Will Japan’s pop culture and fashion spheres find common ground?

For more than two decades, Japan has shown a keen interest in blending its massive pop culture with its domestic fashion industry to gain international recognition.

Ever since Beauty: The Beast designer Takao Yamashita presented a Mobile Suit Gundam-inspired collection called Hyper Overdrive in 1998, he sent models with robotic legs from the popular anime down the runway, but the fashion industry struggled with what to do with the force. Not a particularly chic intruder. In the year In the late 1990s and early 2000s, this was especially true – long before the likes of Yoji Yamamoto and Jun Takahashi directly collaborated with popular anime. At that time, it was very high culture to wear major pop culture references. Beauty: The Beast’s collaboration with cosplay label Cospa’s Sailor Moon commemorative jackets has caught on, just because it suggests these themes can become fashionable.

It was then, but now that Uniqlo releases pop culture collaborations every month, it’s safe to assume that such collaborative projects are the talk of Harajuku’s back streets. This was a strain to declare yours. otaku In his work, Yamashita frequently refers to pop culture symbols of control and oppression that make him so powerful as the official demands; It was the stigmatization of pop culture in fashion that he sought to overcome. This resonated abroad as it does now, until the banning of Beauty: The Beast in 2000 in high-end department stores such as Harvey Nichols in the UK.