The first reading is one of the readings for ITASIA201, Brian Morris's "Un/Wrapping Shibuya: Place, Media and Punctualization". In Morris's analysis of the area of Shibuya, he notes that there is this "extended verticality of the street" (291). What he means is that there is a vertical spread of shops upwards and downwards which are part of the same building. In this sense, there is a spatial reach of customers in the way that the shops are densely populated with goods as well as customers, due to the efficient use of space. This relates directly to what I was talking about before in which Mode Off literally stuffs their store to the brim and makes use of even the staircases to hang clothes on. There is also a vertical spread in the space of the store itself, since it stretches up to four floors. However, as I am focusing only on the ground floor, I also noticed that there is stacking in terms of the racks. Each rack holds up to two tiers for clothes, and three or four tiers for bags, wallets and other accessories. Clothes are also stacked along the staircase, where hangers are strategically placed not just to appeal to the customers, but also to cover all the empty spaces on the staircase railings. Lastly, there is stacking in the buying process during the physical folding and unfolding as well as the use of the shelf-counter.
Morris also mentions that there are "crucial consequences for advertising signage, which colonizes every available space in order to maximize the chances of customers finding or choosing a particular establishment to patronize"(292). This relates to the space outside the shop, where large signs are hung to advertise the store in front of the shop as well as on the side of the entire stretch of buildings facing the main road. Of course, there is also blatant advertising while the customer is within the premises of the shop itself, as mentioned in the previous post with sound recordings. This means that space is used not just physically with the signs, but also digitally with sounds and websites, thus reinforcing the image of the store before, after and during the browsing and purchasing processes.
Morris uses Joy Hendry's wrapping/unwrapping theories to emphasize how meaning is found in the wrapping process in his article, which I found particularly interesting in relation to analyzing Mode Off. First of all, we have the basic idea that clothes, bags, wallets and other accessories in the shop wrap the body. This reflects an overwhelming concern with fashion in Japanese society with issues such as how should one dress the body, and how can one look good. Secondly, clothes in the store function as advertisements (as mentioned in the previous post) in the form of promotional materials to wrap up the shop. In fact, even the use of paper bags brought in by the customers are employed for this purpose! And yet, one could also argue, depending on how you look at it, that the shop is bare (unwrapped), since everything for sale is displayed as it is. There are no "display" pieces in the store for trying and purchase pieces for customers like in the large departmental stores, because in this store, you get what you see on the racks. In this sense, there is no inner level of deception. The customers know that the clothes are secondhand and therefore some aspects attached to secondhand clothes are to be expected. At the center of this wrapping and unwrapping lies the question of recycling: where does recycling play a role in the wrapping/unwrapping process?
The second reading is Lise Skov's “Environmentalism Seen Through Japanese Women’s Magazines”, which I found randomly while looking for books for my own research. Skov examines magazines for young unmarried women from their teens to their late twenties which were published in 1990 when environmentalism became a hit in the form of a phenomenon called "ecology boom". She noted that "women’s magazines featured headlines such as ‘Ecological summer’ and ‘We love the Mother Earth’, but references to actual environmental politics were few and far between. Rather, ecology excelled as a style, apparently detached from the problems that had given birth to the trend." (171) This is interesting as a cross-analysis to the concept of Mode Off, because in a critical point of view, the magazines, like the store, may want to be part of the boom or what is trendy and fashionable at the time, but want none of the problems associated to actual environmentalism. So the question is: is Mode Off focusing on ecology because it is an appealing and trendy concept to its consumers or is it because they it truly cares for the environment?
Skov has pointed out that "The translation of environmental concern into consumer culture has by no means been exclusive to Japan,"(171) since many women’s magazines have since taken up issues of environmentalism, and designers of different nationalities have not only donated parts of their incomes to environmental movements, but also worked to develop less polluting production methods and explore the possibilities of recycling. However, what makes the Japan case so unique is that environmental concern was adopted by the media in a very immediate and thorough manner, thereby creating an ecology boom, which "was celebrated in Japan with the launch of a torrent of so-called ecology products, many of which had little or no positive impact on the environment."(171) There is then this implication of whether or not the image that shows that one is aware of the environment is more important than the actual awareness itself. Is the theme of recycling in Mode Off just for show or as a means to boost sales in promoting its name as a environment-friendly store?
Skov goes on to note that "in general, women are the main activists in Japanese environmental groups –hardly surprising in a society marked by a pervasive gender segregation and full employment with long daily working hours for practically all men."(188) A 1993 estimate by Iwao showed that approximately 10% of the married, suburban women who do not hold any employment are involved in a social movement – frequently one focusing on consumer issues such as eliminating pesticides and chemical additives in food, avoiding pollution by synthetic detergents, or promoting recycling. Of course, the figures would have increased rapidly since then as this was an old survey. However, what the figure does show is that women are concerned about the environment and many are active in the recycling process. This is similarly reflected in the proportionally large number of female customers in Mode Off, which is probably a factor why three out of four floors are allocated to serving their needs in the first place.
Finally, in her conclusion, Skov maintains that "the selling point of ecology is precisely that it is more than ‘just a fashion’. It encourages potential consumers to look behind the appearances of media images to see whether commodities are produced in an environmentally sound way, to know in what direction product development is going, and to check whether companies donate money towards the protection of the environment."(193) This, I think, sums up the attitudes of Mode Off's customers towards the shop. Although the relationship between the ‘image’ and the ‘awareness’ of ecology may not be straight-forward, people are often critical of this relationship, and "a company which advertises its care for nature runs the risk of losing more than its credibility if it is revealed that there is no action behind the environmental image." (193) Therefore, in the end, an attempt at trying to get people to participate in recycling of any sort is better than nothing at all.
I guess in my attempt to deal with the shop during the period of this online research, many questions did pop up in my head such as: do they really care about the environment at all or are they just doing this for the profit? I'm not sure if I can find answers for them but I suppose I can try while revealing more about the shop. This links nicely to my next post, which will be about the company motto and its business(es).
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