Fashion model Rina Fujii
© AFP Toshifumi KitamuraYOKOHAMA, Japan (AFP) - In only its fourth year the Tokyo Girls Collection, a fashion show turned cultural extravaganza, has quickly become a premier event for Japan's trend-conscious and economically influential girls and young women.
Held ahead of the mid-March Tokyo Fashion Week, the Tokyo Girls Collection has distinguished itself by featuring the street fashion that real Tokyo girls wear -- and letting them buy it on the spot.
Nearly 22,000 people -- few older than their mid-20s -- packed into the Yokohama Arena for the show, many of them breaking into cheers as the pink clock chimed the start of proceedings.
Some fans travelled all night to take in the one-day show where mini-skirts, slender legs and sexy stockings were all the rage.
Companies let the girls log online to buy the clothes they see on the catwalk -- and sold them everything from lingerie to mobile phones to chewing gum.
"We couldn't help but cry when we saw the models for real!" said 23-year-old Saori Uchiyama.
Her friend of the same age, Mie Saito, wearing skinny jeans and red boots, chimed in: "Why do they look so cute when they're just wearing the same clothes I do?"
Models on the catwalk at the finale of the "Maison Gilfy" collection
© AFP/File Toshifumi Kitamura"Cute" -- or "kawaii" in Japanese -- is the theme word of the Tokyo Girls Collection. Neither Saori nor Mie could remember how many times they invoked the word during at the show.
"She says 'kawaii' for absolutely anything!" Miyuki Kidoguchi said of her 18-year-old daughter Tomomi whom she brought to the show. "Sometimes I think my daughter uses the word in the wrong way."
For businesses and experts, cuteness in Japan has turned into a force with power over the economy and even the national identity.
Cuteness can be seen everywhere from the street fashions of Shibuya and Harajuku, Tokyo's youth districts, to the phenomenal success of Hello Kitty, which started in 1974 as a mere mouthless cat on a coin purse.
Hello Kitty has been one of modern Japan's most quintessential exports, now appearing on more than 50,000 products on sale in 60 nations.
Sociology professor Nobuyoshi Kurita of Musashi University in Tokyo, who has studied the "kawaii" phenomenon, said the word can also imply "acceptable" or "desirable".
"Minnie Mouse or Hello Kitty represent what 'kawaii' is all about. They are characters that never resist or oppose. They barely show their emotion or opinion but they are acceptable and desirable because they are a lovable package. Like the models today," he said.
The cuteness phenomenon also shows the delicate transition of gender roles in Japan, which ranks at the bottom among developed countries in studies on women's equality.
Models on the catwalk at the finale of the "Delyle" collection
© AFP/File Toshifumi KitamuraJapan's population is shrinking, presenting a potential future demographic crisis as a growing number of women stay single well into their 30s or beyond.
"In today's Japan, most people can graduate from university regardless of gender. A few decades ago, women had to struggle so hard to get ahead in a male-dominated world," Kurita said.
"However, now such women have a difficult time embracing traditional things such as marriage. And the media write about them as if they are losers at love."
Cuteness, he argued, has become key for women who are increasingly educated and successful.
"Young girls in particular can sense the changes in society and adjust so they are accepted. Now being cute is the card to survive," he said.
As seen with the success of Hello Kitty, the cuteness industry can also forge a new identity for Japan as a whole.
Japan built itself into the world's second largest economy by exporting manufactured products, a strategy now being employed by rapidly growing emerging countries such as China.
"Europe was an industrial society a few centuries ago and gradually shifted towards a cultural society. What Europe represents today is Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel, not cars or electronics," argued the Japanese professor.
Model Yoko Melody presents a creation of "Sword Fish"
© AFP/File Toshifumi Kitamura"Japan is now following this path at a very fast pace. Japan is starting to realize that it is getting difficult to preserve its industrial power as other Asian countries like China, South Korea and India are rising."
Fashion houses are also catching on -- in their own ways.
Alba Rosa Japan, one of the companies at the Tokyo Girls Collection, became one of the most popular brands by pioneering the "beach" look, paraded in Tokyo's Shibuya district by young people who tan their skin, dye their hair blonde and wear eccentric brightly-coloured make-up.
"It showed how Japan began to have freer and bolder ideas on fashion," Alba Rosa Japan's president Shin Akamatsu said of the beach fad.
"Until then, Japanese women considered fashion as some sort of uniform according to one's status. If you work, you wear a suit with a skirt. If you go out, you wear a typically safe black dress or something. But now, Japanese people are starting to express themselves through fashion," he told AFP.
But the "cute" craze can be more complicated when it comes to mass marketing, he said.
"I think 'cute' is an expression of acceptance. People use it by instinct to say they're okay with something or that they like something. So it is quite a personal measure and it makes it difficult for apparel brands today to get collective popularity."
But Akamatsu was optimistic that cute would be the future for Japanese fashion through events such as the Tokyo Girls Collection, a version of which was held last year in Paris and which will travel this month to Beijing.
"We should be more confident being Japanese and having our own fashion. We have the potential to make Japanese fashion as big as our cars, electronics and animation across the world."
©AFP