Strange Fruits

Fashion is a strange fruit, straddling a strange dichotomy. It prescribes what people should wear whilst celebrating personal expression: clothes are at once a reflection of self and a reflection of season. But when it all boils down to it, which is it really? As February’s issues of Vogue, Elle and Harper’s thud softly through letterboxes this week, stacked full of SS11 trend guides, does studying them signal an act of individual interest or one of sheep-like compliance? 

Skeptics seize upon the latter description, scorning seasonal shifts in what is considered stylish as the workings of a mob mentality. Yet fashion insiders have always insisted upon the former, fashion as self-expression, adamant that what they wear is never anything but personal preference. Alexa Chung declares, “I’m not very good with trends. I don’t really know what’s in or out.” But with such pledges of non-allegiance, of unaffected originality in the face of current fashions, where can trends ever come into the equation?

Herein lies what it means to be fashionable today – it’s the trick of being both seen and unseen, to become a part of the crowd whilst at the same time setting oneself apart from it. Chung slips on a new-season Christopher Kane dress, aligning herself with those who can recognise the designer and trend it belongs to, but then diverts the look from its expected editorial direction with a personal twist, a battered men's briefcase or a grandma knit. This roundabout route is the road to fashion itself: an insiders-outsiders club of non-conformity, where entry begins with a trend and ends with the individual. We may all start in the same place each season, with the same magazines and shows and clothes, but where we might end up is a different, far-reaching matter entirely. 

So as a little inspiration for your own individual mapping of the coming season, take a look at these gems from the legendary Japanese street-style magazine, Fruits. Shot by Shoichi Aoki throughout the ‘90s, the resulting book, also called Fruits, is a cornucopia of the weird and wonderful, and one which shows that caring about fashion is never about following, and always about having fun: sheep we are most definitely not. 

 

 

 

American Vogue Goes East

The Cecil Beaton original, as featured in Vogue in 1948

There was a small flurry of criticism last month over a US Vogue December feature on Far-East Asia’s supermodels in the making. Entitled Asia Major, the controversy came in the subheading, “A new crop of models from China, Japan and South Korea is redefining traditional concepts of beauty”, where “traditional concepts of beauty" were placed in opposition to the models evidently ‘exotic’ appeal.

It's a disappointing thing for US Vogue to compartmentalise the growing prominence of Asian models into a curiosity of fashion rather than a fact, makeup artist Dick Page adding in the feature that “It’s mostly economics […] Everybody in the fashion/beauty industry recognizes the importance of global markets, and currently, China, Taiwan, and South Korea are at the forefront. The upshot is that customers want to see some version of themselves represented.” Drawing this kind of conclusion pinpoints the popularity of Asian models as an inevitability of economy rather than a mark of fashion’s increasing diversity, serving only to further sever the models from any valid connection with Western fashion other than one of profit.

Whilst the results of the shoot, photographed by Steven Meisel, are undeniably stunning – a baroque-and-roll tableau inspired by a 1948 Cecil Beaton portrait, where Grace Coddington mixed aristocratic Oscar de la Renta gowns with spiky mohawks and macaroons – it’s also undeniable that there’s something uncomfortably uniform about the way the models have been styled. With identikit makeup and perfectly poised facial expressions, there’s simply no interest in the individual in the way there would have been had it been an editorial involving Rosie, Karlie and Lindsey rather than Hyun, Tao and Liu. Interestingly, US Vogue still has yet to feature an Asian model on its front cover. 

So in celebration of Asian individuality, I leave you with Tokyo-born Tao Okamoto – who else could nail cool-as-ice androgyny better than this? It almost makes me long for a pudding-bowl Beatles haircut myself. Ok, maybe not. 

 

 

Sweetness and Light

Don’t try and deny it: every girl likes sweet, pretty things in sweet, pretty boxes - especially if it involves macaroons. And yeah, I adore those darn delicious little confections too, mainly because you can get away with calling them ridiculous colours like ‘iced mint’ and ‘petal pink’ and oh I don’t know, ‘Bird's custard yellow’, which is a wonderfully indulgent exercise for any writer.

But what’s even better than sweet and pretty? SAVOURY and pretty! Nothing is more pleasing than eating something visually delightful that isn’t dessert. There’s none of that predictable sugariness you get with cakey creations where they taste exactly like what they look like, all pastel and perfect. With savoury, a plate of prettiness is balanced by unexpected, opposing flavours that are far more satisfying than a syrupy end. So I'd take a box of Gion sushi over macaroons any day of the week. 

Let me explain.

In Tokyo, the sushi is BIG: fat rolls of nigiri are served with surprise smears of wasabi hidden between the tongues of fish and just-warm rice. They are of course amazing, but unless you can master the native trick of biting them in half without the whole turning into a ricey rubble then the only way to eat them is all in one, down the hatch and hope for the best. So you stuff your face with this sushi and feel really, really greedy but also really, really happy because it is all so DELICIOUS. But by gahd, it’s so not pretty. 

In Kyoto however, sushi is an altogether more elegant affair. In order for geisha to remain the most delicate and lovely creatures ever created (god help them), sushi evolved in the geisha district of Gion to perfectly fit their tiny, painted mouths. Here you are presented with a wooden box, inside of which you discover 12 beautiful, bite-sized pieces of temari sushi, where soft slices of pearlescent bream and crimson tuna have been wrapped around little spheres of rice. Pop one in your mouth like an infinitely more wonderful Lindor truffle and you can relish it without the rice making a run for it down your chin. The fresh, fleshy fish and pretty-as-a-patisserie presentation come together perfectly as one, yin and yang. Bliss.

Temari sushi in Gion: they probably don't do takeout

So beat that, bonbons and biscuits and cupcakes and cookies. Go suck on some sushi instead.