Urban camouflage, Japanese-style

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Though street crime is relatively low in Japan, quirky camouflage designs like this vending-machine dress are being offered to an increasingly anxious public to hide from would-be assailants. –Torin Boyd/Polaris, for The New York Times

A report in The New York Times of 10/20/07 (Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Placeby Martin Fackler) concerns the Instantaneous Vending-Machine Skirt, a work from Japanese artist Aya Tsukioka.

This story was reported on Popgadget in September 2005.

Ms. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old experimental fashion designer, has created a variety of clothing that provides urban camouflage. There’s a skirt that converts into a vending machine, a pocket book that can convert into a manhole cover look-alike, and a child’s backpack that transforms into a Japanese-style fire hydrant.

 

The idea is simple: when danger manifests, the wearer deploys the vending machine skirt or fire hydrant backpack, disguising their identity and camouflaging their appearance so that they fade into the urban jungle.  

The concept of clothing designed to camouflage to protect the wearer traveling through the urban jungle is a peculiarly Japanese one. According to Fackler, these responses to urban anxiety “reflect a peculiarly Japanese sensibility.”

Many Japanese favor camouflage and deception, reflecting a culture that abhors self-assertion, even in self-defense. “It is just easier for Japanese to hide,” Ms. Tsukioka said. “Making a scene would be too embarrassing.” She said her vending machine disguise was inspired by a trick used by the ancient ninja, who cloaked themselves in black blankets at night.

Fackler further states that these creations “underscore another, less appreciated facet of Japanese society: its fondness for oddball ideas and inventions.”  Quoting Ms. Tsukioka:

She said that while her ideas might be fanciful, Japan’s willingness to indulge the imagination was one of its cultural strengths. “These ideas might strike foreigners as far-fetched,” she added, “but in Japan, they can become reality.”

Related MadSilence links:
The art of camo
The art of camo, or Can you still see me?

Also:
Urban Camouflage Slide Show from The New York Times

~TAB
 

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Filed under Artist Spotlight, Camouflage, Creativity, Japan, Japanese Culture, Life, MadSilence, News, Popular Culture, Uncategorized

Tags: Aya Tsukioka, Instantaneous Vending-Machine Skirt, urban camo