Clothing sizes in Japan are completely different than those in America. American clothes are about 3 sizes larger than sizes in Japan. In fact, so are fashion trends. Generally Japanese people tend to want to wear things that are less flashy, while Americans aren't afraid to wear bold makeup (dark blue lipstick and a smokey style eye shadow look, for example). There are many different types of fashion in Japan.
For example, there is the idol type, which tries to be as cute and childlike as possible. Upon further inspection, there seems to be a correlation between the Lolita effect (men lusting after young girls, or teenage girls wanting to seem younger than they are because it's a trend) in Japan and this type of fashion. This style is even sometimes called Lolita, or Loli for short. This style centers around pastel clothing. It has puffy dresses, cute, pastel wigs that are often curled and long, and knee-high socks. Lolitas love lace and frilly things. Also, big plastic hair pieces or buttons, or really anything to make them appear more childlike is popular. This style also features lots of layers. Often there will be a lace undershirt or cute bra, then a small, flowy tanktop, then the dress (which has many layers by itself) and a cute jacket (depending on the weather). Often Lolitas also carry parasols to keep their skin youthful and free of burns from the sun. Often, famous Lolis are in the sun for a very long time for photo shoots, so it's actually smart that they carry parasols.
As for makeup, Lolitas usually wear large contacts to make their eyes look bigger. They might use glue to make their eyes seem double lidded. Usually Lolis wear lots of dark black eyeliner or brown eyeliner/eye shadow. The pictures I've seen (the professional Lolis) seem like they have their makeup professionally done. They use many makeup tricks (such as lining the eye with black or brown under the actual waterline to make the eyes appear bigger, or lining the bottom waterline with white eyeliner) to make their eyes stand out. Often, the difference between a Lolita and more contemporary Tokyo fashion is that the Lolitas spend much more time doing their makeup and trying to look like a living porcelain doll.
You read that right, they really are trying to look like porcelain dolls. If your face could be painted on, wouldn't that be the definition of flawless? That's the ideology behind Lolita fashion. Besides, you know, the whole slight fetishization of children. Usually I'm all for explaining a social justice topic, however right now I don't have the energy nor the resources to completely explain the Lolita Effect. However, there is a book by that title that summarizes it quite nicely, I think.
Usually these things take time to explain. I guess I could try, if you really want me to. You do? Perfect. I'll go off on a slight tangent, but I'll tie it all together in the end. Basically, society creates these rolls for us to follow. By society, I mean huge corporations trying to sell us (the general public) stuff. Often this type of thing doesn't have a very negative effect, right? They're just trying to sell stuff. WRONG. The more money they make, the happier they are. The more loyal customers they have, the more money they are for sure going to make. These companies are happiest when they have definite sources of income. Isn't every business? So they advertise their name as a small company, then that small company grows. And grows. And the customer base grows exponentially and more and more locations of that business start appearing and the CEO has been making an eight figure salary for a while now. And the reason they grew is customer loyalty. The one thing they need is loyal customers. For a while, McDonald's drive through intro the employees were trained to say was "Welcome back to McDonald's. How can I help you?" One of the largest selling type of product is makeup to women. If companies photoshop models, and tell girls when they're really, really little that only makeup can make them beautiful, that they are born flawed, that acne and fat is disgusting but makeup is the cure, they will start to believe all of it.
With the Lolita effect in Japan, companies have advertised being young as attractive, and teenagers and women followed suit. I noticed that people I talked to in Japan were some of the most sexist people I'd ever met. But that's a post for another day, and it's a generalization I don't have enough facts to talk about. At this point the thing we should probably ask ourselves is who are we trying to be beautiful for? Should you really follow the norms in a society that feeds off your self-hatred? But hey, being little is cute, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment