A reply to a musician doing a song about Japanese women wearing cheap perfume

A reply to a musician doing a song about Japanese women wearing cheap perfume
CHEAP PERFUME _ A poem by Yuri Kageyama

CHEAP PERFUME
that whiff snuggled in the commuter train
it makes him want to puke, he says
CHEAP PERFUME
cheap suit, chubby arms, fat feet
she is smug and straight, he feels
CHEAP PERFUME
rushing to work, she squirts it on
escape in a heavenly scent, dream of a faraway world
CHEAP PERFUME
a sculptured bottle costs 3,000 yen
lots of zeroes fewer than what fashion usually costs
CHEAP PERFUME
Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Marc Jacobs, Chanel No. 5
a well-earned chance to inject that glitz high
CHEAP PERFUME
a fragrant aura like an “OL” halo
to protect all women against chauvinist evil
CHEAP PERFUME
it doesn’t take that much to know
No PERFUME ever comes CHEAP

Ecological Fur



It’s real fur.
But Chie Imai has added recycled polyester as fabric to a few of her 2008-2009 collection items to make it luxury fur with a green conscience.
My story.
Two women were sitting across the table from me during the show.
One of them said with a giggle: “This fur costs 20 million yen. You can buy an apartment with that.”
Then the other said: “You cannot buy an apartment with 20 million yen.”
Imai says global warming has hurt the demand for fur, although sales are growing in new markets like Russia and China.
And so she has also come up with “seasonless fur” products.
She showed me a short jacket of white lacey fabric with white fur trim that she said can be worn in air-conditioned places even in the summer.

Mobile Fashion


Xavel is the company behind the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show and mobile/PC sites for electronic shopping that showcase some of Japan’s biggest brands _ fashion houses puzzling to anyone other than young Japanese women with names like Deicy, Titty, Cecil McBee, Spiral Girl.
The shows, which attract thousands of people, work more like catalog shopping.
The people can order clothes right then and there as the models prance on the runway before their eyes.
It’s a great business idea.
And these women are certainly having fun.
Whether their energy and goodwill can be channeled into something other than just-looking-good remains to be seen.

Fashion and oppression

Love for clothes, jewelery, makeup is generally relegated to the female sex in most societies.
Girls, not boys, love dolls, dress up and play house.
Men usually belittle shopping, vanity, fashion.
It is a common definition by society that such pursuits are deemed frivolous and motivated by women’s need to appeal to men.
And so having women obsess with dresses, hairdos and other self-adornment is to see women exactly where society wants to put them.
That’s why girls do cute things.
Makeup isn’t war face-paint.
A fashion plate isn’t a plate of armor.
Sex appeal isn’t territoriality.
The quest for beauty has turned into commercialized consumer marketing to push products for profit.
And the victims are women, who have been taught by their upbringing to seek the material goods that make them attractive/desirable/acceptable, the right dress, the right makeup, the right shoes.
When did the love for pretty things become so twisted?
Fashion should be a form of wearable art, fabric sculpted into a message, a way of self-expression.
Why do we need to feel that we cannot be free unless we wear no makeup and walk around in power suits and view fashion as a man would?