School of Humanities, Philosophy & History Disciplines

"The process of cultural globalisation does not always imply cultural homogenisation.
Rather, it can be seen as a process of cultural ‘glocalisation’ and hybridisation where
cultures continuously interact with and interpret each other to engender a hybrid
cultural form. As Arjun Appadurai (1993) contends, neither centrality nor peripherality
of culture exists in the context of cultural globalisation. Rather, transnational cultural
forms are likely to circulate in multiple directions.

This is particularly evident when examining Gothic & Lolita – a Japanese fashion trend
which has emerged since the late 1990s. Applying Jan Nederveen Pieterse’s theory of
‘globalisation as hybridisation’ (2004), and Roland Robertson’s concept of ‘glocalisation’
(1995), this article attempts to explore how this fashion trend manifests the process of
cultural ‘glocalisation’, hybridisation, and interaction through the localisation of Western
Goth subculture and especially, historical European dress styles in Japan. In addition,
it explores how the fashion signifies the idea of ‘reverse’ flow of culture through an
ethnographic observation of an English-speaking online community devoted to the
trend. The analysis of the online community also seeks to establish the idea that this
transnational cultural flow serves as an alternative to the local culture."

"Readers unfamiliar with contemporary Japanese media might be puzzled by the appearance of men in fashion magazines. This is particularly the case for images of Japanese young men whose strong concerns over their appearance and slender physicality seem to enhance their (hetero)sexual desirability. These publications suggest to their male readers that crafting fashionable looks through selection of the right clothes, cosmetics, fragrances, and maintaining a balanced diet is necessary to self-assurance and a successful life. Do Japanese men engage with fashion differently from men in Europe, Australia, and North America?

The co-presence of Asian and non-Asian models can make these publications seem even more confusing. Readers might wonder if these models are another reification of the ‘Westernised’ nature of Japanese youth. This article shows that a rich study of subjectivity and aesthetics might be found in these Japanese men’s publications. Male aesthetic sensitivities at a cultural level and notions of “the self” might be understood in different terms than they are in many Euro-American cultures. Likewise, the male aesthetics favored by some contemporary Japanese youth might imply an attempt to reject the more established, dowdy mode of ‘salaryman’ masculinity. In short, I argue that Japanese young men’s almost narcissistic concerns about appearance and fashion might offer a different, more ‘relaxed,’ approach to understanding men’s relationship with fashion."

The history of Japanese 'Ivy style' is said to have begun with Kensuke Ishizu who was the 'architect' of Take Ivy, and a kind of Japanese version of Ralph Lauren. He founded the Ivy League-inspired clothing brand company VAN JACKET in 1951. Until the 1990s, the styles that resemble the 'Ivy-league style' made an almost continual appearance in Japan. The 'Ivy style', and similar styles with names such as 'school', 'preppy' and 'trad', are popular today, particularly for those who appreciate the neat and conservative styles (kireime) and high-casual styles. This modern day revival of the 'Ivy style' was particularly marked since 2007 where the aesthetics of the 'Ivy style' were blended with other styles and engendered a number of similar styles with a subtle nuance. The Japanese version of the 'Ivy-league' style is a good example of a global crossing. A cultural form is accepted in a different cultural context, blended with 'local' characteristics, and then flows out again in multiple directions. Indeed, what is striking about the Japanese embracing of the 'Ivy style' is not only its 'preservation' of the style when such styles were perceived as démodé in the United States, but also its demonstration of subtly nuanced changes and transformations. Japanese adaption and appropriation of the 'Ivy-league' style, I argue, tells a cultural process where an 'American' clothing styles are blended with 'Japanese' aesthetic ideals and preferences. This cultural mélange has in turn been re-imported to the United States, making new meanings and new markets for this now perennial style.

Derived from Nabokov’s controversial novel (1955), the name Lolita connotes infamy, particularly when applied to the way in which young women are represented in Western culture. Evidently, the Lolita look, where young women are portrayed girlishly and “innocently” in Western media, is accused by some as endorsing female infantilisation and objectification (Merskin, 2004). This sentiment reflects the famous contention made by sociologist Thorstein Veblen at the turn of last century, in which female sartorial ornamentation was a stable signifier of dependency and subservience. To what extent a “girlish” and emphatically “ornamental” fashion-look inevitably signifies such negative connotations is the question posed in this paper. Looking for a new possibility, I turn to Japanese culture where different modes of representation of femininity are flourishing than in the West (Napier, 1998).

My paper focuses on Tetsuya Nakashima’s film adaptation of Kamikaze Girls (2004). The emphasis of this film is particularly highlighted by Momoko, one of the film’s two adolescent, “fashionista” heroines. She is dressed in the Japanese Lolita fashion, a lavishly lacy and self-consciously girlish style with references to the European Rococo tradition, and quite freely engages in established “masculine” activities without undergoing any sartorial metamorphosis. In this paper, I will argue that Kamikaze Girls offers an innovative representation of young women with a high degree of autonomy and agency. Furthermore, I explore how the film possibly gainsays the established notion that assumes the correlation between girlish femininity and negative connotations of passivity and subservience. Kamikaze Girls, I argue, might shed positive light upon our understanding of the disparaged ornamental and “girlish” sartorial style.

Cultural globalization is not just a political process. It is also a creative process in which cultures continuously interact and re-interpret the other in order to engender a novel cultural form. In the famous contention of Appadurai (1993), neither centrality nor peripherality of culture exists in our transnational era. Instead, disjuncture and fluidity within this very flow suggests the circulation of cultural forms in multiple directions, denying the artificially separated dichotomies of “local” and “global”, and perhaps even more radically for our world of binaries, of the West and non-West.

These vectors of cultural flow can be read through my examination of Lolita style – a Japanese fashion trend, which has emerged since the late 1990s. The fashion has subsequently circulated outside Japan, even with certain limitations, indicated by the presence of an English-speaking online community devoted to the trend amongst other manifestations. In this paper, I pay particular attention to Nederveen Pieterse’s theory of “globalisation as hybridisation” (2004), the theory of “format” and “product” articulated by Okamura (2003), and Robertson’s concept of “glocalisation” (1995). Applying these theories, I illustrate how this fashion manifests the process of cultural “glocalisation”, hybridisation and interaction through the appropriation of Western ‘Goth’ subculture and the deployment of historicising European dress-styles in contemporary Japan. Furthermore, I explore how these fashions also signify the idea of the “reverse” flow of culture, and how this is interpreted differently in the West, a different cultural context. This grounded example of transnational cultural flow, I argue, might serve as an alternative to the monolith idea of ‘local’ cultural values, norms and aesthetics.

Banana Yoshimoto’s novel Tsugumi (Goodbye Tsugumi) was first published in 1989, becoming a best seller in Japan. It was then translated into Italian in 1994 and into English in 2002 by Michael Emmerich. Of great significance within this novel is the representation of girlhood. Narrated from the perspective of the nineteen-year old Maria, the novel centres upon another youth, the eighteen-year old Tsugumi. The eponymous character is delineated through a cascade of dualities; ethereally beautiful yet maliciously selfish, physically delicate yet emotionally robust, and so forth.

My paper explores how the novel’s representations of youthful femininity bring together two often-contradictory attributes of “femininity” and “masculinity”, such as ‘girlishness’ and strong senses of agency and autonomy. This kind of representation is shared not only by Yoshimoto’s other novels, but also by other arenas of mainstream Japanese popular culture. Furthermore, I explore how this novel reflects a tradition of Japanese fictional narrative in which the friendship between young women is a recurrent and central theme. Arguably, this might spare the female characters from being portrayed mainly in terms of their relationship to male characters. Japanese representations of girlhood, as manifested in Goodbye Tsugumi, might offer an alternative to our understanding of representations of young women, which tend to function within the somewhat monolithic binaries of futile assertiveness and pathological fragility.

The application of the Japanese word kawaii (cute) is contested, contentious and culturally contingent. In simple definitional terms, kawaii refers to an aesthetic that connotes something childish, girlish or sweet; it is neither restricted to children nor women in Japan. The concept of a ‘cute’ aesthetic, particularly when associated with feminine appearances, is most often viewed in the generally unfavourable terms of infantilisation, objectification and passivity in many Western cultures. Yet the Japanese concept of kawaii can also be interpreted as a “delicate revolt” that softly and implicitly subverts established stereotypes and cultural preconceptions.

My paper explores this issue by focussing on a group of music-video clips in which female Japanese pop-singers adapt and appropriate the imagery of Lewis Carroll’s famous heroine ‘Alice’. The emphasis in these videos is on the singers’ girlish and cute, almost “infantile” appearance, mostly constructed through the repertoire of clothing that they wear. I argue that these performers offer an innovative representation of youthful femininity in terms of a negotiation between “infantile” cuteness and forceful independence. Furthermore, I explore how the ‘cute’ fashion displayed in these music videos possibly serves as an alternative to the established binaries of sexualisation and subservience in which young women tend to be represented, particularly in but not exclusive to the West. This Japanese aesthetic concept of kawaii, I argue, might illuminate the possibility of detachment of eroticism from the representation of femininity, as well as from ‘sweet’ and ‘girlish’ sartorial style.

This paper looks at romantic ballet and its influences on Japanese girls’ culture. Particularly with the creation of a filmy gauze tutu and satin chaussons de pointe in the early to mid-nineteenth century, the ballerina symbolises for young girls an extraordinarily beautiful and ethereal being, living in a gloriously romantic world. It is argued, however, that the popularity of ballet has slipped behind opera as an art form and behind gymnastic as a sport in Europe and Australia in the early twenty-first century. In contrast, it has retained its popularity in Asian cultures, particularly in Japanese girl culture. The two possible reasons for the prolonged popularity of ballet in Japan are identified: firstly, the aesthetics of ballet costumes correspond with the Japanese shōjo (girl) sensitivity. Secondly, particularly in fictional narratives, ballet can allow young heroines to exercise their senses of agency and independence without jeopardising their romantic, girlish femininity. Paying particular attention to Japanese Gothic & Lolita fashion and girls’ comic books, I will argue that such conceptions of ballet can offer an intricate negotiation of lady-like, elegant mode of femininity and senses of independence and agency.

In one of the memorable sequences of Sofia Coppola’s 1999 film adaptation of The Virgin Suicides, the Lisbon girls are portrayed as contemplating together in a girlishly decorated bedroom, after being confined to their home. In a sense, these girls seem to recreate the clichéd image of imprisoned fairy-tale maidens, be it ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Florine’ in The Bluebird or ‘Rapunzel;’, destined to dream, sing or contemplate in a confined space until their rescue, generally by a man. Particular attention is paid to the aesthetic of ‘sweetly girlish’ bedroom spaces such as this, the visuality of Coppola’s narrative, and the concept of the girls ‘ imprisoned’ in both a space and a filmix aesthetic. But is this film merely a metaphoric narrative of an idealized vision of ‘girlhood’ which is both aesthetically enchanting and restricting? Rather than reading it in this derogatory manner as straightforwardly symbolic of feminine oppression, this paper proposes another reading. Coppola’s film might exemplify the attempt to reevaluate and possibly assign novel meanings to the notion of ‘passivity’; that being in a submissive position could draw central attention to subjectivity, and hence assigning a degree of ‘power’ to the character.

The history of Japanese “Ivy style” is said to have begun with Kensuke Ishizu who was the “architect” of Take Ivy, and a kind of Japanese version of Ralph Lauren. He founded the Ivy League-inspired clothing brand company VAN JACKET in 1951. Until the 1990s, the styles that resemble the “Ivy-league style” made an almost continual appearance in Japan. The “Ivy style”, and similar styles with names such as “school”, “preppy” and “trad”, are popular today, particularly for those who appreciate the neat and conservative styles (kireime) and high-casual styles. This modern day revival of the “Ivy style” was particularly marked since 2007 where the aesthetics of the “Ivy style” were blended with other styles and engendered
a number of similar styles with a subtle nuance.

The Japanese version of the “Ivy-league” style is a good example of a global crossing. A cultural form is accepted in a different cultural context, blended with “local” characteristics, and then flows out again in multiple directions. Indeed, what is striking about the Japanese embracing of the “Ivy style” is not only its “preservation” of the style when such styles were perceived as démodé in the United States, but also its demonstration of subtly nuanced changes and transformations. Japanese adaption and appropriation of the “Ivy-league” style, I argue, tells a cultural process where an “American” clothing styles are blended with “Japanese” aesthetic ideals and preferences. This cultural mélange has in turn been reimported to the United States, making new meanings and new markets for this now perennial style.

Derived from Vladimir Nabokov’s eponymous 1955 novel and its pre-adolescent heroine, seen by the older male narrator as a ‘nymphet’, the ‘Lolita’ look typical in the United States, for example—generally characterized by highly eroticized adolescent or preadolescent girls—has stirred controversy in many Western societies. Japanese Lolita fashion, on the other hand, is characterized by images of women adorned in elaborate dresses with delicate fabrics inspired by stylistic interpretations of early-modern European clothing such as Rococo and Victorian dresses. The style thus exudes the look of European bisque dolls, yet one senses there is something odd about these Japanese ‘European’ dresses.

Lolita style also references various forms of contemporary popular culture, including Western Goth subculture, manga, anime and Visual-kei (Visual-Rock) music—a Japanese music genre popular in the 1990s, typified by musicians wearing elaborate make-up and hairstyles, with flamboyant, rather androgynous costumes. Although it is practised by a small group of people, Lolita fashion has received substantial media and academic attention, perhaps due to its visually spectacular and eye-catching nature. Moreover, the presence of Lolita fashion has increasingly been noted in locations worldwide. But why do people wish to dress in Lolita fashion?

When discussing cultural flows within a transnational context, often the focus of debate is the issue of whether cultures tend towards unification or. In this chapter however, I am interested in whether flows of culture override or dissolve cultural differences in the places they reach, via an examination of Lolita fashion. The first section focuses on Lolita fashion in the Japanese context. Paying particular attention to its stylistic aspects, I examine one of the ways in which historical European clothing has been appropriated in Japan. The second section looks at the Lolita trend outside Japan by way of a textual analysis of an Anglophone on-line community for Lolita fashion lovers, ‘EGL (Elegant Gothic Lolita) The Gothic & Lolita Fashion Community’. In so doing, I will explore how concepts such as ‘local’ and ‘global’ have been relativized or renegotiated in Lolita fashion.

Sofia Coppola’s film The Virgin Suicides (1999) can be viewed as visualizing the (re)negotiation process of the twinned aspects of girlish ‘autonomy’ and ‘restriction’. Although the film’s references to more established images of girlhood are observable, its vague, narrative neutrality, supported by cinematic aesthetics with a dreamy and melancholic effect, leaves their meanings largely unexplained. Connected to our contemporary ideas about adolescence, femininity is generally linked to either pathological fragility or emphasized sexual assertiveness. I question the legitimacy of these binaries and instead read The Virgin Suicides as a depiction of female complexity where the subtle complexity of the heroines contradicts these stereotypes. Instead of situating on either polar of extreme assertiveness and fragility, Coppola presents her conception of adolescent girls as floating between these two. The film’s ethereal and maidenly aesthetics conveyed through the visual qualities of the Lisbon Sisters, including the dresses they wear, effectively layer the girls’ sense of autonomy and sexual maturity, signifying the negotiation of idealizing, suppressing, and empowering adolescent girls. The tragic fate of the girls, on the other hand, limits the film’s capacity to offer an alternative to the monolithic idea of adolescent ‘girlhood’ and how it is visualized in our contemporary culture.

There is a certain curiosity inscribed to the character Alice of Lewis Carroll's famous children's books. Perhaps reflecting the ‘enigmatic’ sexuality of the author, Alice herself has been perceived and interpreted in a dualistic way, namely as an innocent child and as a self-assertively sexualized ‘Lolita’. However, Alice can also be perceived as an emotionally flat yet autonomous character. My article explores this reading of the heroine, which is notable in the context of Japanese culture. In aspects of contemporary Japanese popular culture, for instance, the idea of ‘Alice’ embodies the idealised image of the ‘shojo’ (girl), who is situated between child and adult and is largely detached from the heterosexual economy. Paying particular attention to a group of music videos in which female Japanese pop singers, such as Alisa Mizuki, Tomoko Kawase (AKA Tommy February) and Kaela Kimura, offer their own versions of Carroll's heroine, I examine significant meanings that lie in Japanese appropriations of the imagery of Alice. The importance of their performances as Alice is highlighted by the tendency in which the aesthetic concept of kawaii (cuteness), particularly when it is mingled with sweet, girlish, and ‘infantile’ qualities, is deemed as unfavourable and demeaning in Euro-American cultures. Do their performances of Alice demonstrate a compatibility between girlish aesthetics and senses of agency and autonomy? Can their emphasis on sweetness, demureness, and femininity without hinting at sexual allure or seeking the male gaze serve to repudiate the stereotyped representation of femininity as passive, compliant, and powerless and prevent the sexual objectification of women?