JAPAN: Paris, Milan, Tokyo. Tokyo?

In the trendy Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo, the latest street fashions, like thigh-high boots, are on display in shop windows.  Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

January 2, 2010

By HIROKO TABUCHI

TOKYO — Japan’s trailblazers of street fashion are the envy of Western designers, spawning Web sites filled with snapshots of Tokyo youngsters in the latest distressed jeans or psychedelic stockings.

With city sidewalks as their catwalks, young Japanese flaunt carefully layered tops and thigh-high boots sporting labels like Galaxxxy, Phenomenon and Function Junction.

But most of Tokyo’s clothing designers have not figured out how to cash in on the city’s fashion sense. Only a handful of Japanese brands, like A Bathing Ape or Evisu Jeans, have gained traction beyond the nation’s shores. Chic local labels like Fur Fur and Garcia Marquez Gauche remain mostly unknown outside Japan.

Experts say that the nation’s fashion industry is too fragmented and too focused on the domestic market to make it overseas.

“For much of this decade, fashion trends have started in Japan and gone global. But Japanese brands don’t even realize that,” said Loic Bizel, a French-born fashion consultant based in Tokyo. Japan “generates trends and ideas, but it stops there,” he said. “Many brands are not even interested in going overseas.”

So each season, Mr. Bizel takes fashion industry buyers from America and Europe — mass clothiers like Hennes & Mauritz of Sweden and Topshop of Britain — to buy up bagfuls of the latest hits. The designs are then whisked overseas to be reworked, resized, stitched together and sold under Western labels.

In that business model, there is little financial gain for Japan. In 2008, Japan’s clothing and apparel-related exports came to a mere $416 million, dwarfed by the $3.68 billion exported by American apparel companies, and a tiny fraction of China’s $113 billion.

Despite rave reviews from industry insiders, Fur Fur — a new brand that mixes airy cotton frocks with distressed trench coats — has only one small store in Tokyo.

Meanwhile, Japan’s domestic apparel industry is on the decline. It shrank 1.3 percent, to 4.37 trillion yen ($48 billion), in 2008, and is expected to post a steeper decline for 2009 as recession-weary consumers and an aging population cut back sharply on spending.

“Japanese fashion might be considered cutting-edge, but overseas markets have been largely elusive,” said Atsushi Izu, an analyst at the Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo. “Japan’s fashion industry is very fragmented, and most companies lack the resources and know-how to bring their brands to foreign markets.”

The government is trying to help. Earlier this year, the Foreign Ministry dispatched a group of suit-clad officials to Tokyo’s hip Harajuku neighborhood to survey the latest trends, part of an effort to promote Japanese fashion overseas. After interviews with shoppers and sales clerks, the ministry came up with a battle plan: to appoint three young trendsetters as “ambassadors” of Japanese chic, charged with extending the industry’s reach overseas and piquing interest in Japanese brands.

One ambassador, Misako Aoki — a model known in Tokyo for her Lolita look of frilly Rococo-inspired dresses paired with platform shoes — has been dispatched to France, Spain, Russia and Brazil, where she has attended expos and hosted fashion talk shows in her trademark floppy bow tie and frilly smock.

“I hope that Lolita fashion and Japanese fashion in general will raise your interest in Japan,” Ms. Aoki said in São Paulo, Brazil, in November after starring in a Lolita fashion show organized by the Japanese embassy. (Although Lolita style is a reference to the Vladimir Nabokov novel “Lolita,” its look is more covered-up Victorian schoolgirl than skin-baring teenage vixen.)

The trade ministry has also helped revamp the twice-yearly Tokyo Collection and started inviting foreign journalists to come on the government’s dime. For the first time this year, the collection, renamed Japan Fashion Week, sponsored a splinter fashion event in New York to showcase Japanese designers, and it has planned another runway show in New York in mid-February.

“Japanese fashion has so much global potential,” says Kenjiro Monji, director general of the Foreign Ministry’s Public Diplomacy Department, who oversees Japan’s cultural push overseas.

But the government’s efforts have won it few fans in the fashion industry. Besides Ms. Aoki, the two other fashion ambassadors chosen by the government are a woman who likes to dress up in cute high school uniforms and another who mixes and matches secondhand clothes. Promoting such niche tastes does little to help the wider fashion industry, many say.

And Japan Fashion Week remains a relative nonevent filled with relatively obscure designers like Motonari Ono and Kazuhiro Takakura. Ambitious young designers hoping to follow in the footsteps of Japanese greats like Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo may have to do what they did: pass over Tokyo’s shows for those in Paris.

Meanwhile, local favorites like Fur Fur — a new brand that mixes airy cotton frocks with distressed trench coats — have neither the expertise nor the resources to market overseas. Despite rave reviews from industry insiders, it has only one small store in Tokyo.

“Of course, taking my brand overseas is a dream,” said Fur Fur’s designer, Aya Furuhashi. “But to be honest, that’s really beyond us right now.”

What Japan’s fashion industry needs is more concrete help in marketing and setting up shop overseas, experts say. The government could also play a larger role helping Japanese labels protect their intellectual property rights, they say.

There are some promising signs. With government support, the start-up Xavel, which runs fashion shows that let women order outfits in real time using their cellphones, has opened shows in Paris and Beijing.

Fast Retailing, which sells the Uniqlo brand, has also been flexing its muscles overseas. Uniqlo, Japan’s answer to Gap, has roots in suburban outlets and does not have the level of respect among young fashion fans that many of Japan’s hipper brands do. But with ample funds and aggressive pricing on its fleece jackets and shirts, Uniqlo has expanded, with 92 stores worldwide.

Tadashi Yanai, chief executive of Fast Retailing, has said he hopes to build it into the world’s biggest apparel company, with sales of 5 trillion yen in 2020.

“We are part of a global economy,” Mr. Yanai said at a recent forum. “We cannot look inward.”

Moshe Komata contributed to this report.

View Article in The New York Times

CHINA: Top Ten Most Watched People (风云人物) of 2009

Two interesting observations about the most-watched people. First, 20 percent of the list goes to Americans, and to black Americans at that: President Obama, not surprisingly; and Tiger Woods (who it might be noted is part Chinese, though it’s doubtful this had anything to do with his popularity). Secondly, 70 percent is negative-news related. I would reckon this is a necessary complement to the relentlessly positive “news” in the mainstream press.

1. President Obama

Obama’s election night victory speech (which of course was given in November 2008, and not actually in 2009) resonated across the Pacific in China, with many viewers reporting that they were actually moved to tears by some of his oratory and the power of the moment. We’re so often told about an assertive China and a Chinese Internet seething with angry nationalistic youth scornful of the U.S. and its president, but the popularity of Obama and the reception of his speech at least among Youku viewers suggests a more complex picture indeed.

2. Brother Zeng

For me, the most baffling and disturbing part is to hear the supportive whistling and applause. Am I still in my world where singing or performing is still interpreted through time-tested, evolution-selected bio- or physiological standards? If so, how can one possibly understand this Brother Zeng phenomenon? If we want to describe Brother Zeng as another Furong Jiejie, the latter at least seems to have her own logic, however twisted: She’s some kind of narcissistic personality disorder victim, and her “fandom” is clearly tongue-in-cheek. But what’s up with people who liked Brother Zeng?

3. Gome Founder Huang Guangyu

Huang Guanyu, the founder of China’s largest appliance chain Gome Electrical Appliances, used to be the second-richest man in mainland China. But it’s a dangerous business to be rich in the PRC. Under investigation for white-collar crime, Huang resigned his position as Gome chairman, as reported in this video news. The news also disclosed that Huang gambled away 8 billion RMB in 2009. The news report suggest this caused a broken link in Gome’s cash flow, which we would assume partly contributed to Huang’s collapse.

4. “Scholar” Ren Zhiqiang

Ren is famous for being the unofficial spokeman for Chinese realtors and developers. When the television drama Snail House stirred up Chinese emotions over skyrocketing housing prices, Ren jumped out to claim in this news clip that it’s only natural that Chinese youth cannot afford apartments of their own. He also believed that housing prices in China were still too cheap. An amazing quote from him: “Even in developed countries such as the U.S., owning a house and a car yourself is considered a dream, but here in China, many youngsters around 30 realized this dream. Don’t you think we are more advanced?”

5. Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods, as everyone on Earth probably already knows, cheated on his wife and announced that he was leaving pro golf “with no specific return date.” one exact same phrase used by Edison Chen (Chen Guanxi), a Hong Kong entertainer who was caught in a massive and very, erm, graphic sex scandal in early 2008.

6. Hu Bin

The related news ranked third on Youku’s Top 10 Hot Topics. 20-year-old Hu Bin struck and killed a pedestrian while street racing in Hanghzou, instantly becoming the poster child for the “rich second generation.” Chinese netizens followed the news closely, and soon discovered the boy in court looked totally different. Rumor of the rich Hu family paid certain taxi driver to replace Hu Bin for three year imprisonment quickly spread online. This video report did a small investigation and proved it was the real Hu Bin who is now serving his term.

7. Xiao Shenyang

Comedian Xiao Shenyang became a household name after his performance on CCTV’s annual Spring Festival show (春晚) early in 2009. The sketch that made him famous was called “Money’s No Issue,” (不差钱，buchaqian), but ironically a scandal about suggested that for Xiao Shenyang, money really is an issue. After performing in Shanghai, he was booked to perform in the nearby city of Changzhou, and the show promoter there sent a tourbus to pick him and his entourage up in Shanghai. His manager refused to allow him to perform unless the Changzhou promoter paid all costs of airfare to and from Beijing. After the promoter relented and paid, the comic and his crew caused another scene in a restaurant, insisting that the poor promoter pick up the tab for a lavish banquet.

8. Xie Caiping

This ordinary-looking middle-aged woman was in fact the capo di tuti capi, the boss of all bosses, in the massive Chongqing organized crime syndicate that’s been the object of a major investigation this year. She allegedly controlled gambling and the drug trade, and had a large string of officials in her pocket. What a contrast to the stereotype we have of the heilaoda (黑老大). Xie was given a prison term of 18 years, and a fine of 1.02 million RMB.

9. Magician Liu Qian

After performing at CCTV’s annual Spring Festival gala (春晚), Taiwanese magician Liu Qian gained fame overnight in mainland area, and sparked nationwide fever for magic. Liu Qian has long been referred to as the most renowned Taiwanese magician and performed internationally. His contemporary program design and always sleek appearance attracted millions, and now apparently billions viewers. This video clip from one entertainment program at Hunan Satellite TV shows how Liu Qian works his magic.

10. Writer Yu Qiuyu or Investor Yu Qiuyu

Writer Yu Qiuyu is famous for his signature meditations on Chinese culture and history — and for his ability to earn money on his literary fame. In a country that traditionally believes the intelligentsia should choose a life of material poverty, Yu Qiuyu drew a lot criticism when news that he had invested in a former state-owned department store came out. As one of the major shareholders, Yu Qiuyu’s stake, on paper at least, was worth billions of yuan. Though many viewers support a writer to make money, many question how the ownership of a state-owned department store can easily and mysteriously be transferred to certain seemingly irrelevant individuals.

Source:  buzz.youku.com