For those of you who didn't read last years' post a quick review of the Tokyo Design Festa can be had here. With 7000 booths, 10000 exhibitors and up to 100000 members attendees this is a truly epic gathering of creativity.
This event only takes half of the exhibition space available at Tokyo Big Site soaring over our heads on arrival:
We found ourselves wandering from booth to booth, from art event to performance constantly being challenged by what we consider is "in good taste" or "artful" or "attractive" or even "useful".
So... welcome to a journey into a completely different cultural understanding of taste. Is it really that our tastes are just to narrow or...? What is your reaction to some of the items on display and for sale?
The booths are roughly grouped into categories (which we often had a hard time figuring out) so we will take you through some of these categories.
Ah yes, as you walk into the crowds at the entrance there is the performance space with a constant roster of performers to set the tone.
The crowds themselves provide the first taste of unique "tastes" and lots of fun:
This was a foreign couple totally getting into the spirit of the event heading up the escalator:
Again, an event attracting people from around the world.
A little "gore" face painted on to really dress up for the event?
Now here is the outfit to truly capture all angles of what we were seeing:
One of the main designers for "Croak Fashions" (yes that is their real name!)
And a quick stop at the outreach booth for this event; why not dress as a champion for the day?
Shelley clearly did not fit in with the "it" crowd at this event; the "Lolita" look is "in". Click here to find out more about this trend sweeping the youth culture.
Take notes on the appropriate hand bags to have for a legit "Lolita" look:
Shelley really needed to up the ante with her hair "look"!
Or perhaps the Sushi Kimono look:
From there you walk through the walls of epic size paintings painted over the period of the two days and presumably bought by people who have the space to exhibit them?
Beyond the main hall with the artwork you can dive into the side HUGE halls to wander from theme to theme.
Many, many booths had collectible items, all created by the artist, all for sale. Which ones would you buy (for anywhere from 2$ to 5000$!)?
How about these miniature recreations of Paris stores (see my hand for scale)?
And then there were the felt creations of all shapes, colours and sizes:
Yes, these were made of felt!
A must-have; panda swimming in a coffee cup full of coffee made out of felt!
Or personalized felt eggs:
Or mini-men being overwhelmed by felt... things?
And then, of course, felt fantasy:
Moving on from felt, how about Gusto from Korea...
Yes you can buy the whole "hang-out" set.
Or the "work" set...
or perhaps you have always wanted a collection of the skeletons of animals in a miniature size...
so you can store them in a miniature bottle in a miniature terrarium scene:
On the theme of animals there were lots of other unique "animals" to be collected...
Let"s swing buy some booths selling various permutations of humans for collectors...
How is this for "cute"?
Hmm... someone should check these dolls and their diets!
Lets move on to other items that perhaps could be considered an organism of some type (made out of hard plastic)???
Ready to be dressed up... (this was a hard plastic half a sphere on the head)
Or go for a "bath" (in a coffee cup)...all to be purchased for 30$ or so.
To transition from recognizable organisms to pure fantasy organisms, how about a hamburger/sushi head?
Or random organisms to help plug your cell phone A/V jack hole? I bet you were always worried about that little hole on your cell-phone or tablet!
Sorry, these were sold out!
Can you guess what booth he mans?
And just to be realistic, how about this beetle for a back-pack/ cell phone case/ jewellery box?
For a "piece de resistance" among the organisms how about $700 for a beautifully crafted monster with an exact copy of your house on it"s head all carved exquisitely out of beautiful hardwood? If you do not want your specific house he has other models with the blueprints of the houses he used for the monsters to wear.
Our all-time favourite-most-bemusing item was this; can you guess what they are?
They are plastic casts of human stomachs that are decorated with fine accoutrements! Bellies... really, we asked? Why? Our lovely sales person just said they were "Kawai" (cute)!
Lets move on to the inorganic just in case you wanted to buy some of those.
A whole collection of spray-can figures (no they don"t work)
More expensive you might check out these silver jewellery items;
A hand gun pointing into your head as an pierced-ear earing:
A little too scary? How about these:
Yes, you might have guessed it; silver toilets to grace your outfit!!!!
Or the truly spiritual must have for those of us who are Christians...
And I do need to admit that there were some practical items... with a twist; would you feel observed with these purses?
Ultimately what brought us to the fair again this year was the booth of Jon and Liz. Liz was an English at my school. They moved to Tokyo so that Jon could build his toy-making business called Rampage Toys. Click here if you want to visit the site. He used to work in Geology but gave that up to pursue his dream here in Tokyo. Now he sells out regularly of his $500 big bear toys and says he does better with this business than he ever did in Geology! He has collectors all over Japan as well as LA, NYC, Italy etc. !
We had a glimpse of some of who these buyers might be. At lunch we sat next to this group gathered around a table with their newly acquired toys. They were holding each one up reverently, looking at the pieces in the light and discussing the attributes in a focussed, reverent way.
Shelley modelled her special purchase to help her fit into the Design Festa scene:
We sat at a water deck to watch the sun set over Tokyo...
Watched the lights of the Rainbow bridge turn on...
And walked across the bridge enjoying the approaching evening blanket the city.
During our whole walk we debated/discussed about where does "artisitic taste" come from? What is tasteful and what isn"t? What is the link between culture, taste and history? If 100000 people love this stuff, are we really that out of it?
It was another amazing day in Tokyo and we are still thinking things through. What do you think about these craft items? Are they in good taste and would you buy them?
Enjoy!
