Friday 7 June 2013

Japanese street style and the evil eye trend

While creating the oriental designs for my recent Just Cavalli brief I came across japanesestreets.com which documents the alternative Japanese street fashion. 


I love the creativity these street shots express, Japanese street style seems so fearless- people don't shy away from mixing patterns and wearing "quirky" things. I would love to be this experimental in my wardrobe choices.

I'm really interested in getting some more printed t-shirts in my wardrobe, they're so easy to just throw on with leggings/jeans and a chunky necklace.




Trend alert: Evil/All seeing eye

Kenzo's AW13 collection introduced an eye print and since the arrival of this on the catwalk so many high street brands have followed suit.

Left to right: Creatures of comfort, Concept Korea, Kenzo.



Not only has the eye symbol been a success in both catwalk and high street fashion but also in jewellery, tattoos and nail art.



The symbolism of the eye is used throughout many countries and is consistent in it's meaning- protection. In these cultures excessive praise is considered to incur the wrath of the evil eye. In Turkey the evil eye pendant is attached to anything that might attract greed, envy or ill will. The idea that too much fame/success may bring about one's downfall could explain the recent fascination with the evil eye, particularly in celeb culture. So many album covers and editorial photo shoots reference the eye symbolism, leading people to speculate whether the celebs striking this pose are members of secret societies like the Illuminati.


Although the evil eye is known to symbolise protection it also has strong associations with freemasonry and the Illuminati(the Illuminati's 'all seeing eye' can be seen on US currency), the evil eye can be linked to Egyptian symbology where an open eye was used as a symbol for Osiris and son Horus, it can also be linked to the Jewish Hamsa(a hand with a protective eye in the centre). It is these associations that have meant that the eye symbol is sometimes viewed as representing control of knowledge,manipulation and power. 







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