Thus I'm listening to Big in Japan by Martin Solveig. I don't think neither the music nor its music video are particularly well-made, as music sounds too much like Hello song and the video doesn't go beyond cool and exotic portrait of Tokyo. 'Big in Japan' typically means Western celebrities who are only famous in Japan (and this surprising phenomena happens quite a lot). This song does have Tokyo-like feel to it, including how if you listen to it for too many times it becomes quite annoying. Anyway, this song is setting my mood for Japan, that's for sure.
こっちのラヂオでよくかかっている、Martin Solveigのビッグ・イン・ジャパンという曲。「ビッグ・イン・ジャパン」とは元々「日本でだけ有名な欧米人」という意味。
I was reading My Dear Bomb by Yohji Yamamoto, and came across this quote:
I completed the course and began working at my mother's dressmaking shop. Elegant madams would come into the shop with magazine clippings, asking us to make them the outfits they saw there. Hourglass figures they had not, but I diligently took their measurements as I grumbled silently to myself about the impossibility of reproducing the magazine look. I hated it. Intensifying my annoyance was the fact that the shop was in the Kabukicho area of Shinjuku, a place overflowing with women whose job was to titillate male customers. They had shaped my image of womanhood since childhood, and I was therefore determined to at all costs avoid creating the cute, doll-like women that some men adore.Mind you, mainstream Japanese fashion is all about 'the cute, doll-like women that some men adore' but obviously not all girls agree to dress up in such style. And yes, that's probably one of the reasons why I love his work too.
I became more fan of Yohji's work during my last visit in Japan. The reason being includes small things like an amazing customer service that Yohji's stores had. I visited one of his stores twice and my second visit happened few weeks after my first visit. But the women remembered me and remembered exactly what I've tried on at the first time (the exact product and the size). Customer services in Japan tend to get extreme, where shop assistants follow you everywhere and persist on helping you, but the subtlety at Yohji's store was a way more touching.
山本耀司さんが、「男の人に好かれる可愛い女だけは絶対に作らないと決めた」と言っていて、なるほどねーだから彼の服が好きなんだろうなあと思った。
「好きだなあ」と思っていたアーティストやデザイナーの思想を知って、それが自分の思想と完璧に一致した瞬間というのは、なんだか自分自身の意味が通ったみたいに嬉しい。
前回の日本滞在中に、渋谷パルコのY'sに２回行ったのだけれど、２回目に行った時に、十数日間が空いていたにも関わらず、店員さんが自分を覚えていてくれたのが嬉しかった。顔を覚えていてくれただけではなくて、私が初回に試着した服とそのサイズまで覚えていてくれて、驚いた。日本の接客は過剰になりがちだけれど、こういう謙虚な接客にこそ、日本人の良さを感じる。デパートの店員まで、ちゃんと教育が行き渡っているきめ細かさ。