Cute Fashion: The Social Strategies and Aesthetics of Kawaii

Slade, T

Cute Fashion: The Social Strategies and Aesthetics of Kawaii

Slade, T

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Publisher:: Routledge
Publication Type:: Chapter
Citation:: Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, 2018, pp. 401-411
Issue Date:: 2018-01-02

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Slade, T https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5889-9472
dc.contributor.editor	Slade, T https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5889-9472
dc.contributor.editor	Freedman, A
dc.date.accessioned	2023-01-12T23:48:07Z
dc.date.available	2023-01-12T23:48:07Z
dc.date.issued	2018-01-02
dc.identifier.citation	Introducing Japanese Popular Culture, 2018, pp. 401-411
dc.identifier.isbn	131752893X
dc.identifier.isbn	9781317528937
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/164933
dc.description.abstract	This chapter explores the beginnings of the modern manifestation of the aesthetic of kawaii to the early 1970s, a period following significant political and social unrest. In Japanese, kawaii derived from the phrase, "kawahayushi," meaning a flushed face and implying embarrassment, and came to mean able to be loved, adorable, or cute. The difficulty in determining exactly what cute is, however, lies in the overlap of an adaptive evolutionary strategy and a constructed social strategy. One thing that kawaii fashion does, however, is destabilize the distinctions of high and low by holding up a mirror to social and cultural structures that claim the space of maturity and seriousness by being deliberately neither. Just as the aesthetic of cool ignores mainstream tastes, so, too, kawaii does not directly enter into or challenge mainstream cultural and aesthetic values but establishes its own values and aesthetics by ignoring them.
dc.format.extent	40
dc.language	en
dc.publisher	Routledge
dc.relation.ispartof	Introducing Japanese Popular Culture
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.4324/9781315723761-35
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/closedAccess
dc.title	Cute Fashion: The Social Strategies and Aesthetics of Kawaii
dc.type	Chapter
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building/School of Design
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access	*
pubs.consider-herdc	false
dc.date.updated	2023-01-12T23:48:04Z
pubs.place-of-publication	UK
pubs.publication-status	Published
dc.location	UK

Abstract:

This chapter explores the beginnings of the modern manifestation of the aesthetic of kawaii to the early 1970s, a period following significant political and social unrest. In Japanese, kawaii derived from the phrase, "kawahayushi," meaning a flushed face and implying embarrassment, and came to mean able to be loved, adorable, or cute. The difficulty in determining exactly what cute is, however, lies in the overlap of an adaptive evolutionary strategy and a constructed social strategy. One thing that kawaii fashion does, however, is destabilize the distinctions of high and low by holding up a mirror to social and cultural structures that claim the space of maturity and seriousness by being deliberately neither. Just as the aesthetic of cool ignores mainstream tastes, so, too, kawaii does not directly enter into or challenge mainstream cultural and aesthetic values but establishes its own values and aesthetics by ignoring them.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/164933