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Norie wants new shoes, so she and Shinichi take their search to a shoe store. Norie asks the clerk which is better: sandals with chunky high heels or cork platforms? The clerk doesn't know. Norie whips out her cell phone.  |  |
"Akira," she says to her friend on the other end of the phone, "which goes better with bell bottoms, sandals with heels or without?" There's brief pause. Akira likes the heels. Norie tries on two pairs, can't make up her mind and leaves. Thirteen minutes later, they're back in the shoe store. She tries on the sandals with the chunky heel. Shinichi kneels down beside her to consult with her. She tries on a pair with cork platform soles. Then she tries sandals made with white khaki material. "Off white," she announces. "Kawaii!" Roughly $75 later, Norie walks out with the shoes that will make her happy: the sandals with the chunky heels.
They move on to a boutique called The Love Boat, which sells accessories like seashell bracelets and beads. It's the latest rage among Japan's teens, a new fashion that combines cruise wear, Aloha casual, hippie counter-culture and, with an emphasis on pastels, the cute quotient girls crave. Norie now sports the kogyaru look--it translates roughly as "young trendy woman." The fashion statement of the moment for kogyaru is the antithesis of anything naturally Japanese: hair streaked with gray, skin tanned to a deep shade of caramel, silver-speckled eye shadow, frosted lips with sparkles of silver, mini-skirts or bell-bottom jeans, high-heeled suede boots, a knee-length wool coat and a tiny Louis Vuitton backpack that holds a pink compact case decorated with Hello Kitty. But that look has been popular for, oh, several months now, an eternity in a culture where fashion winds shift with the blink of a blue-mascaraed eyelash.
Norie confides she has already decided to change her attire because too many other girls wear the same fashion armor.  | |
"I want to be different," she says. She tries on some lipstick endorsed by pop sensation Namie Amuro. "Now selling well," the advertising poster reads. Norie stops, inspects the lipstick tubes but moves on without buying any. She and Shinichi stop at McDonald's for double cheeseburgers.
The two met in junior high school. They have been dating for two years, and Norie already wears two platinum bands (one from Cartier) given to her by Shinichi for her birthday on her left-hand ring finger. She intends to marry Shinichi, though not right away. "We don't have any money," she says. Shinichi works at a butcher shop; he is thinking of quitting high school. Norie recently started working part-time for the same butcher and earns about $675 a month. A week before her next monthly payday, she's already out of cash. She spends a quarter of her income on dance lessons and dreams of going to New York to dance professionally. Her monthly phone bill is more than $80. She paid $67 to get her hair dyed with the streaks of gray. |  |
She spends $17 for an hour of tanning but doesn't return as often as her friends do, two or three times a week, because her skin is a naturally darker tone. She lives at home with her parents, an older sister who is studying to be a nurse and a younger brother who has just entered high school, but she stayed the night at Shinichi's house the night before they went shopping. Shinichi, whose parents are divorced, lives with his father, who Norie says doesn't pay much attention to what he and Norie do.
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THIS WEEK'S TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Young Japan Home
The Me Generation:
The country's privileged youth are struggling to define what they want. Their efforts--both frivolous and fundamental--are already beginning to transform the culture
Day in the Life:
What a 17-year-old girl does--and buys
Culture Club:
Tokyo has taken over as the source of what's hip and happening for the rest of East Asia
Sound Factory:
An Okinawa school turns out stars
Talk Talk:
What teens are chatting about online
Not Playing Ball:
A fresh generation is starting to shake up the hidebound world of Japanese baseball
Outside the Box:
Breaking the education straitjacket
Viewpoint:
Actress Youki Kudoh says respect the old ways
Viewpoint:
Parents should examine their own ethics
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