The overwhelming percentage of Japanese women owning Louis Vuitton handbags--anywhere between 30% and 90%, depending on whom you ask--has transcended objective statistical measure and transformed into a powerful symbol for the insatiable Japanese lust for European fashion goods and luxury brands. The numerous LV, Gucci, and Goyard handbags currently populating the Tokyo streets seem to suggest that nothing has changed in recent years. Few, however, are giving much attention to the nature of the clothing on the women carrying those luxury handbags.
Female Japanese consumers may still buy single bags from a European superbrand, but they have come to predominantly choose their core apparel items from cheaper domestic labels. Young women can afford a timeless, durable bag--neutral enough in style for daily usage--but can rarely partake in entire ensembles constructed from high-fashion houses. Economic conditions are mainly to blame: over fifteen years of a sluggish economy have made overindulgence in luxury fashion practically impossible for most middle class consumers. What is interesting, however, is that young women are not sour about limited budgets for high-end apparel, but Luggage Bags Replica have instead embraced a populist ideology demanding 'Real Clothes' that suit both their tastes and spending levels.
Real Clothes
The key term for this consumer movement is Real Clothes--a clever categorical name for affordable domestic brands like Moussy, Cecil McBee, and Apuweiser-Riche sold at shopping complexes Shibuya 109, Marui, and Printemps Ginza. Although the promoters of Real Clothes do not specifically claim that high-fashion is unreal or fake, this nuance is implied. Real Clothes do not indulge in artistic excess, design extremes, nor designer idiosyncrasies. The clothing tends to exist at an equal conceptual level as the consumer, due in part to the designers and customers' shared demographic profile. Items are accessible, affordable, and intentionally Stainless Steel Earrings devoid of any aspect which may lead to criticism from peers or society at large. The lack of challenge and attempts to change tastes, however, is exactly why consumers have shown such excitement.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Tokyo Girls Collection (TGC; see J@pan Inc Issue 73)--a huge young women's fashion event thrown by e-retailer Xavel.com--has been a key focal point for the Real Clothes boom. At TGC, fashion brands hold 'collection shows'--borrowing the general style of fashion exhibition from more sophisticated haute couture lines, but tweaking the entire fashion show paradigm to fit with the populist spirit of these Real Clothes brands. Instead of severe faces from impossibly long-legged foreign models, smiling Japanese and half-Japanese women from the pages of CanCam, JJ, ViVi, and Glamorous prance upon the stage and wave to their fans. Much attention has been paid to the ability of female consumers to buy the outfits--exactly as styled on the runway--with their cellular phones, but this is just the functional expression of a larger trend: young consumers want things that they already understand and know and do not want to feel pressured, intimidated or made to feel inadequately cool. TGC succeeds not because it offers something on a higher style hierarchy than the girls in attendance, but because they are all made to feel like equals with the stars on the stage.
That consumers prefer products perfectly targeted to them should not come as a surprise, but in the past, Japanese fashion consumers often directly followed the advice of the mainstream media and charismatic brands without much consideration of their own val
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