Oh, man! I love JFashion books and books about Japanese pop culture in general, but you've really hit the nail on the head; most of them are from outsider/western perspective, only giving minimal information and over analysing the information they do have. Im my opinion I don't think fashion, JFashion or otherwise, needs to be analyzed. We wear what we wear because its fun and makes us feel beautiful, right?
Thank you though for sharing the book, I haven't read this one yet and would really like to. :D
I enjoy talking about why people do the things they do in regards to alt fashion but idk there's only so much you can say about it? I'm personally way more interested in tangible facts (I'm totally crazy for "historical" pop culture stuff, I would be over the moon if someone dug up like mid-90's pictures of the inside of the Pretty stores or street snaps from 80's when Harajuku fashion started becoming a thing) and personal essays from the people who wear the fashion. I don't mind these books being written from a Western perspective, because otherwise they would literally never get made because I don't think any of the (equally as few!) Japanese books have never been translated, but it's the sort of half assed analytical statements that always say the same thing that really get to me
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I think I would really love that too! The JFashion in America that you were mentioning. Especially lolita! As a newcomer to the fashion (Admirer for years, just bought my first OP in January) I realized that no one around me knew what it was, and if they did recognize the term, they associated it with the book "Lolita." Which, as we all know, is not what this it XD. Maybe if we had more books/magizines/ect relating to these fashions people wouldn't find it so strange? And, come on, give yourself some credit, I bet your an amazing photographer! You and I can team up and make this happen, man XD.
I honestly bet people would always find it strange! For example, Goth has been around for decades and has just countless media about it and related to it and people still think all Goths are suicidal Satan worshippers.
Haha, I'm a very lazy photographer xD I have a relatively nice DSLR camera but I literally don't know how to use it beyond the auto setting.
I'm not sure how I feel about these books if I'm honest, like you I'm always somewhat disappointed by these kind of books. I've got "Fashioning Japanese Subcultures" and while I haven't read it properly yet it seems OK but from comments here I gather it does fail as a proper study. When I flicked through Fruits in a bookstore once I wasn't a fan of it
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Yeah they're a real mixed bag for me, but I find them interesting nonetheless. I like the lookbook aspect of them and I want to read actual insightful comments about the various fashions, but they are always lacking for me. I have both the old Fruits photobooks and while I really don't think they hold up so well beyond nostalgia (because we've all seen these pictures millions of times before) in the early 2000's they were very impressive because the first one was literally the first of it's kind in English
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To be fair that isn't just a Western outlook. "Normal" Japanese society looks at Lolitas and say "look at those crazy Lolitas" too. It's not widely accepted here and though the little Japanese grandmas tend to love the frills, in general Lolita and most other street fashions are looked down upon as people who "are not capable of fitting in and thus failures to the Japanese society". I actually think it's looked upon even worse here than outside of Japan because outside of Japan it's at least seen as amusing whereas here in Japan dressing the way we all do is seen as a failure to assimilate into society aka people without any kind of common sense or future.
Infact lots of lolitas and alternative fashion Japanese entusiasts when they reach a certain age like 20-25 they usually quit the styles because after university, they need to find a career and usually a good one not a part time job, because for a Japanese individual dressing alternative, getting into "otaku" culture and such are considered things not good for an adult Japanese person. I have also heard some girls call themselves "old women" when they reach their 20s, i was shocked to hearing this!! Japanese society isn't that rose colored as outsiders believe
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For me there are two things: a) I don't really like Japanese culture books written by non-Japanese people. The same would be true for ANY country. I don't like it when someone who is not from a country writes about that country; even if you live there your experience will not be the same being a foreigner no matter what. So I don't like it. Second, although sure every fashion trend has an origin and I'm sure there is some very loose, broad mental pattern as to why certain people dress a certain way, there really doesn't have to be so much analyzing about people and their clothes. It's fashion, it's made to be worn, end of story. I couldn't really careless about the theories behind why certain fashion became popular in certain countries at certain time. I'd RATHER it be a picture book- fashion is meant to be seen, worn and enjoyed, not over-analyzed. At the end of the day I don't really know why anyone cares about the "how" or "why".
Oddly enough, most people enjoy accurate and factual information, which is often aided by the existence of sources that explain the how's and why's of things in general.
That said, there are plenty of picture books and magazines in Japan, as well as some in the US, like the FRUITS snap books which were (badly) translated and sold as anthologies in the US. The problem is that because those books lacked information, there was a quasi knowledge among the general public of the idea that Japan has a fashion style called fruits. It's not overly common anymore as the books get farther and farther out of print, but people have talked to me about fruits style before, assuming that what I'm wearing is some version of the early 2000's decora from those books.
It's a pity usually these books about J-fashions are written by outsiders who don't really know about these fashions correctly, i noticed the same thing with books or essays regarding gothic subculture, but with japanese fashion there are more misconceptions. Also these books at times use obsolete/outdated sources for these fashions and not analysing the fashion style in consideration today, for example i see they only use old school lolita as reference from what i have seen and they also don't mention the fashions related to lolita (i mean these styles are inspired by lolita looks) like fairy kei, creepy cute, himegyaru and so on.
I think it's because a lot of the goth books (at least ones I'm aware of) are written by insiders of the gothic subculture. Things like the Gothic Charm School book and another one I've got somewhere but have forgotten the name of are all written by actual goths. Whereas these Jfashion books are nearly always from an outsider-looking-in perspective, often written by guys while primarily about girls, and even by people without good enough Japanese to interview as well as photograph, so they're not going to provide as good an insight. Also, whether it's the publishers or the authors, I agree with comments above that wayyy too many of them push the "wacky Japanese" angle and use outdated references.
They tend to consider these fashion movements too much in detail, also adding weird conceptions of how the fashion was born and how its wearers are... yes, that wacky japanese concept where every outsider of Japanese culture tend to navigate into and we consider Japan the land of the weirdest things. I see also on these books they say it's usually a fashion for teens and they never mention young adults or older wearing the fashion. I'm aware in Japan unfortunately wearing alternative fashion is considered a negative pretty thing for a working adult, but seems they want to keep this fashion as a rebellious teenage act only connected with that japanese weirdness. Also, i want to see someone to analyze realistically the Japanese fashion movements in western countries and how from these places the fashion evolved. There are Lolita wearers around the world not only in Japan!
Goth books do seem to always been written by people within the gothic subculture for some reason, I've noticed this too!
To be fair though, the books I have found are pretty much split down the middle in terms of a male or female author (and this is even counting the 3 male authored books on there that are strictly street snaps, if we we're counting the ones with just a significant amount of text, there are far more female authored books on the subject!) and a fair amount of them seem to be by either Japanese people or people who have lived in Japan for extended periods of time. So for the most part, these are actually written by females (either pop culture journalists or people with degrees in fashion) who speak Japanese, so I don't really know what their excuse is xD
To know why or how a certain fashion developed, I would look at history of arts and fashion, and aesthetics in general. You can start to learn patterns, and then history can explain why. Maybe in Gustavo Gili (publisher) has something about fashion, specially history of fashion. I wonder if there is any book of only history of fashion in Japan, or modern
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^yes. I wonder all the time if people actually think I look nice when I wear lolita, or just stupid. I've never had someone tell me they thought it was ugly, except my grandmother, who told me the AP dress I wanted to buy looked very childish (I only showed it to her because I wanted to be driven over to the persons house so I could buy it ;)). I only recently started wearing lolita around friends, and people always comment how cute I look. Someone went so far as to tell their daughter that they wanted her to start wearing lolita. The next day, one of my moms friends told me she had always wanted to wear dresses with petticoats and started asking where I bought my clothes! But I don't know if people say I look nice because I actually do, or because they can see I put effort into my outfit and don't want to be insulting.
I had so many responses. Old ladies seem to like it, while my mother sometimes likes it, sometimes asks me "to move on" (into something more adult). My husband is fine with it, as long as I'm happy. I had the same feeling, at some party, I remember my mom got her make-up done by somebody else, and it did not look good. My aunt was blinking at me, "It looks good" (Do not tell her because we are late). Sometimes as Lolita, I received comments like "you look so pretty and cute", and when I have something more toned down, and more thoughtful for "all public", I would notice if people like it, with comments like "Oh, where did you buy it, I like your blouse, I want one".
While, for the most part, I agree with you. It's definitely helpful to be outside of something to be able to look at it without it being tainted by your own ideas or it having been "normalized" to you, most of the outsiders who write about Lolita and other Jfashions almost always say exactly the same thing and it's often a vast over simplification. My problem is mostly that a lot of these books don't really have anything insightful to say and all use variations on the same 2 page "what is Lolita?" circa 2006 essay when it would be much more interesting to let the models speak for themselves.
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Thank you though for sharing the book, I haven't read this one yet and would really like to. :D
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Haha, I'm a very lazy photographer xD I have a relatively nice DSLR camera but I literally don't know how to use it beyond the auto setting.
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That said, there are plenty of picture books and magazines in Japan, as well as some in the US, like the FRUITS snap books which were (badly) translated and sold as anthologies in the US. The problem is that because those books lacked information, there was a quasi knowledge among the general public of the idea that Japan has a fashion style called fruits. It's not overly common anymore as the books get farther and farther out of print, but people have talked to me about fruits style before, assuming that what I'm wearing is some version of the early 2000's decora from those books.
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To be fair though, the books I have found are pretty much split down the middle in terms of a male or female author (and this is even counting the 3 male authored books on there that are strictly street snaps, if we we're counting the ones with just a significant amount of text, there are far more female authored books on the subject!) and a fair amount of them seem to be by either Japanese people or people who have lived in Japan for extended periods of time. So for the most part, these are actually written by females (either pop culture journalists or people with degrees in fashion) who speak Japanese, so I don't really know what their excuse is xD
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I only recently started wearing lolita around friends, and people always comment how cute I look. Someone went so far as to tell their daughter that they wanted her to start wearing lolita. The next day, one of my moms friends told me she had always wanted to wear dresses with petticoats and started asking where I bought my clothes!
But I don't know if people say I look nice because I actually do, or because they can see I put effort into my outfit and don't want to be insulting.
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I had the same feeling, at some party, I remember my mom got her make-up done by somebody else, and it did not look good. My aunt was blinking at me, "It looks good" (Do not tell her because we are late).
Sometimes as Lolita, I received comments like "you look so pretty and cute", and when I have something more toned down, and more thoughtful for "all public", I would notice if people like it, with comments like "Oh, where did you buy it, I like your blouse, I want one".
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