What the Cool Japanese Girls Wore

Along the beach at Waikiki, between shops

 
We were just in Beautiful Waikiki (pretty hard not to link those two words together). Waikiki is the beachfront resort of Honolulu, Hawaii's capitol, on the island of Oahu. Eight hours from our home in Houston, it's also eight hours from Tokyo. There were a lot more Japanese than visiting Texans, a lot. I would guestimate 80% of Waikiki's tourists are Asian, of that 80% are Japanese. It makes for quite an exotic experience, like visiting a Japan where everyone speaks English.

Shopping is stellar in Waikiki. There are four shopping centers within its four miles. One of them, Ala Moana, has 350 stores and is the largest open-air mall in the world. We're not talking Walmart here. From Harry Winston to the world's most beautiful H&M, Waikiki is a shopper's delight and people-watching heaven.

Japanese especially embrace the consumerism, wearing logos with abandon as well as the latest western trends. They don't waste time lying on the beach or lounging by the pool and are definitely not working on their tans. Covered up, at least during the day, is the dress code.

There was a Cool Japanese Girl Look I haven't seen before: the duster. A duster is a loose, lightweight (usually cotton or linen) summer coat with wide sleeves that ends mid-calf. This was worn not for warmth on Hawaii's 80+ degree days but to cover up and add that outfit-making third piece. I usually saw a duster paired with skinny jeans and a tee shirt or adding more volume to full cropped pants or a long, full skirt.

Important note: these dusters were not kimonos, those once-trendy toppers that have overstayed their welcome. The duster, in soft shades, added drama as the wearer moved down the street. I was also impressed all that volume didn't swamp the petite Japanese. The proportions were just right. 

Those cropped pants were also a trend. They were decidedly full and worn by both men and women. One man, in his navy linen crops and Breton sailor tee was a stunner, but my trigger finger froze when I tried to take a picture.

Snap! Crackle! Pop!

Lady Gaga arriving at the Met Gala

 
Something tells me the Metropolitan Museum of Art's annual Costume Institute exhibition, "Camp: Notes on Fashion" will be full of fabulous costumes but may or may not be worth a trip from anywhere.

Sunday's New York Times published an interview with six gay men who might know what exactly is camp— a professor at Columbia, two performance artists, a model, Ru Paul's costume designer, and a photographer. They tried to define "camp" and didn't exactly succeed. I agreed with 86-year-old James Bidgood, who said "I don't know what anyone's talking about!"

I've always felt the world of camp belonged to male homosexuals, and what was camp was up to them. Camp was almost a term of endearment, a so-bad-it's-good kind of thing, a crowning glory of bad taste viewed affectionately. Liberace might have been really awful, but he was camp.

What's the difference, you may ask, between kitsch, camp, pop and irony? I'm going to take a stab at this very murky gene pool. And I will do it with aprons.

KITSCH is a 1950's Betty Crocker-style apron:

  

CAMP is that apron worn by a drag queen:

POP is an apron referencing an Andy Warhol soup can:

IRONY is an apron referencing an Andy Warhol soup can but picturing Donald Trump:

All this can be debated, and that would be the problem. I wonder just how the Met has the chutzpah to take on camp and what they will do with it. While no doubt this will be a fun show, not only may it beg the question "What is camp?", it may ask "What is fashion?"

Will there be answers?