Subwaybrum
Sep 2nd, 2007, 11:55 PM
http://www.theage.com.au/news/fashion/fashion-follows-fusion/2007/08/30/1188067272333.html
Fashion follows fusion
September 2, 2007
Page 1 of 4 | Single page
The OzAsian fashion boom can be traced to a number of causes.
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/08/31/asia_narrowweb__300x433,0.jpg
The OzAsian fashion boom can be traced to a number of causes.
Photo: Rob Banks
They came, they shopped, they stopped us in our tracks with their great outfits. Rachel Wells celebrates the influence of Melbourne's Asian students on the city's fashion.
Joyce Kun doesn't like to look like everyone else. She prefers her own style, which has evolved since she moved from Malaysia to Melbourne to study business at RMIT three years ago.
"It changes depending on how I feel," says the 20-year-old, "but it's a bit Asian, a bit European and then it's a bit Melbourne." Today, that means hot-pink mini and gold court shoes (very Asia), big white designer handbag and black nail polish (that's Europe), and for the local look, black top and leggings.
"At uni, we all look at what each other is wearing. I guess we kind of pick up different looks from each other ... But you see more and more Asian designs here now. Even if you go into a store like General Pants, you see lots of cute prints and things that are very Japanese-looking. You see a lot more Asian-style fashion now."
She's right. Walk through the city on any given day and it's hard to ignore the Asian fashion aesthetic - young Asian students dressed in mini skirts, thigh-high socks and neon Chuck Taylor high-tops. It's not exactly the crazy parades of Tokyo's Harajuku district, but the colour, the bold prints and motifs, the designer handbags, the kitsch bling - it's hard to miss. So too, the dozens of Asian fashion boutiques. Some racked with cheap and cheerful imports and Hello Kitty and other assorted kawaii (Japanese for "cute") accessories; others with hard-to-find Japanese street labels.
It's a seismic sartorial shift for Melbourne, a city long admired for its European fashion sensibility - a look that can be traced back to the post-war waves of Jewish, Italian and Greek migrants who established the city's rag trade; a general tendency to look to "fashionable" European cities such as Paris and Milan for our style cues; and our European climate. But things are definitely changing.
"If you walk the breadth of Swanston Street, there are parts where you feel like you could be walking through a city in Asia," says Karen Webster, L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival director and former head of fashion at RMIT. "There's a really, really strong Asian influence. There's that strong sense of almost a quirky Hello Kitty style of fashion."
You notice it most along the Swanston Street stretch between RMIT on La Trobe Street and the Bourke Street Mall, and in the little arcades that run off Little Bourke Street - like the Mid City Complex and the Paramount Centre - where fashion boutiques catering to a predominantly Asian market sit alongside noodle shops and stores selling anime comic books and manga videos and DVDs.
Page 2 of 4 | Single page
The OzAsian fashion boom can be traced to a number of causes. Most significantly, it's driven by Melbourne's recent influx of international Asian students. A 2005 study conducted by the Melbourne Vice-Chancellors Forum revealed there were 69,700 international students at Victorian universities, and 48,600 of them lived in Melbourne. It's estimated that more than 12,600 live in the city - students from China, India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan.
There is no question the rising Asian student population has changed the city's retail landscape.
Rhianna Coleman, who opened Yukie Clothing, a Little Lonsdale Street boutique selling mostly Asian street labels, in February, says 80 per cent of her clients are international students.
Coleman says she set out to stock high-end local and international fashion brands for women but when a steady stream of men came in requesting the Japanese labels, such as A Bathing Ape, that the previous owners had stocked, she saw a better business opportunity.
"It made more sense for me to stock the labels they were after, the Japanese street labels...because of the make-up of the population in that part of the city, it just made more sense."
David Chen, a former international student from Malaysia, also saw a business opportunity in selling Japanese street labels to the ever-growing Asian student population. Last year, he opened Crosover, in Little Bourke Street's Paramount Centre, with Kevin Wang, also a former international student from China. They stock mostly Japanese street labels including Visvin, Neighbourhood, higher-end Japanese brands such as Comme Des Garcons, hot Hong Kong label Clot and Billionaire Boys Club - a collaboration between A Bathing Ape's Nigo and R&B superstar Pharrell Williams.
"When we arrived in Melbourne, we noticed there was a lack of these kinds of labels and were frustrated at the lack of places to buy these brands," says Chen. "Most of our clientele are Asian students but more and more Australians are now trying to get hold of these labels. Japanese design is becoming very popular now. It is certainly leading the way in terms of fashion."
It may not be the economic powerhouse it once was, but Japan is the cultural superpower of the 21st century. Even the slick promises of American pop culture are both outpaced and influenced by Japan's cultural output, from the bug-eyed look of its anime, manga, video games and collectables (the spawn of Hello Kitty) to the innovations of J-pop music, graphic design and fashion.
Fashion follows fusion
September 2, 2007
Page 1 of 4 | Single page
The OzAsian fashion boom can be traced to a number of causes.
http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2007/08/31/asia_narrowweb__300x433,0.jpg
The OzAsian fashion boom can be traced to a number of causes.
Photo: Rob Banks
They came, they shopped, they stopped us in our tracks with their great outfits. Rachel Wells celebrates the influence of Melbourne's Asian students on the city's fashion.
Joyce Kun doesn't like to look like everyone else. She prefers her own style, which has evolved since she moved from Malaysia to Melbourne to study business at RMIT three years ago.
"It changes depending on how I feel," says the 20-year-old, "but it's a bit Asian, a bit European and then it's a bit Melbourne." Today, that means hot-pink mini and gold court shoes (very Asia), big white designer handbag and black nail polish (that's Europe), and for the local look, black top and leggings.
"At uni, we all look at what each other is wearing. I guess we kind of pick up different looks from each other ... But you see more and more Asian designs here now. Even if you go into a store like General Pants, you see lots of cute prints and things that are very Japanese-looking. You see a lot more Asian-style fashion now."
She's right. Walk through the city on any given day and it's hard to ignore the Asian fashion aesthetic - young Asian students dressed in mini skirts, thigh-high socks and neon Chuck Taylor high-tops. It's not exactly the crazy parades of Tokyo's Harajuku district, but the colour, the bold prints and motifs, the designer handbags, the kitsch bling - it's hard to miss. So too, the dozens of Asian fashion boutiques. Some racked with cheap and cheerful imports and Hello Kitty and other assorted kawaii (Japanese for "cute") accessories; others with hard-to-find Japanese street labels.
It's a seismic sartorial shift for Melbourne, a city long admired for its European fashion sensibility - a look that can be traced back to the post-war waves of Jewish, Italian and Greek migrants who established the city's rag trade; a general tendency to look to "fashionable" European cities such as Paris and Milan for our style cues; and our European climate. But things are definitely changing.
"If you walk the breadth of Swanston Street, there are parts where you feel like you could be walking through a city in Asia," says Karen Webster, L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival director and former head of fashion at RMIT. "There's a really, really strong Asian influence. There's that strong sense of almost a quirky Hello Kitty style of fashion."
You notice it most along the Swanston Street stretch between RMIT on La Trobe Street and the Bourke Street Mall, and in the little arcades that run off Little Bourke Street - like the Mid City Complex and the Paramount Centre - where fashion boutiques catering to a predominantly Asian market sit alongside noodle shops and stores selling anime comic books and manga videos and DVDs.
Page 2 of 4 | Single page
The OzAsian fashion boom can be traced to a number of causes. Most significantly, it's driven by Melbourne's recent influx of international Asian students. A 2005 study conducted by the Melbourne Vice-Chancellors Forum revealed there were 69,700 international students at Victorian universities, and 48,600 of them lived in Melbourne. It's estimated that more than 12,600 live in the city - students from China, India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Japan.
There is no question the rising Asian student population has changed the city's retail landscape.
Rhianna Coleman, who opened Yukie Clothing, a Little Lonsdale Street boutique selling mostly Asian street labels, in February, says 80 per cent of her clients are international students.
Coleman says she set out to stock high-end local and international fashion brands for women but when a steady stream of men came in requesting the Japanese labels, such as A Bathing Ape, that the previous owners had stocked, she saw a better business opportunity.
"It made more sense for me to stock the labels they were after, the Japanese street labels...because of the make-up of the population in that part of the city, it just made more sense."
David Chen, a former international student from Malaysia, also saw a business opportunity in selling Japanese street labels to the ever-growing Asian student population. Last year, he opened Crosover, in Little Bourke Street's Paramount Centre, with Kevin Wang, also a former international student from China. They stock mostly Japanese street labels including Visvin, Neighbourhood, higher-end Japanese brands such as Comme Des Garcons, hot Hong Kong label Clot and Billionaire Boys Club - a collaboration between A Bathing Ape's Nigo and R&B superstar Pharrell Williams.
"When we arrived in Melbourne, we noticed there was a lack of these kinds of labels and were frustrated at the lack of places to buy these brands," says Chen. "Most of our clientele are Asian students but more and more Australians are now trying to get hold of these labels. Japanese design is becoming very popular now. It is certainly leading the way in terms of fashion."
It may not be the economic powerhouse it once was, but Japan is the cultural superpower of the 21st century. Even the slick promises of American pop culture are both outpaced and influenced by Japan's cultural output, from the bug-eyed look of its anime, manga, video games and collectables (the spawn of Hello Kitty) to the innovations of J-pop music, graphic design and fashion.