Friday 5 June 2009

Shape and drape

I've been paging obsessively through DROP, which features Japanese street style. I find it difficult to mess around with clothes back home in Malaysia as much as I do here in London, mostly because of the familial mockery/surprise that greets anything remotely new, but partly because it's so damn hot. They get pretty hot 'n' humid summers in Japan, though, so it's interesting to see how they dress despite it.


This is my favourite outfit that I've seen so far, but one wonders if it isn't a little too perfect. It is a bit ridiculous of me, but will she ever be able to come up with so ideal a combination of hat, hair, sun, dress, bracelet, socks, shoes and sunlight again? If you asked me why I thought this so beautiful I would have to say it is because of a) the colours and b) the fact that the dress and hat are both a little too big. The precise lines of the dress, the wrinkled socks, the angle of the hat on her perfectly bleached head ... it is too beautiful to think about!

And the Japanese are the emperors of layering. Layering in the summer! Madness. And yet they don't look like they're about to up and drop dead of the heat.




Possibly it's just because they're made of tougher stuff than we are.

What I find particularly interesting is the fondness of shapes that don't necessarily have to anything to do with the shape of the human (female) body.


That isn't very clear, is it? What I mean is -- so much of (Western?) fashion is focused on being sexy, or showing it all, or not showing it all but suggesting. Which is fine, obvs, I'm a huge fan of the tiny mini shift dress and that's hardly modesty central. But it's interesting to see fashion that isn't fixated on how much you can show off or suggest, where a baggy T-shirt is not the worst thing in the world.



I'm not going to say it's not about sex, because who knows? I'm not here to do a sociological study. But it's cool to see summer fashion that isn't just tiny summer dresses, much as I love tiny summer dresses!

- Zen

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