On August 1st, I rolled my butt out of the fold out bed, tried to make my face not look like a melting mess, and set out for my full day of Osaka adventure by myself. Nicole had to work until the afternoon so I was on my own to visit my old haunts and be a creepy lady on the streets of Osaka until evening.
I hit up Namba and the Minami Osaka area first and worked my way north through all of the shops that I used to like to frequent.
Can't start the day without a proper breakfast. To the Chococro! The most delicious chocolate croissants ever! And of course, some sort of mystery mayonaise corn pizza kinda thing.
When I saw this, I first thought, oh my god it's THAT damn hot here that they'd want a -2 degrees celcius bar to hang out in?? WTF! Then, later, I found out that they meant the BEER was super cold. Not the room. HURR HURR.
This is super messed up, but I regret not getting these. FIRST OF ALL: ZIMA is still a thing in Japan. It has been sicne it came out, unlike its debut in the US where it came out, flopped, and was tagged the drink of losers. SECOND OF ALL: This is part of a new promotion, where each bottle comes with a set of lips. ACTUAL MOLDS OF MODELS' LIPS. They're rubber, and you put them around the mouth of the zima bottle. When you drink from it, it's as if YOU ARE KISSING THAT MODEL'S LIPS. How. Messed. Up. Is That. But I love it.
Caro and I hopped off the bullet train, made it to our hotel room, and then managed to get ready and back out the door by 4pm-ish!
The Harajuku Kawaii event was being held in honor of model agency Asobisystem‘s 4th Anniversary, featuring fashion shows, musical performances, and a talk with 6%DOKIDOKI‘s Sebastian and renowned photographer Yasumasa Yonehara (AKA “Yone”).
Sebastian had been kind enough to invite us as VIP guests to the event, so we got to feel kinda fancy and go backstage and watch all the madness go down. We also go to meet up with the super hardworking Kira, who is the main photographer for Tokyofashion.com, and a total sweetheart. He had to get to work shooting photos down on the main floor, but Caro and I were able to relax in the VIP balcony area where we could watch the show from above.
View from the balcony area.
Someone stopped me for a "street" fashion snap, too 🙂 Photo by ChangeFashion.net!
Super fun coordinates from SPINNS Harajuku (they also have a branch in Osaka too <3). Photo courtsey of Kira of Tokyofashion.com
Grimoire model
Set of Grimoire models. Photo courtesy of Kira of TokyoFashion.com.
Models from the first set of the fashion show take their bows/end walk.
After the first portion, bands Astro and Ram Rider performed on stage.
Astro performed a short set of slightly beachy-hip hop beats.
Ram Rider performed electro tunes, but for some reason, it was mostly covers of other songs electronified. The style of music they chose to cover ranged from Daft Punk (cool, appropriate) to Brazilian chanting music (uhmm what?).
But I can fogive their musical confusion because they have LIGHT UP SUITS. Hello, Tron Band!
After this performance, there was a short fashion show comprised of student work under the name “Replicant,” which.. I didn’t get any great photos of so I’ll just skip over that quickly. After that, 6%DOKIDOKI’s show was up, and it was definitely the most energetic performance of the night!
It was definitely a full on performance combined with fashion show, featuring their two main models, Yuka and Vanii, and German, French, and Dutch models dancing in chorus with them.
Vanii started off the show with a rough and tumble attitude and snarky glare at the crowd. I LOVE this photo of her! Taken by Kira of Tokyofashion.com, of course!
Yuka does a little dance for the crowd.
All the while, she's sporting this adorable bunny ear/antennae hairdo! Photo courtesy of Kira of Tokyofashion.com.
And here’s a quick video I shot so you can get a feel for how insane it got with the dancing and the.. giant rabbit costumed person who came out later! So amazing!
After the 6%DOKIDOKI show, a panel of guests came out to talk about the origins of Harajuku street fashion and what it’s developed into today. Of note, panelists included 6%’s Sebastian, Photographer Yone, and musician and model Kyaari Pamyupamyu (also known as “Carrie”). Yone is quite famous for his fashion magazine editing and photography, the founding of CexWork, his own “checki” instax camera design, and also his blog he does for Hypebeast. Kyaari, if you’ve somehow managed to NOT hear of her by now, is the newest, hottest thing in Japanese pop music, having made a real hit with her debut single “PonPonPon.” It’s goddamn catchy, is what it is.
Kyaari and Yone on stage during the talk show. Photo courtesy of Tokyofashion.com
The full panel of guests for the talk show.
After the talk show, we went backstage to congratulate everyone, and take some photos! If you’d like to see lots of photos from backstage and more photos of the fashion show itself, make sure to check out Tokyofashion.com’s exclusive coverage in their special 6%DOKIDOKI feature here!
Tokyofashion.com photographer, Kira, snaps the 6%DOKIDOKI models after the show.
Kira also took this fabulously classy photo of Sebastian and I right after that, haha.
Okay, so right after this was a little intermission of sorts. We were invited to go with some of the DOKIDOKI crew to go to the VIP opening party for the Bearbricks exhibit at the PARCO department store in Shibuya, but the event at Harajuku Kawaii was still ongoing! So we nipped out for a quick trip to Parco with the staff and saw some really cool Bearbricks stuff!
It was raining outside so I didn’t get a shot of the GIANT Bearbricks out front, but here is a photo from Tokyofashion.com that they shot a few days prior:
Giant Bearbricks!
There was an insane line to get into the VIP party, and.. it was mostly bros! haha. Weirdly enough, we bumped into people we knew there, such as Mamy and another of Caro’s friends! I even saw Hello Kitty Mama (Yuko Yamaguchi) there, too!
A Rilakkuma and Bearbrick collaboration piece.
Gatachapin Bearbrick!
The gallery was MEGA CROWDED!
Yuka poses next to the 6%DOKIDOKI collaboration Bearbrick inside the case.
Caro and I even posed next to a REAL MOVING BEARBRICK MASCOT! It was sort of terrifying because we didn't know there was a person in it until it started moving.... EEEEK SCARY WHERE ARE ITS EYESSS!
We were there for maybe.. 15 to 20 minutes. Then we were whisked away again to see the end of the Harajuku Kawaii event! Unfortunately, we missed Kyaari’s performance, buuut thanks to my buddies at Tokyofashion, at least I can show you a quick pic of it! It looks like her skirt is American Apparel?
A collage of Kyaari's first live performance! Photo courtesy of Tokyofashion.com
At the very end of the event, the organizers had all the models and fans line up close to the stage and do a cute photo op/cheer to celebrate Asobisystem’s Anniversary. Check out how cute this video I took is… first they practice, then they do it FOR REALS! Cameo of my face.
You can take a gander at some of the models who were involved in this show, mostly famous bloggers and shop girls from around Tokyo,and aspiring models.
After this, many things happened, including having a quick bite with Valerie and her husband, going to the official after party at Club Asia, and having late night izakaya times with the 6%DOKIDOKI crew well into the night. We had to taxi it back to the hotel around 3am, but we made it there alive! WHOO!
Many, many more photos that I did not post on this blog are located on my Flickr towards the bottom, so make sure to check it out!
Of course, I was not able to get photos of every single brand and musical performance since we were running around so much, so please take a look at these MUCH MORE DETAILED reports over at TokyoFashion.com and more photos at ChangeFashion.
