Enoshima Island

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About an hour outside of Tokyo is one of our favourite places: Enoshima island. It’s like a tiny tropical island, with shrines and hawks and cats (so many cats!), and caves and shaved ice and it’s wonderful. I lived by sea all my life in England, and I’ve really been missing it lately – the smell and the atmosphere – so our trip to the island came as a very welcome relief from the heat and pressure of Tokyo.

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Enoshima, I love ya.

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Tripping over special places.

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Oh, hello there! (He was actually quite a way from the sea)

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Nature, at last!

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Shaved ice, with strawberry syrup.

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The aftermath.

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Of course we added our own padlock…

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The famous bell – there’s a legend about a beautiful goddess and a dragon.

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Fortunes.

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Walking back at the end of the day.

Such a gorgeous day! I’m determined to revisit Enoshima in every season, so I’ll have to wait for autumn next…

Olympia Le-Tan – Schnitzel with Noodles

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The hills are alive… with me heavy-breathing over Olympia Le-Tan’s autumn winter collection. You know when you see a fashion show and your breath catches in your throat because a) it’s perfect and you’d take one of every item, and b) it’s so far out your budget it’s like a tiny unimaginable dot on the horizon, yeah? That’s how I feel looking at these images.

While I’m not a Sound of Music devotee, I am fully in favour of velvet, Germanic embroidery, flared skirts and white tights. It’s a great balance between archaic and feminine – a cleaner dolly-kei-meets-otome (if we’re talking in J-fashion terms), with simpler lines and fewer accessories.

This summer I shall be desperately seeking the perfect skirt to twirl around Tokyo in, and dreaming of colder nights… only five more months until the temperature starts to drop.

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Love the heart bag – I’ll have to attempt a similar cross stich version.

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All red everything!

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How darling is this suit?

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Twirl envy.

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Ms Le-Tan herself, proving that one needn’t be an Austrian teenager to look really awesome. Nice one!

It’s Pun O’Clock

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I’ve been reading through the Annotated Pratchett File recently (this is what a Discworld marathon reading session will do…), and happened across a reference to the Tom Swift novels and in turn, Tom Swifties: a phrase where the quote is related to the manner in which it’s spoken. I’m a huge lover of puns and stupid wordplay, so of course I’m hooked!

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(Also, this book cover is lovely!)

A small selection of my favourites:

  • “Look, I’m walking on water!”, said Tom bouyantly.
  • “I plan to climb that church steeple”, said Tom aspiringly.
  • “They had to amputate them both at the ankles”, said Tom defeatedly.

I’m alternately groaning and giggling! You can find plenty more Tom Swifties here and here.

Inside Telephone Towers

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In January, we moved (finally!) into the third branch of Telephone Towers and it’s honestly taken us an unreasonably long amount of time to get organised. I’d say we’re about half-way there right now, and I still have  a giant pile of accessories and craft materials to sort through… What can I say? I love having a spare “shove it in there and think about it later” room for the first time in years!

We’ve been enjoying spreading our wings in our new apartment, and of course collecting even more awesome bits and bobs to fill our new home with. We’re pretty spoiled in Koenji: it’s almost too easy to pick up great antiques at very reasonable prices!

Never mind the raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, here’s a few of our favourite things:

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Samuel’s lovely taireifuku that will be making a special appearance later this year.

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Combining two of the more nerdy things I love: Discworld and cross stitch (I never claimed to be cool, and I don’t care!)

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A fraction of Samuel’s sagemono collection – deserving of a dedicated post in the future, I think.

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We really like finding charming old boxes…

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… And little things too. (Kanzashi, hair combs, a brass lipstick case and some rather ancient medicine.)

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Most of the things I need in the morning to become me. (Not pictured: lots of make-up and vast amounts of tea.)

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The secret garden in my dressing table cabinet.

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And finally: I’ve been playing around with crunching up polaroids, and I’m a bit in love with the strange pink house we found near Shinjuku. Not sure what I’m going to do with them, but it’s been lots of fun!

Gallery Mignon

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A couple of weeks ago Samuel and I were happily walking around near the Imperial Palace, and just happened to stumble over a charming gallery and shop just around the corner from the British Embassy… Welcome to Gallery Mignon:

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Inside you’ll find more antique dolls (both Japanese and European) thank you can shake a stick at, as well as lush Victorian-style greetings cards and stickers, and even delicate lace and needlepoint for sale. I’d certainly say that it’s well worth a visit for any fans of this imagery, and not least for a chat with the charming proprietor.

Gallery Mignon’s homepage is here, and the handy map can be found here.

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100 Years Later

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I was recently pointed in Maico Akiba‘s direction, and I was so entranced by the 100 Years Later series that of course I had to share some images here:

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I love a dystopian future as much as the next person (as long as the next person is Samuel…), so I’m really enjoying imagining what might have happened to these objects and their owners. I am guilty of consuming fast fashion, but it’s something I’ve been trying really hard not to get sucked into. These images have made me consider which pieces in my wardrobe will outlast the others – I’m betting on the leather jackets!

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The Beauty of Black and White

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We’re heading away from cherry blossom and towards the freakishly humid Japanese summer (urgh, not again!), and my contrary brain being what it is has suddenly decided that what I need more than anything is more black and white.

Admittedly, the classic black and white combination does make up the majority of my wardrobe, but you can never have too much of a good thing, right? I’ll just be dreaming of sharp white collars on perfect black dresses…

 

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Chanel

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McQueen

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Jane Marple

GARA – SS 2013 – Featuring Blackmeans

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I make no secret that outside of fashion my second love is tribal jewelry from around the world, indeed, my personal style does rather hinge on successfully implementing those two forces together, something my style icon Michele Lamy does so admirably.  However, more often than not I find that wearing tribal jewelry verbatim in an outfit does jar, and while that was a dynamic I used to enjoy in the past, recently I have started deconstructing pieces, taking beads, pendants and fabric, mixing them with more modern pieces and the result in fashion terms is all the more pleasing.  There are of course certain items that I would never dream of so much as polishing never mind re-purposing, but I find the idea of a Gabor skull hanging on a Soloman island shell bead chain quite engaging and a rare chance to step away from how everyone else is wearing the same piece.

On a very similar page to me is cult Japanese brand Gara who you will most likely know if you are a fan of BerBerJin in Harajuku or leather brand Blackmeans.  Gara’s work has always deconstructed tribal elements and given them just enough of a tweak to keep them feeling modern and part of both fashion biker’s and real biker’s daily wear.  This season Gara has even collaborated with Blackmeans (personal order already placed!) on a couple of great pieces above, including a bone necklace (a natural product of the designer’s own kitchen) and the beaded skull necklace on the left, which also uses vinyl segments cut from records as beads.

Throughout the line-up the traditional tribal ideas are all given a little bit of a modern polish to elevate them from the norm and keep them fresh – enjoy:

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See more here and take a trip to BerBerJin to buy.

Tokyo Telephone’s Three Year Anniversary

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Yesterday was actually our three year anniversary of this site (the 6th) and the fact that we did nothing to mark it really does speak volumes.  In short, we are busy, but busy working, and busy working in Japanese fashion at that.  Rest assured that there is a book in the pipeline, lectures at Bunka University, more print work and more, well of everything keeping us busy, but we will never neglect this site that got us to where we are today.

Without this site there would be so much we do on a daily basis that would go undocumented, and indeed, there are now hundreds of shows, lookbooks and exhibitions on harddrives that will never see the light of day.  Some of those are completely unpublished anywhere else online, and looking through them now there is just a staggering amount that would have been great to talk about.  Still, as part of the close knit of Japanese fashion websites we will endeavor to do our best to share it with the world – together there is a decent chance we might just capture half of it!

Looking back over the past couple of years there has been so much to be excited about in Japanese fashion and still so much potential on the rise.  We will do our best to make this next year a memorable one in Japanese fashion and we hope that you will join us for the ride.

Samuel & Rebecca

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