Tokyo Design Festa 2009

Just one of 2,000 stands, originally uploaded by jonallen01966.

I went to the Tokyo Big Sight exhibition centre for the Design Festa at the weekend. Over 2,000 local and international exhibitors took part in this extravaganza of art, fashion and design.

The stands showed the artist's enormous imagination in a wide variety of media from oils and watercolours to wire, glass and plastics. Most of the items were for sale: everything including post cards, T-shirts, shoes, bags, clothes, wigs, hats and general nick knacks.

Some of my favourites include A Banana and Cream Facial and a cheeky design on wood. More of my photos on flickr , an excellent selection from lhuga and a 12 second video of some hungry money boxes that eat coins.

The festival happens twice a year and is happening next on the weekend of Oct 24th and 25th 2009.

Feet Man Seoul in Japan Times

A quick shout out for Mike Hurt AKA The Metropolitician AKA Feet Man Seoul. Not only is he appearing on Arirang TV these days, but I was delighted to see his fashion photos this morning in the Japan Times.

On my way to work I spotted the half page spread by Shawn Despres entitled "Spicy Food, sexy idols and now fashion." including no less than five photos all from FeetManSeoul.com. Some quotes include:

"A few years ago, any self-respecting Japanese young woman would have died of shame rather than be caught in the same outfit her Korean cousin was flaunting in Myeongdong. Now, vacationing Japanese populate those shopping corridors on clothing hunts."

"Until very recently, suits or other formal wear were requirements for men, as were dresses, high heels and makeup for women," explains Michael Hurt, the editor in chief of Feet Man Seoul, South Korea's first street-fashion magazine.

"As any Korean knows, a man walking the streets in the '90s in shorts and sandals would be stared at, or a woman without makeup in an office situation would be thought of as rude or lazy."