![]() Importantly, it does not seem to rely on Japan, but has become homegrown in multiple locations, with global participants consuming and contributing in equal measure. More than the fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror, it is the collectable branded official merchandise of cartoons and comics, the endless animations and superhero films, the doll-like dresses of “Lolita” fashion and the phone-clutching clusters of Pokemon Go players. Cute culture is everywhere and claimed by everyone, regardless of age, gender and nationality. However, its persistence well into the 21st century shows that something else is now afoot. Masakatsu Ukon via Flickr, CC BY-SAĪs part of the 1990s wider spread of Japanese culture, kawaii is undoubtedly indebted. The 1990s also saw the refreshing of the ultimate kawaii brand, Hello Kitty, expanded to include products aimed at teens and adults rather than pre-adolescent girls.Įva Air: taking to the skies with Hello Kitty. Where Nissan, Mitsubishi, Sony and Nintendo had carved a path, so trod Japanese anime, film and music. Banks and commercial airlines began to explore cute as a strategy to increase their appeal, and cultural forms followed in the footsteps of the once invincible Japanese corporate machine, spreading the soft power of Japanese modernity. The Lost Decadeīy the 1990s, Japan’s period of economic crisis was well underway, and many Japanese subcultures fled into the international market. Meanwhile, as Japanese women became more visible at work, so the “ burikko” or childlike woman emerged, portraying an innocence and adorability that alleviated the threat of female emancipation, increasing her appeal as a potential marriage partner. You may not have noticed, but look carefully and Hello Kitty has no mouth.Īs the economy progressed through the 1970s and 1980s, so did consumer subcultures – and cute as a style began to be expressed through childish handwriting, speech, dress, products, shops, cafes and food. In many cases, it is a signifier for innocence, youth, charm, openness and naturalness, while its darker aspects have led it to be rather brutally applied to frailty and even physical handicap as a marker of adorability. So, what is kawaii and why here and why now? As the Japanese word for cute, kawaii has connotations of shyness, embarrassment, vulnerability, darlingness and lovability. Yet the presence of costumed adults lining up for London’s own Comic-Con, a Swarovski-encrusted Hello Kitty worth thousands of pounds, and the profiling of Lolita fashion in magazine articles and V&A exhibits, show that cute culture is not just spreading beyond Asia, but it’s here to stay. Visits to Japanese cities reverberating with squeals of “ Kawaaaiiiiiii!!!” may make this fad easy to dismiss as just another exoticism of the East. Yes, I had once again been confronted by the strange, fascinating world of “ kawaii”, or cute culture. We were of course in Japan, but still, what on earth was going on? Out of these peeked little poodles wearing complementary pastel baby clothes. One Saturday night, I was sitting with a friend in a trendy downtown bar, when two grown women casually strolled past in ruffled dresses, bonnets and parasols, wheeling matching baby carriages. For example in the 1960s land artists such as Richard Long radically changed the relationship between landscape and art by creating artworks directly within the landscape.This is a true story. The genre expanded to include urban and industrial landscapes, and artists began to use less traditional media in the creation of landscape works. In the second half of the twentieth century, the definition of landscape was challenged. The baton then passed to France where, in the hands of the impressionists, landscape painting became the vehicle for a revolution in Western painting (modern art) and the traditional hierarchy of the genres collapsed. Britain produced two outstanding contributors to this phenomenon in John Constable and J.M.W. The nineteenth century, however, saw a remarkable explosion of naturalistic landscape painting, partly driven it seems by the notion that nature is a direct manifestation of God, and partly by the increasing alienation of many people from nature by growing industrialisation and urbanisation.
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