I. Orientalism and the "Japanese Invasion" of the 1980s

A. Orientalism = discourse that stereotypes Asians as inherently and inevitably different from and inferior to Westerners, often by feminizing them
B. Fashion = challenge to Orientalism, but not necessarily liberating
C. 1980s: designs by Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, and Yohji Yamamoto

1. Cloth as guide to design
2. One size garments, draped, tied
3. Deconstruct items of clothing: what is a jacket?
4. Black as anti-color color

D. Reactions to Japanese designers

1. Lumped together as Japanese
2. Designs seen as traditionally and essentially Japanese
3. Criticized

a. Kawakubo = "Hiroshima bag-lady look"
b. Hanae Mori: "The fabric, uncut, formed flowing kimono evening dresses. What a lovely surprise to see Madame Mori return to her original source of inspiration after years of misguided attempts to imitate European style" (69).

E. Japanese-ness also reflected conscious intent by designers

1. Appeared in 1980s in Milan, Paris, New York
2. Challenge Western fashion
3. Make Japan equal to West as center for fashion

F. Self-Orientalizing

1. Adopt outsiders' gaze, measure self by their standards
2. Orientalize others: Japanese traditions, Southeast Asia

G. Transposed, re-inscribed Orientalism

1. Japan = avant-garde, high-tech experimentalism
2. Emulates Western fashion, but is inherently different and Other
3. Fashion = feminized realm, reproduces gendered aspects of Orientalism

H. Wim Wenders, Notebook on Cities and Clothes: Does it use language and camera techniques to Orientalize and feminize Yamamoto?

 

II. The Japanese Suit

A. Orientalist discourses emasculate Japanese men, view them as identical, asexual corporation men
B. Comme des Garcons, "The Japanese Suit" means "living by the Japanese spirit while flexibly assimilating Western civilization," and it appeals to the "young who have no inferiority complex vis-a-vis the West" (159).
C. Contradictions

1. Japan = racially marked and Orientalized by West
2. Japan = First World imperialist capitalist power

D. The Japanese Suit resolves contradictions: power of suit, yet difference of being Japanese is prized
E. Japanese identity

1. Japanese soul has Shibusa = subtle understatement, sense of being contemporary
2. "If you buy The Japanese Suit, you too can become a Japanese Man imbued with an essence of Japanese masculinity, who wears the suit made for his distinctive spirit and his distinctive body, a man who is no longer a feminized, Orientalized, domesticated subject vis-a-vis the West" (168).

F. Suit is also capitalist commodity: identity is being marketed and manipulated to enhance bottom line
G. Issues of resistance

1. If resistance = completely subvert conventions and relations of power, then fashion isn't resistance
2. But, can we step outside of power? Dressing always involves capitalism, gender, race, history
3. Resistance according to Kondo

a. Challenge notions of convention, gender, race
b. Recognize that we also reproduce these notions, but modify them
c. Japanese suit and Japanese designers force us to reconsider what it means to be Japanese, what constitutes fashion, and what a suit is and who wears one