Asian Street Fashion

by James Bent

Asian fashion is perhaps most widely associated with the quirky, original creations that have come out of Tokyo in recent decades. While Japanese style has undoubtedly influenced the growth of fashion in Asia, there is abundant creativity to be found in cities across this vast continent and unique approaches to dress that have remained largely hidden from the outside world. Rich influences are being absorbed and reapplied in new ways to create bold fashion statements that scream innovation and individuality. From Bangkok’s seemingly effortless blend of vintage and modern to Seoul’s layered, sleek chic with a daring twist, the diverse results reveal an irresistible quality that unites Asian fashion as a whole; the refusal to conform to a uniform and conservative form of dress.



James Bent has been photographing street fashion in Asia for a number of years and has traveled extensively throughout the continent in his quest to capture its wealth of clothing styles. Collectively, his photographs take us on a vibrant visual journey of creative fashion at its best, sparking our imaginations, inspiring fresh interpretations of style, and inviting us to view our own wardrobes in a new light.

Genres: Fashion, Nonfiction

272 pages, Paperback

First published December 9, 2014

Reviews

[Am Y]

This is a book of photos of people on the street whom the author thought were interesting enough to photograph because of what they were wearing. Countries featured are Japan, Korea, China (including Hong Kong & Taiwan but not Macau), Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. I'm not sure if the author's manifesto was to capture unconventional looks (as in, looks that the majority of people in that place don't go for) or everyday looks that were special or noteworthy in some way, because in the end I felt it was neither.

1) Most of the looks featured were either similar to one another, weren't anything "special", or just simply looked like what the average person on the street would wear. For the men especially - it was sameness for the most part: shirt, jacket, pants. And the winter fashion merely featured women in coats, with subtle style or colour changes. There was also black - tons of it. Especially from the Koreans.

2) The chapter introductions are a joke. (As another reviewer mentions, they are not worth reading at all.) They say nothing about the chapter and are just generic filler text.

3) The chapters themselves are also a joke.

Example #1: One of the chapters is labelled "Traditional". From the pictures featured, I assumed that the author meant that the people in this chapter were each wearing something that was inspired by, or itself was, a traditional article of clothing from their culture. E.g. The upper part of a samfu for Chinese people; skirts inspired by the bottom half of the Korean dress for Koreans; kimono-inspired tops for Japanese women, etc. However, we were shown one photo of a Singaporean Chinese woman wearing harem pants and a modern-looking blouse. Wherein was the "traditional" aspect of this? Did he mean the harem pants, for god's sake (which by the way have nothing to do with Singaporean or Chinese culture)? And then you have several photos featuring Malay Muslim women from Malaysia, who are wearing hijabs. Now, hijabs are not the "traditional" Malay dress; the traditional Malay dress is the kebaya , which has absolutely zilch to do with hijabs or any other head covering. So the author can't even differentiate between "traditional costume" and "religious wear" - they aren't the same, mind you. Tell any Malay woman that the hijab is part of their "traditional" costume and they will laugh at your ignorance.

Example #2: Another of the chapters is labelled "Vintage". Out of the photos featured in this section, only perhaps ~20% were truly "vintage". The rest looked exactly like all the other looks featured in other sections of the book. I wonder if the author really understands what constitutes "vintage" style in the fashion world.

Example #3: Some chapters show spring fashion, others winter fashion, etc. There's a problem with this - what about for countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, which are tropical and don't have seasons? Instead of just conveniently excluding these places, why couldn't the author just have a section called "tropical fashion", for instance? As a result, these 3 countries I just mentioned are grossly under-represented: out of the hundreds of photos in this book, I counted approximately less than 10 from Malaysia, maybe around 10 max (generous estimation) for Singapore, and about maybe less than 15 for Thailand.

4) This book doesn't really showcase "Asian" street fashion. See my point directly above (in example #3) about the representation. The book might as well have been renamed "Japanese & Korean Street Fashion". I didn't think it was fair for the author to say he'd included Singapore and Malaysia in his list, when there were only a few photos from these 2 countries combined. And I thought it was pointless to feature so few people as well, because you can't get a sense of the general aesthetic.

Probably the only thing I enjoyed about this book was guessing which people were from where. (This book could be renamed: Guess Which Asian Country These People Are From and it would be a lot more fun and meaningful.)

I found out that I was pretty accurate in my guesses too - I correctly identified all Singaporeans featured, despite there being so few of them! Yay! I also almost always correctly ID'ed the Koreans (some of them are so white they practically glow - which is a compliment for them by the way). And I usually could tell if someone was Japanese too. Chinese faces were of course easy to identify. (It helps being Chinese myself I suppose!) I guess this just shows that somehow there are subtle indicators in a person's facial features that inform us of their race and country of origin.

An unintended plus factor that came out of picking up this title!

[Nancy]

I love the photographer's eye and the layout of this book. Each person is given space to shine. But I grew weary of the looks! Too much all the same. Too many rolled cuffs, too many high heels, too many big purses. When he got to the chapters on traditional and vintage inspired looks I perked up: finally some flavor. Alas, the chapter introductions didn't merit reading.