tokuon

Otona-kawaii | 大人可愛い

Ten years ago, girls in their teens to early twenty-somethings would circle Shibuya’s fashion mecha 109 building like schools of fish (kaiyuugyo 回遊魚). They were the kogyaru コギャル generation, and now they are breaking the 30 mark. They quickly became a symbol of the Japanese youth, and to the outside world, a symbol of crazy Japanese youth. Not everyone participated in the phenomenon, but they were representative of a generation searching for their own style and creating their own Japan.

Ten years later they are adults, although they don’t quite feel like adults. At least, they are not the adults their parents were. They still prefer to be casual, searching out the fashion items to piece together a wardrobe all their own.

Fashion magazines called these women and their fashion style otona-kawaii, meaning cute adult. (photo on left from a Rakuten online shop) Where as these women would have been showing more skin when they were younger, today, they still preserve their casual style but wear clothes that hide their aging bodies.

Whereas 10 years ago they were rebelling against the mainstream, today, they returned to the mainstream, although they have perhaps changed mainstream style in the process. Certainly the 30-year old women today do not dress like those ten or twenty years ago.

What I find extremely interesting is the fact that it seems that the term “Otona-kawaii” has spread beyond those who used to be kogyaru (i.e. became mainstream). Not only that, it seems to be spreading beyond the above definition as well, applying itself to a more general fashion space — a more sophisticated cute than those of younger twenty-somethings. It is still casual, yet there is a certain sense of “adult” sophistication.

I am no fashion expert, so you can safely assume that much of this simply confuses me, but these are my thoughts on this new word.

Anecan and sister magazine CanCam often use the term “otona-kawaii”, although their two main models, Oshikiri Moe and Ebihara Yuri don’t really match the above definition…hard to imagine them having been kogyaru.