Milk expliqué aux enfants par Fizzy !!!

Oh joie, un nouveau livre à acheter !!! En petite balade à la Fnac il y a quelques temps, Fizzy est tombé nez à nez avec ce magnifique livre sur l'histoire de la Mode dans le quartier d'Harajuku à Tokyo. Les inspirations, les grands créateurs, les magazines, tout ce qu'il y a à savoir sur le sujet est présent dans ce livre. Dans TOKYO STREET STYLE, FASHION IN HARAJUKU , Tiffany Godoy nous livre un vrai conte de fées pour les amateurs de culture japonaise. Merci à la maison d'édition anglaise "Thames & Hudson" pour la réalisation de ce travail exemplaire.

Mon scanner est en panne, alors un petit montage roots s'impose pour vous permettre de visualiser l'objet en question.

Le livre fourmille de références aux marques que nous proposons à Boddywood depuis déjà quelques années pour certaines : Baby the Stars shine bright, Sex Pot Revenge,... mais la marque qui nous interesse le plus et pour laquelle on a dépensé 30 euros juste pour le plaisir de vous raconter son histoire, c'est (tindin): MILK !

Dans quelques mois, cela fera 3 ans déjà que nous importons cette marque à la sueur de notre front sans jamais réussir à réellement exprimer notre admiration et expliquer notre amour pour ces créations. Un texte rationnel écrit par une personne documentée et experte en matière de Mode vaudra mieux que tous nos discours enflammés. C'est pour ça que je vais tout simplement vous offrir ce merveilleux texte, en anglais s'il vous plait (je ne me permettrai pas de le traduire, il est parfait ainsi!). "Buyer, promoter, talent scout, and party girl, Hitomi Okawa might be called the Muse of Harajuku. One of the first of the new wave of designers to emerge in Harajuku in the 1960's, she opened her shop Milk in 1970. Originally an alleyway next to Central Apartments, it was so small that if you adjusted your sunglasses or blinked at the moment you walked by, you'd miss it.

Okawa quickly became a key player. It seems as if everyone who passed through Tokyo came to know her. Designers from Fiorucci, Vivienne Westwood, and Stephen Jones hung out in her shop when they came to town. John Lennon and David Bowie were regular customers. A whole generation of Harajuku's cutting-edge young designers has some connection to Milk. Comme des Garçons was first sold in Milk's stall. Milk is also regarded as the godmother of Ura-Hara, a newly defined sub-district within Harajuku known for its street wear designers. The central figures of Ura-Hara _ Hiroshi Fujiwara, Nigo of A Bathing Ape, and Jonio of UNDER COVER _ all got DJ gigs and introductions to magazine editors with Okawa's help (she thought they were "cute kids" and was happy to help them out). Fujiwara credits her with his success. What later went on to do as a brand consultant and gateway to foreign cultures, she had already achieved through her store.

Milk took in all of fashion's disparate parts and made its own combination of looks, creating something entirely new. Before Milk, no one would ever say that punk is cute. But in Okawa's hand, it really was. She took tracksuits from the States and punk fashions from the U.K., redesigned them to fit smaller Japanese bodies and twisted them into something entirely new and of the moment. For her, as for other designers making forays abroad from Harajuku, the world became one giant jumble sale providing inspiration for imaginative new styles.

Since childhood, she knew she wanted to "do something artistic, like fashion". Just after high school, she traveled to London, where she "saw the light": "The parties, the lifestyle... London was the shit. It was all about street fashion. All of this. This is for me!" She thought, "How can I be a part of this in Japan?" With a three-month commitment of support from her parents, she launched her shop; some thirty-odd years later, she's still at it, right in the middle of the party, surrounded by all the coolest kids.

When Okawa started out she didn't know the first thing about designing or making clothes, figuring it out as she went along. Milk garments were made from surplus military fabric and the coarse, industrial material used for workers' clothes. She was also one of the first people to make designers T-Shirts in Harajuku _ a challenge to the suddenly retrograde, Ivy League cardigans-and-slacks-with-penny-loafers style favored in Ginza, another key shopping center of Tokyo. Right from the beginning, she had her finger on the pulse : Kids in Harajuku wanted Streetwear, and Milk designs sold out as soon as they hit the racks. "It wouldn't have worked anywhere else", she says. "It was Harajuku, the people there being that cool... [The feeling] that new things could become a business was because of Harajuku."

In the 1980's she created antithetical styles to the looks then being designed for the newly independant working women by Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto in Japan and Donna Karan in the West. Milk clothes were_and continue to be_girly, romantic, and feminine, but not sexual. All these elements are the base for what would later become kawaii culture. Milk was for party girls who wanted to feel like princesses, be cute, and go out with cute guys. After thirty years, Milk is still deeply committed to what is new, following what she feels, and making things that kids want to wear. The brand projects posivity and fun.

Après il y a un petit texte écrit par Stephen Jones, mais je crois que ça suffit à vous présenter Milk...

Si quelqu'un le désire, je pourrais quand même faire une petite traduction pour ceux que ça interesse.

Quand je pense que bientôt, il devrait y avoir un tee-shirt créé par Milk Boy spécialement pour Boddywood...

http://www.milk-web.net
http://www.milkboy.net