'Kawaii' style: Born in Japan, now taking on the world (2024)

Despite how much some people desperately want to believe certain things, I bet a clear majority of Japanese men are not excited in the least by these garments. However, I could see them or any man tolerating the garb for the sake of the hope it might wind up piled in a heap on their bedroom floor.

I am pretty sure its the women themselves choosing this stuff. What few of them there actually are in reality anyway. And its because they like it. Not because they imagine it attracts men.

Sweet mother, is it possible to find a woman here who acts and dresses like an adult?

If you take that women here dress as adults, you could ask the same of any other country in the world as well.

The question being what makes the way one country's women dress any more adult than the way another country's women dress?

"Bu-ru-ma" are always good, though...

If you can persuade a hot mature Japanese lady to wear a pair in private it will certainly be a lot of fun...

Yuk. The so-called "model" with the poofy hairdo does this column no justice.

Miley Cyrus’ current psychedelic, hyper-sexualised look also contains plenty of kawaii inspiration.

Not really. That's just her trying to create publicity cause Disney Corp. nor "Daddy" can do it for her anymore. Some women need this "kawaii" look/fashion. M. Cyrus bypassed the trend. Aiming for a more revealing look cause the talent truly lacks.

“To make a woman look like a child is to make her unthreatening, helpless and worthy of condescension. When women dress like children, they encourage this attitude,” wrote Hadley Freeman, columnist for the Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

Japanese women have so much power they are scary, so they dress up as little girls. One of my seminar students tried to prove this theory, that finding women scary correlates with preference for kawaii, and failed. But I still believe that the reason why kawaii originated in Japan is due to the tremendous power of Japanese women. Its called "wearing a cat" (feigning sweetness and docility).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jg4_70PQ1gPerhaps we could to the experiment n a different way. Show one half of the subjects pictures of Dracula and Frankenstein and the other half of Sadako and Kayako. Or get one half of the subjects to think about the ways in which Japanese women have power, about how much pocket money they will get/give, whether spousal affection will end upon the birth of children, whether raising children will be the central focus of their family, whether salary providers will be allowed to mention their work in the home, etc prior to getting them to rate cuteness.

@ choiwaruoyaji. . . . agree with you.

On the other hand, I've seen a few "moms" well into their 40's go for this look and not look so bad. I'll give j-women that much, for what they lack (physical features) they sure do make up for that deficit through their fashion.

@ choiwaruoyaji

This kind of clothing just suggests immaturity to me.

How much experience of Japan and Japanese women have you had?

@karlrb

Are you actually suggesting that western women wearing clothing that's inspired by late 19th century British fashion... is inappropriate?

@Moonraker

It's always struck me like a re-hash of different pre-adolescent and adolescent fashions from the west from the 1920s to 1970s. It's like the clothes and styles you might adopt if you didn't want to grow up.

If you and other foreigners on here had any experience of the Japanese school system, you would realize that the Japanese are raised in an education system that robs them of their childhood.

So how do you expect them to act as adults?

A free and liberated woman can wear what she wants.

Until another free and liberated woman doesn't like it.

I prefer a more adult look for ladies... elegant, stylish, sexy, whatever...

This kind of clothing just suggests immaturity to me.

"the sight of women wearing items usually aimed at children... have aroused the ire of feminist commentators"

That's not what they're designed to arouse... :-(