Samhita at Feministing links to this Salon article criticizing pop star Gwen Stefani for hiring four Asian women to follow her around. The article’s subtitle neatly sums up its point: “Gwen Stefani neuters Japanese street fashion to create spring’s must-have accessory: Giggling geisha!” From the article:
Real harajuku girls are just the funky dressers who hang out in the Japanese shopping district of Harajuku. To the uninitiated, harajuku style can look like what might happen if a 5-year-old girl jacked up on liquor and goofballs decided to become a stylist. Layering is important, as is the mix of seemingly disparate styles and colors. Vintage couture can be mixed with traditional Japanese costumes, thrift-store classics, Lolita-esque flourishes and cyber-punk accessories. In a culture where the dreaded “salary man/woman” office worker is a fate to be avoided for this never-wanna-grow-up generation, harajuku style can look as radical as punk rockers first looked on London’s King Road or how pale-faced Goths silently sweating in their widows weeds look in cheerful sunny suburbs. […]
Stefani fawns over harajuku style in her lyrics, but her appropriation of this subculture makes about as much sense as the Gap selling Anarchy T-shirts; she’s swallowed a subversive youth culture in Japan and barfed up another image of submissive giggling Asian women. While aping a style that’s suppose to be about individuality and personal expression, Stefani ends up being the only one who stands out.
The writer’s critique of Stefani seems pretty on-target. The description of harajuku fashion made me curious, so I googled and found some photo galleries: here, here, here, here, and here. The girls seem to be very creative and having a lot of gothy fun. Even the “sexy” outfits seem more like satire or appropriation than like dressing up to attract boys, and there’s a lot of wit going into the outfits. (There’s also some stuff that’s disturbing – a couple of photos I saw showed girls who had made themselves up to look as if they’d been beat up, or dressed like Nazis, etc..)
it sseems as soon as i rushed to her defence she had to let me down with her new single containing lyrics from sound of music. shes not really helped me help her help herself. but i still think her last albunm was good! ^^
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Hi, I’m a regular reader of this blog but this is (I believe) my first comment
Just a question: Why are Americans so obsessed with Japanese culture in the first place? Whether its the Anime Otaku’s, the teenage boys who watch Japanese porn, or the fixation on the prototypical “Japanese Teen” its really kind of strange. I mean Japanese culture has a lot of complexities, and, as much as it may shock the people who fetishize the country, it has plenty of deep running cultural flaws as well as good points. Its really rather strange how the US is totally obsessed with East Asia. I mean a healthy interest in other cultures is one thing but an obsession that glosses over day to day social issues or the “mundane” aspects that don’t sell as well to foreign audiences is slightly ridiculous. Really thats my thought on the Harajuku phenomenon
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I find it pretty distasteful, in addition to just being cheap gilding on a woman who strikes me as all style and no substance. She should just abandon the artiste pretenses and her pitiful, ugly line of overpriced fashions and head directly for her probable future career in Vegas lounges, where stuff like treating other races as exotic pets probably won�t raise an eyebrow.)