riarumi

Did an interview for riarumi, a website that looks at females in whatever industry they might happen to work in. I really don't see myself as a "female journalist" it's not the main issue I align myself with, but I guess because of the things I choose to write about, I am constantly around really awesome Japanese female creative industry people, and I've been lucky to meet a ton of amazing chicks. Most of the models in my books are also people with their own careers asides from modelling.
At least half the kawaii book features girls/ women who celebrate femininity and  channel that energy into something creative and fun; whether they be fashion designers, illustrators, stylists, MUAs, graphic designers, artists etc. anyways the rest of the interview is on their site, the pic is from Tunisia post "Arab Spring" (I realise a lot of ppl don't dig that title) when I was interviewing El General!

thanks Sam for dropping me a line, good luck with the site! xxx

the Debrief

I did an interview for the Debrief a while back on kawaii culture. 

They got my name wrong, and said I write for the "Japanese" Times (!) but... anyways! 

Thought it was interesting they linked kawaii culture to the tsunami as I felt that most subcultures took a huge hit, a lot of youth cultures went on hiatus, and people in general felt guilty about having fun. If anything, rather than being outgoing, it was more like the "MUJI life," and young people reassessing what how they consumed, living modestly on a small scale,  and things like this.

 It took forever to recover -- it has only been recently that Tokyo's youth has it's energy back and shook off the general melancholy (if at all, and certainly not on the scale of before the tsunami). Considering a lot of my work is based on subcultures, I am really fortunate to have been really involved in many subcultures the last decade before 3/11.

 I won't go into the nationalism here, but those folks are as far removed from these kinds of pop/ creative street cultures as you can get (imo), and comes from a completely different place (similar to skins in Greece and Spain, adversities create a kind of negativity)  

You do see more cultural pride in the downtown/ Asakusa region youth culture (matsuri festivals, "Edo-kko" machismo, artisans, working class chic,  etc. etc. ) where traditional, or should I say, Edo based culture is lauded, even with young people, but real right wing nationalists are a bit of a nut-case genre of their own.

Still, interesting read and thank you for including me in your report!  m(_  _)m 

Interesting to read other people's interpretations on this, I saw they also interviewed a photographer, Thomas Card who made this quite jumbo sized photo book with Tokyo street culture kids in a white studio. It is beautiful book, and offers something different to the head-to-toe style street snap style that Fruits owns, and does best. 

thanks Debrief for dropping me a line xxx

 

Hiraga Teruyuki exhibition

From 6/13 to 15 there is a Hiraga Teruyuki kokeshi exhibition, he is from Sakunami and did the kokeshi that is on the cover of my book!
The address is:
2-4-10 Negishi, Taito-ku, Tokyo
It is REALLY hard to get genuine kokeshi in Tokyo so it is a great opportunity to pick up some of these one-of-a-kind beauties.

Kumamiki

Shot Kumamiki for a new book on kimonos -- she mentioned she has is video blogging now, check it out! Always sooooo sweet, she is a walking, real life version of the kawaii book and she is really in the center of that culture.
PS she is also making yukata (summer kimonos), I love talented girls :)))
https://www.youtube.com/user/kumamikicraft

LA

LA was super hectic, but met so many people it was really quite incredible and managed to squeeze in some work for my kimono book too and meet some LA kawaii peeps.
Thank you so much to Aaron, Gabriel and Dory from SCB, Greg Kimura and Elizabeth from the Japanese American Museum, Yoko from the Japan Foundation, Sherry from Kinokuniya and all the people who bought books and came to my talk.
Everyone was super super friendly at the talk which was SO nice! I can't thank you enough for coming to the talk and buying books,  I am so so so so soooo  grateful!

Got a mega vitamin D dose at the LA TImes book fair, LA weather lived up to its reputation. I have never done a US book fair so it was nice to see that print is far from dead.

So many people asked about my kimono - it is from Denim Dosu in Kyoto, I can wear it with converse, throw it in the wash, iron it, it is made from premium denim and it folds well -- i.e. it is easy to put on. It has pink stitching. The han eri (collar) is pink and stitched with birds, it is from Wakitsch. I am in the middle of compiling a stack of interesting designers for my next book if you want to see more:
http://kimononow.blogspot.jp/

I think as many people wanted to talk about kimono as the books! :) Some photos at the Japan Foundation pop up exhibition (my suitcase was like a BRICK) and the book fair:

LOS ANGELES!

OK.... so this is the final updated schedule, my books will be available at all of these, if you already have a book, bring it over if you want it signed!

12 April// 12-1 at the Japan American Museum

12 april //2:30 - 4 at the LA TIMES book fair
13 april //3:30 to 5 at the LA TIMES book fair

 17 april// 7 pm at the JAPAN FOUNDATION for a kokeshi/post 3-11 Japanese youth culture/ kawaii culture talk.
Also I am doing a pop up exhibition. I sold off all my kokeshi in Paris for charity, but I managed to borrow about 35 vintage kokeshi, and will bring 10 of my own, copies of KOKESHKA's Kokeshi Jidai magazine, and we will have a slide show too. It is FREE so if you aren't doing anything, come over and say hi!

xxxxx

Japanese American National Museum

I will be at the Japanese American National Museum signing kokeshi books as well!
12th April, 12 to 1. They did this awesome kokeshi show a while back:
http://www.janm.org/exhibits/kokeshi/