* S T Y L E International Herald Tribune

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 9

The kimono goes summery
Freed from tradition, Japanese dress is sexy and fun
By Kaori Shoji But the biggest change in the yukata
landscape is the yukata itself. Ditching
TOKYO the traditional colors of white, gray and
t is said that the Japanese have indigo blue for candy-colored pastels

I stopped wearing the kimono be-

Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas
Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas
A handful of Web sites are
catering to some of the
world’s wealthiest — and
making a profit. Above,
from left: Missoni’s multi-
color cut-out Noemi dress
and Roland Mouret’s gray
Torridon silk evening
gown, both available at
net-a-porter.com. Below,
Michael Kors’s cashgora
blazer and ankle zip jeans
and a wicker basket purse
from the Paris designer
minaPoe, both available
at vivre.com.
cause it’s so hard to wear. Indeed,
even though the garment is the na-
tional dress, the average Japanese
woman first needs to attend kimono
classes to master the art of donning one
properly, and then has to spend an hour
in front of the mirror every time she
feels like putting one on.
There is also the issue of expense:
state-of-the-art silk kimonos can go for
up to ¥5 million, or $45,000, per set, in-
cluding the obi (or sash), footwear, an
under-kimono and over-layers. Even
women, like geishas and other profes-
sionals, who wear the kimono daily for
work usually require assistance. In
many of the geisha districts, there are
men whose job it is to go from house to
house helping the ladies dress and tie
their heavy silk obi.
Consequently, the main reaction
upon seeing a kimono-clad woman in
the street is one of sheer reverence: her
whole being is testimony to hard work,
heavy gear and lots of cash.
For many, kimono-wearing is on par
with, say, mountain climbing in the Hi-
malayas or yachting to Easter Island,
something incredibly strenuous and
very costly.
This summer however, a lot of Japa-
nese women are reclaiming the ki-
mono as part of their lifestyle. Light
cotton kimonos for the season, called
yukata, have re-emerged as street fash-
ion, thanks mainly to the industry’s ef-
forts to casualize the whole kimono
culture.
The yukata had traditionally been
used as summertime nightwear, for
walking to and from the public baths
known as sento or strolling through the
various stalls of local summer festivals.
Designed to let the breeze flow on
ankles and arms, and to liberate the
body from the constraints of heavier
daytime kimonos, yukata also dis-
played the Japanese feminine physique
at its most beautiful.
Through the centuries, reams have
been written about the whiteness of the
neck above the indigo-dyed blue of the
yukata collar, the thin cotton almost,
but not quite, revealing the outlines of
the body. Yukata stood for demure erot-
icism, and a subtle style of sexiness that
belonged only to the Japanese woman.
While young women of today are
willing to go along with that, they also
Kaori Shoji
Light, functional cotton kimonos called
yukata have become high fashion in Japan.
To accommodate the modern wom-
an’s dislike for obi work, yukata manu-
facturers have come up with the ready-
made, clip-on bow, which removes
most of the hassle from yukata prepara-
tions. They have also come out with an
array of easy-to-wear clogs.
Narrow wooden clogs had tradition-
ally accompanied the yukata — nice to
look at, but more appropriate for stone
or dirt roads, not pavement. To remedy
all this, clogs now come with midsize
and splashy primary colors, the yukata
of today resemble Hawaiian shirts . To
solve the problem of wrinkles forming
on the cotton surfaces, clothing compa-
nies have taken to blending polyester
into the weave, giving the whole look a
plastic sheen.
And because many women can’t be
bothered with adjusting the back of the
yukata so that a small air-pocket forms
between the collar and the back of the
neck — an all-important detail that in-
dicates both sensuality and relaxation
— a company called Comme Ca Du
Mode has come out with Japan’s first
zip-up yukata, eliminating the entire
adjustment process. Their maxim is
that the yukata should be worn like a
summer dress, and to hell with what
yukata purists think.
he revenge of the yukata is
T demonstrated in the price tag as
well. While the yukata has never
been as expensive as the kimono, a full
set including obi and footwear can go
up to $3,000 depending on the weave of
the material and design of the pattern.
These are the yukata that are pur-
chased in kimono shops, the whole
proceeding supervised by a shop mis-
tress who exudes generations of breed-
ing and aesthetic principle.
Compare this to the $80 version
available in any department store or
teen boutique, displayed on rows and
rows of plastic hangers. The discount
casual gear franchise Uniqlo, the Japa-
nese equivalent of The Gap, has come
out with the ¥1,000 yukata, which is
made in Chinese factories and is
selling like popsicles to girls who com-
bine them with rubber flip-flop san-
dals or sneakers, plastic flowers adorn-
ing their hair.
And while it had once been sacrilege
to put on anything but light lipstick
with a yukata (the point being to en-
hance feminine purity and cleanli-
ness), girls now insist on glitter make-
up, golden-dyed hair and white lipstick
on tanned complexions. ‘‘The yukata
covers and hides my body, so it requires
a lot of stand-out make-up,’’ said Mis-
ono Araki, 21. ‘‘Otherwise, I wouldn’t
feel sexy at all.’’
Japanese tradition has once again
succumbed to the easier, cheaper and
more accessible solution — another gi-
ant step for de-mythologization. The

Let the Web do the shopping: demand that the yukata be functional
and fun. They have no desire for the
elaborate ritual of tying the sash in
various knots and learning how to do it
rubber heels and hidden shock ab-
sorbers. The good news is that such
footgear can be combined with jeans
and other everyday apparel, enabling
mystique is gone, and in its wake is an
army of girls in their fake national
dress, striding the streets in rubber
heels. What kind of poetry they inspire

Online luxury comes of age

so that an attractive bow forms in the girls to add a taste of Japan to an other- remains to be seen.
back, just over the hips. wise Western outfit. International Herald Tribune

By Jessica Michault decide which of the tant. ‘‘But a lot of the

hard-to-find items they luxury Web sites are
PARIS want to buy. glorified brochures —
n the jet-set world of luxury living, ‘‘Vivre is a success be- Bulgari.com or Pra-

I globe-trotting fashionistas have fi-

nally embraced the shopping me-
dium that is made to measure for
their lifestyle: the Internet.
Once a bastion of mass-market outlets
like The Gap, J. Crew and Nordstrom,
the World Wide Web has recently made
inroads into the elite world of luxury
shopping. A handful of sites — among
them net-a-porter.com, neimanmar-
cus.com, eluxury.com and vivre.com —
are catering to some of the world’s
wealthiest people, and making a profit.
Who would have thought that virtual
luxury could be so successful? For these
shopping princesses, there is no sales-
woman at beck and call, no visceral
thrill when crossing the threshold of an
exclusive store, no one-on-one time
with the products before purchase. Let’s
face it: Buying a $40 T-shirt at the Gap is
one thing, but spending $1,750.00 on a
Darby Scott taupe ostrich clutch, sight
unseen, is something else altogether.
According to Elaine Pinkster, a se-
nior consultant at Ledbury Research, a
luxury-market research firm, these
multibrand retailers are outperforming
their single-brand counterparts. Nei-
manmarcus.com has seen its online
sales grown to $200 million from $150
million in the past year. And the Amer-
ican jewelry company Tiffany, which
sells everything from jewelry to baby
rattles online, has seen its Web site and
catalog sales rise 15 percent, driven by
larger online orders.
So how have these Web sites won
over a group of people accustomed to
the best? By giving them what they
crave the most: exclusive luxury at
their fingertips.
‘‘When I came up with the idea, no
one wanted to take the risk,’’ said Nat-
alie Massenet, the founder and man-
aging director of net-a-porter.com.
Inspired by her love of the Internet
and her frustration with the lack
of Web sites dedicated to top
fashion labels, Massenet
left her job as a fashion ed-
itor and started a Web
site where she herself
would choose to shop.
Since it opened for
business in 2000,
Massenet says, the site
has seen sales double
every year, with more
than 1,000 new customers
a month. In 2003 the site had
a turnover of $11.7 million.
At about the same time, Eva Jean-
bart-Lorenzotti started the Vivre Web
site as a complement to her successful
luxury catalog business. ‘‘I wanted to
create another way for people to have
access,’’ said Jeanbart-Lorenzotti. She
predicts that Internet sales will soon
outpace those of the catalog, and says
that more than 3.5 million Internet
users visit the site every year.
Run like online glossy magazines,
these Web sites have Top-10 lists of
must-haves for each season and pages
dedicated to new or little-known de-
signers. All the clientele have to do is
cause it is a lifestyle
business,’’ said Jeanbart-
Lorenzotti. ‘‘Luxury is
not about money, it is
about those special mo-
da.com for example,
where you can’t buy any-
thing. And some of the
great retail sites, like
Ralph Lauren’s polo.com
ments in a women’s life Web site, will only ship to
— and we help create the United States, even
those moments.’’ though the company has
What sets these Web stores all over the
sites apart is the fact that world.’’
top-name designers have This seems to be the
agreed to sell their goods Achilles’ heel of some of
online. When the Inter- the best online luxury
net started out, there retailers. With most of
was no glamour factor them based in the United
and retail sites were all States, there appears to
about bargains, they had be an isolationist atti-
no frills, and they sold a tude on the Web, with an
lot of overstocked items. American bank account
For luxury brands noth- or shipping address
ing is more important needed to complete an
than image, and selling online order.
on the Internet was the But there is even a big-
equivalent of selling out ger problem for online
of the back of a truck. luxury shoppers: what
‘‘We really had to show happens when Roland
the designers that our Mouret’s last Torridon
site was a celebration of gray silk evening gown
their work,’’ said Massen- for $2,223 has been sold?
et. ‘‘That it was going to Christopher Moore/Andrew Thomas Is there any hope for a
be a full-price, high-frills frustrated fashionista?
global niche market for people who love Never fear — eBay is still here.
and understand fashion.’’ The online retail behemoth, which
Another part of the appeal of these had $1.8 billion in worldwide gross
sites is the rarity of the items they make merchandise sales for its ‘‘Clothing,
available. Fashion-savvy women the Shoes & Accessories’’ category in 2003,
world over who might never have heard might seem like the antithesis of the
of designers like the Paris-based mina- niche Internet luxury market.
Poe or the Dutch duo Viktor & Rolf can But its style director, Constance
now buy their goods on the Internet. White, disagrees. ‘‘On eBay you can
Survival has as much to do with qual- find things you can’t get anywhere else
ity service as it does with product. This in the world,’’ she said. ‘‘When the
means making available personal shop- Louis Vuitton Murakami bags sold out
pers, adding handwritten notes and little and there was a waiting list at the
gifts to purchases, and delivering any- stores, the only place you could find
where in the world in less than 72 hours, them for sale was on eBay.’’
customs taxes included. And, of course,
wrapping everything up in beauti- ith the arrival of White, a
ful boxes tied with a bow.
Is it all as perfect as it W former fashion reporter for
The New York Times, and the
sounds? What happens if launching of an online fashion
the $2,186.00 Missoni magazine, Personal Style, it is clear that
multicolor Noemi cut-out eBay sees a future in high-end retail.
jersey dress doesn’t fit? And while eBay remains a place where
What if there is a button one person’s junk can become someone
missing? else’s treasure, the number of brand-
‘‘We want to exceed new items being sold continues to
expectations; that’s our grow. In the clothing and shoes catego-
mantra, ’’ said Massenet. ry alone, 50 percent of the items on of-
‘‘We offer a customer- fer are new, up from 15 percent in 2001.
friendly returns policy, So what does the future hold for on-
and we pay for the return line luxury shopping? How will these
and exchange shipping virtual stores continue to innovate and
charges. We realize our customers make the shopping experience even
need to try things on before making the more user-friendly?
final decision to keep an item.’’ Massenet of net-a-porter.com is
This kind of customer service has already hard at work on what she sees
given the luxury sites something that as the next big step. ‘‘I envision a day
no amount of money can buy — good when a business woman will be having
word of mouth. Vivre.com says that lunch and then her phone will ring,’’
customer loyalty has driven its repeat she said. ‘‘When she opens it up she
business up 78 percent. will see an image of the latest Marc Jac-
But many luxury Web sites have a obs coat that just arrived in stock. With
long way to go before they will be able to a click of a button she can purchase it
handle the demands of the world-travel- and then find it waiting for her when
ing wealthy. ‘‘It’s a fantastic opportuni- she gets back to her office.’’
ty,’’ said Pinkster, the research consul- International Herald Tribune