J-Pop Shop Talk: Beyond The Cult Of Cute

Join the Tokidoki family tonight! Via.

FIT 's exhibit Japan Fashion Now, on through January 8, is a visual study of Japanese pop fashion. It explores the utilitarianism, avant-garde underpinnings, subculture gestures and touches of kawaii (cuteness). According to FIT, Japan's contemporary fashion combines "the cute and the scary, the beautiful and the ugly, the animate and the inanimate, the strange and the strangely beautiful."

This is also true of Japan's distinct popular design, J-pop, which has long been making a splash on Western shores. In 2004, BusinessWeek asked "Is Japanese Style Taking  Over The World?" Japanese culturalist Roland Kelts told Entrepreneurship.com he noticed the invasion in the form of Pikachu upstaging Snoopy in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

"That was just the tip of the iceberg," says Kelts, a University of Tokyo professor and author of Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has Invaded the U.S. "I mean, [look at] the fact that sushi is available in mainstream supermarkets around the country; the fact that Japanese style, design and architecture are appearing in major cities around the country; [and] the popularity of manga and anime in bookstores and Wal-Mart and Target."

Japan Society looks at the phenomenon at tonight's discussion The J-pop Influence: A Western Obsession from a complete insider's perspective. Two of the world's top pop designers, Tokodoki's Simone Legno and Nooka’s Matthew Waldman share their love of J-Pop and their thoughts on how it affects our Western designers and consumers today. Discover the nouveau cult of cute from the people in the know!

S.H.

Do you have the time... for tonight's lecture? Via.