Japan's finances may not be in great shape, but when it comes to fashion, there still aren't many places more cool.
Consumers from Asia, Europe and the United States might not be buying as many Japanese cars and TVs, but they continue to be influenced by Japan's culture. That means that when global brands are looking for the hottest new fashions, eyes almost inevitably turn eastward.
"Most of the time, most global trends start in Tokyo," trendspotter Loic Bizel told CNN. A Tokyo-based fashion expert who consults for labels like Timberland, Lacoste and Sonia Rykiel, Bizel also takes foreign fashionistas on tours of Tokyo to scout for street style trends to replicate in their home markets.
"People really started to look at Japan as a lab about seven or eight years ago," he added. "Trends are picked up really quickly in the streets."
That's why, according to Bizel, brands like Topshop from the UK and Sweden's H&M come: "They know they have time to produce what they have spotted in Tokyo for next season and it will be a hit."
"It's easy for big brands to come to Japan, and compete, and send [designs] to their home market," according to Bizel, because, crucially, hardly any Japanese fashion labels sell abroad.
But, says the Japanese government, things are set to change. It is proposing to pump just over ¥19 billion ($237 million) into the creative sector in 2011 to see if it can make more money from Japan's national cool.
Mika Takagi is the Deputy Director of the Creative Industries Promotion Office -- aka the "Cool Japan" Office -- the government body charged with making Japan's cultural industries (anime, graphic design, film, fashion and more) start paying.
Read more:http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/19/japan.cool.money/index.html?hpt=C2
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