Tag - counter-culture

 
 

COUNTER CULTURE

Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Jan 12, 2007
No curtain call for this duo
The world of fashion is no stranger to an excess of marketing hype surrounding creations with a singular lack of substance, and Tokyo is no exception.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Dec 8, 2006
Sitting on the dock of the bay
Occupying a space comparable to that of Tokyo Dome, the newly opened Urban Dock LaLaport Toyosu is officially Tokyo's largest shopping mall.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Nov 10, 2006
Gucci hits Ginza
Gucci's new home in Tokyo is the first store built specifically to house the Italian superbrand. Last week, Gucci opened the doors of an eight-story glass-and-steel flagship store in Ginza.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Oct 13, 2006
Bringing it all back home
Meguro-dori, the street that runs west from Meguro Station, was once home to numerous imported-car showrooms, and not much else. Over the past few years though, it has gained fame as Tokyo's No. 1 interior shopping drag, lined with around 50 stores selling new and used furniture and assorted home wares catering to almost every imaginable taste.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Sep 8, 2006
Dover Street shop storms into Tokyo
When it comes to revolutionary retail concept stores in Japan, there's no getting away from Tokyo's Aoyama district. That area's latest major opening comes from none other than Japan's epoch-making fashion house Comme des Garcons.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Aug 11, 2006
An attack of the cute and quirky
Fashion designer Eri Utsugi is a very lucky lady: After only one catwalk outing, her mercibeaucoup brand will open six new stores in prime locations -- starting with Aoyama and Ginza -- over the course of the next seven weeks.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Jun 30, 2006
Getting the write stuff
Beyond scribbled shopping lists and jotted memos, putting pen to paper is increasingly rare in this age of electronic communications. But that only serves to enhance the delight of discovering a hand-addressed envelope on the doormat. While sending a signed and sealed missive is a sure way to show how much you care, it is a time-consuming endeavor. All the more reason, then, to glorify the letter-writing ritual with some slightly superior tools for the job.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
May 12, 2006
Kitting out the kids in the finest gear
It might seem safe to assume that with a rapidly dwindling number of kids being brought into the world here in Japan, the market for kids' clothes and toys would be shrinking fast. Not so: with fewer children around, more and more money is being spent on them, and a host of top-class kiddie stores are doing brisk business catering to those in search of a special something to lavish on a beloved brat.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Apr 14, 2006
Knight expands fashion empire
Eccentric British fashion designer Paul Smith is currently presiding over a rollout of stores across the globe. Following on from the December 2005 opening of a bubblegum-pink store on Melrose Avenue, L.A., last week he was in Tokyo to unveil a four-story flagship in the Aoyama district. Later this year he will oversee the launch of stores in New York's SoHo and Paris' Saint Faubourg.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Mar 31, 2006
Lauren gets his Tokyo landmark
Omotesando, Tokyo's premier luxury brand boulevard, has recently been furnished with a string of ultramodern shrines to consumable design, crafted in concrete and steel and glass. That makes Ralph Lauren's vast whitewashed neoclassical monolith -- which opened yesterday -- seem even more like something from another age, when things were grander and more dignified.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Mar 10, 2006
Parisian maverick targets Tokyo
"Fashion is everything," says Armand Hadida, owner of Parisian boutique chain L'Eclaireur. "It's how you wake up, how you walk, how you eat and, of course, how you dress."
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Feb 17, 2006
Tokyo's major drag . . . redefined
Labeled the Champs Elysees of Tokyo, tree-lined "brand boulevard" Omotesando is one of Japan's most treasured strips. Acting as a conduit between the posh Aoyama district and youth mecca Harajuku, it houses a wealth of highly original retail experiences.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Dec 16, 2005
Another jewel in the Cartier crown
Venerated as the royalty of jewelers and the jewelers of royalty, Cartier is by far the largest brand of its kind in the world. With its illustrious history and client list including countless kings, queens and princes, it is little wonder that the brand's double C logo and distinctive red packaging excites the recipient even before he or she has laid eyes on the treasure contained within.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Nov 18, 2005
Trying very hard to be trendy
Building a brand spanking new store from the foundations up is usually the preserve of European luxury brands, but down in Harajuku, a huge new concrete monolith called Tokyo Hipsters Club is an exception to the rule.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Oct 14, 2005
Trendy Naka-Meguro is on the Bals
It used to be that Japanese consumers tended not to spend a great deal on their homes. Over the last decade or so, however, that has changed, and firms like Bals Corporation have proved extremely successful at selling the notion of home improvement to Japan.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Sep 9, 2005
Fashion turf war gains pace in Harajuku
It's a dog-eat-dog world down in Harajuku, where fickle fashion consumers abandon the old for the new as a matter of course and finding a successful formula for retail business success is often a case of trial and error.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Aug 12, 2005
A little more love is in store for you
It's not often that I get to write about a shop that really gets me excited, but Colour By Numbers pushes more than a few of my buttons. It debuted in Daikanyama two weeks ago, one year to the day after the opening of its Aoyama sister store Loveless, and carries a big selection of creations by Japan-based designers -- which is something that Tokyo needs more of.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Jul 8, 2005
YSL raises its flag again
In 1958, at the tender age of 21, Yves Saint Laurent took over the reins at the venerable couture house of Dior. From the outset hailed as a genius, then touted as no less than the savior of the French fashion industry, YSL is one of the world's most enduring fashion icons.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Jun 10, 2005
Black monolith rises in Harajuku
Tokyo is famed for its haphazard layout, with tatty old two-story structures nestling up against ultra-modern constructions, and areas seemingly designated for one type of business that are punctuated by anomalous residential or industrial premises.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
May 20, 2005
Camping it up with style
Sexy, salacious and in your face, Dress Camp is an anomaly in the dour world of Tokyo fashion.

Longform

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