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Martin Webb
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 8, 2006
Child's play
The annual "No Border" exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, received unprecedented media coverage this year. Titled "From Nihonga to Nihonga," it ran from January to March, and featured fast-rising stars, including Hisashi Tenmyouya, Fuyuko Matsui and Kumi Machida, all of whom were spuriously...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 6, 2006
Design doyenne still sets aesthetic agenda
Standing well over 180 cm in her two-tone Chanel pumps, Andree Putman, the Grand Dame of modernist design, is at once icon, icon-maker and iconoclast. Born in Paris in 1925, her illustrious career traverses friendships and collaborations with many of the last century's revered avant-gardist creators,...
Japan Times
LIFE
May 28, 2006
Manga by any other name is . . .
With the video-game business now outgrossing Hollywood's box office, and anime being distributed to destinations as diverse as Patagonia and Phuket, the influence of Japan's entertainment industry on young people worldwide has never been as powerful.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
May 18, 2006
"Yankee Doodle Flea Market & Art Show"
Hillside Terrace Daikanyama Friday to Sunday
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
May 16, 2006
Stylewise
Sport couture
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
May 12, 2006
Kitting out the kids in the finest gear
It might seem safe to assume that with a rapidly dwindling number of kids being brought into the world here in Japan, the market for kids' clothes and toys would be shrinking fast. Not so: with fewer children around, more and more money is being spent on them, and a host of top-class kiddie stores are...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 27, 2006
Putting art into fashion
"I'm just fed up with all the recycled cliches and the sensationalism," says Samuel Bourdin, son of the celebrated French fashion photographer Guy Bourdin, over the phone from Paris. "The press tries to make my father out to be some kind of depraved monster, but that's just not accurate."
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 18, 2006
Stylist Meets,' M.A.C. cosmetics for men, Juicy Couture . . .
Taste-makers
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 16, 2006
Ugly and macho or ultimate supercool on wheels?
The streets of central Tokyo are thronged with countless high-end automobiles, but one model above all others stands out from the crowd. Two meters high and 2.1 meters wide, with a mean, military-style mien, the Hummer H2 is hard to miss among the massed ranks of Toyotas, Nissans, Beemers and Mercs....
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Apr 14, 2006
Knight expands fashion empire
Eccentric British fashion designer Paul Smith is currently presiding over a rollout of stores across the globe. Following on from the December 2005 opening of a bubblegum-pink store on Melrose Avenue, L.A., last week he was in Tokyo to unveil a four-story flagship in the Aoyama district. Later this year...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Mar 31, 2006
Lauren gets his Tokyo landmark
Omotesando, Tokyo's premier luxury brand boulevard, has recently been furnished with a string of ultramodern shrines to consumable design, crafted in concrete and steel and glass. That makes Ralph Lauren's vast whitewashed neoclassical monolith -- which opened yesterday -- seem even more like something...
Japan Times
Features / JAPAN FASHION WEEK FALL/WINTER 06-07
Mar 26, 2006
Virtual retailers forge fortunes with fashion
There's a revolution going on in the Japanese fashion world -- but it is nowhere near the catwalks. The revolution is happening on the web.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 23, 2006
A sense of van Meene
Dutch photographer Hellen van Meene, accompanied by her husband Frank, is visiting Japan for the fifth time. Sipping on an orange juice inside the smoked glass walls of Montauk cafe on Omotesando's busy shopping strip, she tells how the Japan Foundation invited her to contribute to the nation's pavilion...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 21, 2006
American Rag Cie, TopMan Design, Wing Shya at Mori, Jun Takahashi book
Rags to riches
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Mar 19, 2006
Toys that transformed the world's way of play
What is it with Japan and robots? For whatever reason, they have been an integral part of the national psyche for decades. While Toyota's automated production lines might be the first thing that springs to mind, robotic creatures, from Astroboy to Aibo, have also become an integral part of the nation's...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Mar 10, 2006
Parisian maverick targets Tokyo
"Fashion is everything," says Armand Hadida, owner of Parisian boutique chain L'Eclaireur. "It's how you wake up, how you walk, how you eat and, of course, how you dress."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 2, 2006
"10 x 10"
BBS Shop Closes in 42 days
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Feb 21, 2006
Party round-up: Chloe, Maison Martin Margiela, Bernhard Willhelm, Alexander Lee-Chang . . .
It's been a busy month for the Tokyo style scene, with a flurry of high-profile store openings culminating in an unveiling of the monumental Omotesando Hills that coincided with extravagant 100th anniversary bashes for luxury pen brand Mont Blanc and jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels. All this meant a punishing...
Japan Times
Features
Feb 19, 2006
An innocent abroad brings his twisted genius to Japan
I first heard about Momus, the alter-ego of the Scottish musical maverick Nick Currie, in 2002, when a writer friend directed me to an article that Currie had written on the coolness of Tokyo's up-and-coming Nakameguro district.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / COUNTER CULTURE
Feb 17, 2006
Tokyo's major drag . . . redefined
Labeled the Champs Elysees of Tokyo, tree-lined "brand boulevard" Omotesando is one of Japan's most treasured strips. Acting as a conduit between the posh Aoyama district and youth mecca Harajuku, it houses a wealth of highly original retail experiences.

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?