Word: labelers
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Hitchens responded that the “Holocaust denier” label was libelous and says he was considering legal action against the statesman...
...Kawaii, an adjective usually mistranslated as simply "cute," has become much more than a word. It is a state of mind for Japanese teens, a modifier that means cool, bitchin', groovy, killer and I-love-it all rolled into one, then squared. For a clothing label trying to crack Asia's burgeoning teen fashion industry, business these days boils down to the quest for kawaii. Asian teenagers tend to wear today what Japanese teens wore a few minutes ago. And unlike the fashion industrial complex in the West, in which top designers and magazine editors dictate what's hot, Japan...
...business where there are no seasons, only tsunami-size fashion trends that breeze through in weeks, months or, like, whenever. And when it comes to knowing exactly which shade of beige Tokyo's trendsetters want to wear and how low-slung they want their jeans, those teen-targeted labels recruit heavily from among the karisuma tenin (charismatic salesgirls) of the Shibuya 109 building. "They started hiring us because we wore different, interesting clothes and the magazines were using our pictures. For a while, everyone knew who I was," explains 23-year-old Mana Takai, now designer for Jassie, another trendsetting...
...should you: they were staples for the bodycon youth of the early '90s but those brands just couldn't keep up with kawaii. The light-speed caprice of these Japanese teens has created a host of new challenges for Takai and 109's other designers: how to keep a label's signature style intact without it suddenly seeming as last year as, well, platform boots. Often, brands like Esperanza, which now hype their high-heeled mules instead of the platforms, forgo association with a certain look so that they can morph with current styles. Others, like Alba Rosa...
...Back in 109, Moussy is poised to become the hottest-selling label in the building, which means you'll soon be seeing knockoffs throughout Asia. Like most stores in that narrow gallery of boutiques, Moussy's floor space is less than 15 sq m, but since opening in May last year, sales have totaled around $9 million. Moussy's fashionista-in-chief Yoko Morimoto, 23, is a former karisuma tenin who is putting her own spin on kawaii. The look Moussy is flogging can best be described as otona (adult) type?sophisticated, chic, the look a girl wears when...