought or emotion.

The un-rushed delicate intensity with which the Japanese go about their everyday lives manifests itself in a completely different light in the hands of the teenagers who run the streets of Shibuya, Harajuku and Shinjuku. As they pay attention to every little detail, picking and mixing the right accessories is a time-consuming practice. This shows how dedicated and motivated these people are and how much they rely on the outer appearance. The trends are religion, the accessories are relics and the best dressed people are deities. The people of Harajuku obsess over the trends, over accessories and people. Obsessing over things is a daily routine. Obsessing over something that is kawaii, or cute (Decora), over animes and manga (Otaku), over painting your face white (Shironuri)… The obsessions of the followers are the fuel of the subculture. They are what drives this sea of colour, this kaleidoscope of fashion (Stefani, 2004), this hyper-reality that is the Harajuku street style.

***

Bibliography

 

Aoki, S. (2001) Fruits, Phaidon Press Limited, London

Cooke, L. and Wollen, P. (ed.) (1995) Visual Display: Culture Beyond Appearances, Bay Press, Seattle

Elliott, D. and Ozaki, T. (2011) Bye Bye Kitty!!!, Japan Society Inc., Yale University Press

Groom, A. (2009) Fashion and Identity in Harajuku. In: Craik, J. (2009) Fashion: The Key Concepts, Berg Publishing, Oxford, pp159-161

Groom, A. (2011) Power Play and Performance in Harajuku, New Voices Volume 4, University of Technology, Sydney

Hebdige, D. (1979) Subculture: The Meaning of Style, Routledge, London and New York

Hume, N. G. (ed.) (1995) Japanese Aesthetics and Culture: A Reader, State University of New York Press, Albany

Kawamura, Y. (2006) Japanese Teens as Producers of Street Fashion, Current Sociology [Electronic] Available: http://csi.sagepub.com/content/54/5/784, [17 Aug 1006]

Lambourne, L. (2005) Japonisme: Cultural Crossings between Japan and the West, Phaidon Press Limited, London

Okazaki, M. and Johnson, G. (2011) Kicks Japan, Mark Batty Publisher, New York

Richie, D. (1999) Tokyo, Reaktion Books Ltd, London

SILVIAN HEACH (2014) Tokyo Streets [WWW] http://www.silvianheach.it/prt/en-gb/CMS/Index/MAGAZINE/2014/04/18/tokyo-streets/  (18 Apr 2014)

STEFANI, G. (2004) Harajuku Girls; Love.Angel.Music.Baby, EMI Music Publishing, Warner/Chappel Music Inc.

Watanabe, H. (1992) Continutity and Change in Harajuku, Japan Quarterly, Pro Quest Art, Design and Architecture Collection, pp238-250

Woodward, K. (ed.) (2002) Identity and Difference, Sage Publications, London

 

List of Illustrations

TOKYOTAMASHII (2013) Kyary and Harajuku Kawaii, [WWW] http://stuffpoint.com/kyary-pamyu-pamyu/image/338892/kyary-and-harajuku-kawaii-picture/

SILVIAN HEACH (2014) Tokyo Streets [WWW] http://www.silvianheach.it/prt/en-gb/CMS/Index/MAGAZINE/2014/04/18/tokyo-streets/  (18 Apr 2014)

SILVIAN HEACH (2014) Tokyo Streets [WWW] http://www.silvianheach.it/prt/en-gb/CMS/Index/MAGAZINE/2014/04/18/tokyo-streets/  (18 Apr 2014)

Constellation

Constellation was the one thing about my whole university experience that didn’t make any sense to me. I didn’t understand why we had to attend lectures which had nothing to do with each other and didn’t really apply to our project work either. It was only after the start of the second term, that the pieces finally came together. I was then able to enjoy the rest of my lectures in peace now that I know what they are all about.

Cath’s lectures on meaning proved to be quite interesting since they were all focused on different subcultures and styles. I now have a much deeper understanding of what makes a subculture and how those subcultures present themselves to the world.

 

I have noticed over the past couple of months how the theories from the Constellation lectures are reflected in my practice. I now take the practice of researching much more seriously. In order to get the detail right you have to know  everything about it – what it is, what it’s used for, what it represents, the culture it comes from, what people see it as, and so on… By knowing all these things one can make subtle statements in their work, especially in abstract works, which is something I would like to do more of over the summer and next year.

For the end of the year we had to write an essay on a topic of our choice but which had to be relevant with our Option (Smells Like Teen Spirit: Subcultures and Street Style). Since I have always been interested in Japanese culture, I saw the opportunity to write about Harajuku as one that cannot be missed. I decided to focus on what drives the subculture, what the obsessions are that make that world go round and my main inspiration for that was an issue of Fruits by Shoichi Aoki, where every page was a photograph of a different dressed up person or people and on the bottom of that page were written each person’s name, age and current obsession. I found that really interesting and it connected really well with what I already knew about Japanese culture around personal research and my favourite animes and mangas.

I found the essay quite challenging since I have never had to write anything as long in English, not academic writing anyway. It was also the first time that I had to focus on referencing. What I found most challenging was what I should write down and what I shouldn’t. As I already know a lot about Japan from before, how do I back all my theories up? I really enjoyed going to the library in Howard Gardens and the Cardiff Central Library. I lave a big love of books and choosing the right ones that would help me was a pleasant experience that relaxed me thoroughly.

I enjoyed working on this essay and I really enjoyed the lectures throughout the year. I think it would be great to try it again but probably without this much pressure, just to see what I can do. I think that there are a lot of things in the artistic world that are worth writing about and I really want to do some good research on something interesting. I think working on an idea in a collaboration with someone would also be an interesting development.

All in all I would say that now I truly started appreciating the meaning of things. I started looking at many new artists’works, searching for art with much deeper and more abstract meanings and ideas. I like finding hidden meanings and allegory in Renaissance art. I feel like I have largely expanded my field of perception and that from that I can only look forward to new artistic ideas.

Field

The second term, or our Field module, and its project were really different from what we did in the first term and what I’d expected. I believe reason number one for that is our division in different groups and the collaboration project. The project, City, was, as the tutors explained, more about the research rather than the final piece.

That inspired my Research & Ideas sketchbook in which I recorded all of my ideas for the individual part of the project. After some time passed and I looked through it, I came to the conclusion that if I spend more time on a single project, my mind starts processing too many ideas. They may revolve around the same basic idea, or the same topic, but they evolve and branch out way too fast and in too many directions which slows down my work process immensely. The main reason for that is that I simply can’t choose what idea to concentrate on. During my time back home for the Easter break, I made a mental note to work on my idea control.

The group project (the City project is divided into two parts – individual and collaborative) itself was quite interesting. I got to work together with people from a different course (Fine Art) and I got the chance to tap into their workflow and ideas. It surprised me that we all had a very similar way of thinking but our views on those similar ideas were very different. It gave me a deeper understanding of the difference between our courses. I saw more clearly where I stand as an artist. And I saw the importance of illustration even in fine art, mainly because of the illustrative nature of our final piece (which wasn’t even my idea).

Learning how to work in a team with other artists proved to be something I’d never experienced and something I see as really important for future development – the idea that we can sometimes afford to rely on others while doing our work. I believe collaborative projects are something I want to do in the future. I would like to try teaming up with people from different courses and then comparing the outcomes – may be something really simple like doodling but it would still reveal the artistic nature of each individual.

During the second term in this illustration course I got to explore new techniques and skills like analog photography, which I’d never done before but now I have two personally developed films and black and white photographs. So, apart from expanding my range of possibilities, thoughts and ideas, I also developed my technical skills and learned a lot. My mind was cleared and I finally stopped thinking about what people from other courses do all day.

Subject

 

When I first came to Cardiff I was afraid. Excited and happy, but afraid at the same time. I didn’t know anyone, I didn’t know the place and I didn’t know what to expect. One of the only things I had to look forward to was going to uni to make friends and have something to do.

I started the year with great enthusiasm. I couldn’t wait to get a new brief and then I couldn’t wait to start working. We got a lot of projects during that first term. Some of them seemed insignificant – short, one-day briefs like Words to Draw By and the Colour Workshop. Others took more time and effort, like Time Passing, and Prophecy. But the one thing all of the projects had in common was how different they were to what I’d imagined them to be.

Throughout the first term I got a taste of what people do as illustrators (puppetry, shadow theatre, book making, comic book making, etc.). I got to make an actual Tarot deck (just 7 cards, but still), from scratch, which I never thought would be possible. Now that I finished my final piece, I noticed how many things have changed about my work and its process. I am much more serious about drawing and my works in general. I pay much more attention to what colours I use, in relation to what message I want to send the viewer. I can say that I have become more careful about what exactly I capture, I now turn  to the little things, the ones that people overlook. I now find ordinary objects and things I see on the street or in the forest to have a much higher artistic value than ever before. I’ve realized during my time on this course that my (currently) preferred medium is watercolour. I’ve also realized that I’m capable of more than I know and I just need to try out more new things as the course goes.

I am really looking forward to next year. I would really enjoy the projects and it would be great if in these projects we have to work on a large scale as well. To enlarge the scale of my work is one of the things that I tried to do during the course but didn’t really get the chance to during most of the projects. I feel like I’ve moved forward but I still have something to work on.

Final field collab presentation

Our group presentation for our Field Project – Hidden City, Magic Hidden In the City

Sophie Burrows

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Hidden City (final piece)

I wasn’t quite certain at the beginning as to what my final piece would be or look like. I decided to make myself a Research & Ideas sketchbook in order to keep track of all my ideas and thoughts for this project. There are many pages in that book with ideas that I absolutely loved but which didn’t see further development for various reasons.

I believe that once again, my view of the city changed. During the Easter holiday, while I was back home, all I could think about while walking on the streets was where I could find a source of inspiration and I consciously tried to find things I could use for my project work.

After that walk around town with my mom (previous post) everything became really clear in my head, all my ideas aligned perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle – I was really excited.

For this final piece I decided to put together a book of illustrations using the masking fluid/tape/watercolour technique which actually helps convey my ideas quite easily and clearly. My idea to focus on reflections also took root in the illustrations as the windows of the buildings can be perceived as both reflections of the sky and sneak-peeks of the people’s private lives.

The next 6 images are all details of an additional A1 final piece, which is really important for the final work. (My initial idea was to have it in a frame on a wall (or hanging in the air) with a table in front of it on which lies the Hidden City Book of Illustrations. But we don’t get to exhibit our work like that.)

(Unfortunately I lost all other photos of  the  book and the works inside it. I will be able to upload them once the assessment is over. I truly apologise for this, there will be an update as soon as possible.)

 

This is a full image of the additional final piece. It was inspired by the view from the windows of the fifth floor of the Cardiff Central Library. 

Explaining My Idea

After my tutorial/assessment at the end of last term, Amelia (one of our tutors) suggested that I keep to the quiet, simple stories of the streets but my idea was a bit different and I didn’t manage to explain that. 

I want to focus more on the buildings rather than the people living inside of them. After my interesting discovery at the end of the collaborative project (that within the same group idea, “Magic Hidden in the City”, I had a different approach than them – they had focused on magical buildings and cityscapes whereas I decided to depict the magical creatures and people that are hidden in the city and represent that hidden magic – and the simplest explanation for that would be that they are all fine artists and I am the only illustrator) I suddenly had a very different view of the city and its buildings and streets.

At the back of my mind was the image I had seen one day when my friends and I were walking back from a house viewing, shortly after the project brief – when I looked at one of the buildings across the street it looked strangely hyper-symmetrical and all of its windows were black, with very few reflections in them. The sky behind, the storm clouds, caught my attention and the contrast was a really interesting thing to observe. And then a thought crossed my mind: what if the only thing we could see from the building were the windows. Could we still tell it was a building?

I forgot about that for at least two months until I was walking on one of the pretty small streets in the centre back home, and the thought rushed back into my consciousness. I decided to stick with the idea of negative space and a limited pallet for the final piece since they are both things that we had lectures on in the beginning of the year and they did leave a positive impression on me.

 

1. masking tape, masking fluid & drawing ink

2. masking fluid & watercolour

3. masking tape & watercolour

I decided that the best way to execute my idea would be with the use of masking tape and fluid along with watercolours and drawing ink. I had never used masking fluid before so there was also an experimentation element to my work this term (as there was last term with the analogue photography).

I love how the simplicity of the try-out pieces fits with the idea of quietness which I’m supposed to strive for, and also hints of something hidden away and maybe for the first time ever, people will wonder what the building looked like, rather than what is inside it. It is a city, hidden in plain sight. 

More Tests

I decided to do some more experiments with masking tape as I’m looking for the same effect. Straight lines work best when you’re trying to draw buildings, right?

Final Piece Development

During my time back home for the Easter break, I had time to think and by spending my time every day all day out in town with my friends I managed to clear out and polish my ideas. I came up with a final piece consisting of a series of A2 paintings/illustrations.

But in order to do my pieces the way I wanted, I needed to learn how to use masking fluid. It was a really exciting and unexpected experience and I did enjoy the first tryouts.

Here I have uploaded the results of my experimentation with and without effects because they work both ways. :)

 

1. Eye,  watercolour & masking fluid

 

 

2. Green, watercolour & masking fluid

 

 

3. flower, watercolour & masking fluid

 

4. Shapes, watercolour & masking fluid

 

 

5. I don’t even know.  watercolour & masking fluid