yakihito

My Ugly Hat

I was out at Don Quixote last weekend, a crazy store that has everything from fireworks to televisions to food to clothing. Clothing like this hat. The characters translate as "Maid Cafe," which, if you read my last post, you'll know I'm curious about.

If you know me, you can guess that I bought the hat because it's ironically funny. And I love how cheap-looking it is—you can totally see the borders of the iron-on transfer. I don't know if the people I meet understand that I'm wearing the hat ironically but they sure get a big kick out of it.

Rockabilly Constancy

The rockabillies that dance in Yoyogi Park every Sunday are something of an anomaly, in that they've been doing it for going on 25 years. Impervious to the changing fashion, they still grease their hair, don leather, and twist away the weekend just like they've always done.

But at one time they were the height of fashion. It's true. Even while the takenoko-zoku were still hand-dancing in the park, while the new romantic sound was eating up the charts in England and while America was renewing its commitment to defeating Communist Russia, Reagan's Evil Empire, the Tokyo rockabillies were leading the pack.

Check out Wim Wenders' excellent docu-essay, Tokyo-Ga. Like Chris Marker's Sans Soleil, Tokyo-Ga also features takenoko-zoku, but it dedicates more time to the then-burgeoning rockabilly fashion of early '80s Tokyo.

But I already knew about this. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had known that Tokyo had a rockabilly boom in the '80s. This I had known since the '80s. How was this possible? It wasn't until the early '90s that I began following Japan and its fashions.

How indeed:

The funny thing about this clip from The Karate Kid, Part II, from 1986, is that the fashions are much closer to what the Tokyo kids actually wore than to what the rockabillies don today. The now look is bit more punk, a bit more biker. The kids from back in the day really wore poodle skirts and jean jackets, white socks and button-up shirts with rolled sleeves. But this was still the '80s, so the jean jackets were made by Guess and the hair was terrible.

But back to my original point: that the rockabillies still get gussied up like they do 25 years later, when all around them fashion has changed more times than I've said I'll give up drinking, well, that's nothing to sneeze at.

Takenoko Nostalgia

Before I went to Japan for the first time, I was well familiar with the magazine Fruits and its collected book of photographs. The fashions within were astonishing, both for their variety and for their obvious creativity. These were largely homemade or customized outfits. Those bought off-the-rack were added to, supplemented with piles of accessories and extras. Mostly taken in Harajuku, the pictures showed a youth not content to merely accept what was spoon-fed them by the mass media. They were to seek their own independence.

Imagine my dismay when I finally got to Tokyo in the summer of 2004 to find that most of the fashions depicted in the book—that of the decora and cyber-kids—had faded with the 20th century and the reopening of Harajuku streets to traffic on Sundays, the traditional day for the "pedestrian paradise" in which the kids would trade accessories and fashion secrets. Wonderful fashion remains, to be sure, but the sheer originality to be found in Fruits has largely passed.

Yes, the gothic lolitas parade around, waiting for their pictures to be taken, but their fashion is largely the product of media: visual kei bands. What looks like startlingly original monster outfits are just slavish reproductions of the costumes worn by their favorite bands. And yes, the rock 'n' rollers still dance inside the gates to Yoyogi Park, but you couldn't call their retro leather look all that original. I'll give it to them for tradition though—they've been dancing in that park every Sunday for something like 25 years.

But before the decora and gothloli, before even the rockabillies, were the takenono-zoku (竹の子ゾク). I have fallen in love with them. If I could go back in time, it would be to any Sunday in 1979 to watch these original Harajuku kids dance in Yoyogi Park. They were the first, and—I'll say it—still the best.

According to Patrick Macias' book Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno, the takenoko kids took their name from a Harajuku boutique which sold pricey, Heian-era-inspired outfits. Beyond their price range, these kids starting making their own outfits, which looked like a cross between a disco one-piece and something MC Hammer would have worn. The outfits were accessorized with dog tags, necklaces, whistles, and nametags. Karate slippers were favored for the feet, big ribbons for the hair. Men as well as women wore the baggy outfits (and disco-inspired glitter and rouge makeup), and, according to Chris Marker's film Sans Soleil (the only record I know of the kids actually dancing) it was the men who stood at the center of the circle and led the dance.

Para Para is a close approximation for the takenoko dance, all hands and coordinated, synchronized movements. Group harmony is more important that individual prowess, although variations in attitude can be seen in Sans Soleil, particularly in the leader's display of restrained cool. (The lasting influence of takenoko moves can be seen in the coordinated hands of girls watching bands in Yoyogi Park.)

The takenoko (which means "bamboo shoot") were the first to bring any kind of cohesive youth movement to the Harajuku area, so their name has since been erroneously applied to any kids hanging out in the area on a Sunday. Even the stalwart rockabillies, who moved in towards the end of the takenokozoku craze, get saddled with the tag, something that probably really pisses them off.

While researching this piece, I came across this blog, which has pictures of takenokozoku kids in Yoyogi Park in 1985, about the time they disappeared, says the author. The blog then links to six pages of photos of different teams, including scanned nametags. Check out the capes!

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What is it I like about them so much? It's the combination of innocence and sex appeal (come on, disco was all about being sexy), as well as the cool disdain for acknowledging all the people fawning over them. I like the androgyny, the group synchronization, the fun colors. But mostly I like the creativity and originality, and that the movement came not from the media (which certainly helped swell its numbers) but from the heart.