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水曜日, 9月 29, 2010

A Single Man

本当に美しい映画でした。後に見ることになる「King's Speech」のコリン・ファースに、過度に感情移入しちゃったのは私だけではないと思います。一緒に見ていたサムが、クレジット終わっても“ひっくひっく”と号泣し続ける私を不思議そうに見ていたのを思い出します。

エンターテイメント情報ウェブサイトのVARIETYが当時「シングルマン」のシネマトグラフィーについて書いた記事をクリッピングしました。

27 year-old d.p. behind 'A Single Man' 

Cinematographer Eduard Grau shoots Tom Ford pic

On the day Eduard Grau first met Tom Ford, the fashion-designer-turned-director hired the young cinematographer to shoot "A Single Man."Perhaps he was taking a risk with the Barcelona-born cinematographer -- Grau was 27 at the time and had only a few obscure films to his credit -- but few would dispute the success of their collaboration. Following a day in the life of a grieving gay college professor planning suicide, "A Single Man" tracks his internal journey, not only with dialog and flashbacks, but also through striking images and startling changes in the film's color palette.
Of course, directors and d.p.'s have been varying hues to advance storytelling ever since the advent of color -- using different schemes to indicate states of mind or developments in the action. However, "A Single Man" pushes the technique to an extreme, with the color often shifting visibly within the same scene.
Colin Firth plays the professor, and as his feelings switch from depression to elation the colors turn from cold blues and grays to warm reds and oranges - and vice versa.
"Tom wanted the color to go according to the characters' feelings and emotions at each point of the movie," said Grau, "and we followed that all the way."
To maximize this effect, Grau suggested using an older Kodak film stock, 5279, which is no longer generally available. "It has very beautiful grain, and in a way, is timeless," Grau said. "It's very saturated, beautiful and rich, especially the reds. We tested it along with other stocks, and Tom and I both decided this would be the one."
The entire film was shot on 5279 35mm, including a black-and-white flashback scene in which Firth and his companion, played by Matthew Goode, sit on a dramatic rock formation. Like much of the movie, its color was altered -- in this case removed -- during the digital intermediate stage, when the film's look was manipulated to Ford's satisfaction.
"The color was taken out of the scene in DI because the image is more striking in black and white," said Grau. "It's an image of a memory, and there's a black-and-white photo in the film that relates to the same memory.
"We shot various moments differently, and lit them differently as well, but then Tom changed color saturation," said Grau, adding that Ford was a constant presence in the DI sessions. "The movie is very personal to Tom. The way it looks is the way he saw it from the beginning."

eataly NY

Photo from eataly website

既に日本では関東・北陸を中心にオープンしている「イータリー」。こちらニューヨークでも先日ブルームバーグ市長のテープカットと共にオープンしました。

場所は、比較的通りの激しい23丁目の5AVEと6AVEの間に位置します。日曜日の午後はまだ新しいお店とあり、お客でごった返していました。“アスファルトに囲まれた”という意味からは外れますが、人間が大挙して餌を狩りに来るという意味では、こちらも一種のアーバンジャングルと言えるでしょう。

それ故ゆっくりとワインを嗜みながら...という雰囲気からはほど遠い店内でしたが、さすがニューヨーカー、普通に買い物をする人やレジに並ぶ人がテーブルの周りを往来してもなんのその、グルメなプレートに多くの人が舌鼓を打っていました。

空間を仕切らない広々とした店内では、ベーカリー、ブッチャー、フィッシュ・マーチャント、グリーングロッサリーが並んでいます。アンチョビやケーパーなどの瓶ものは、お行儀良く棚に陳列してありました。

いやいや〜、ここまで混んでいると、正直このお店のコンセプトを楽しむのは難しいけれど、まだ熱い焼きたてのパンや、リーズナブルなプロシュートは魅力的。中でも出来立ての生パスタは本当に美味しそう。

ちなにみ、この場所は通りに面しており、よって代官山ショップの写真をみるように、オープンテラスがあったり、外にワゴンが出ていたり、というゆったりとした空間はありません。それでも「イータリー」がここへ出店したのは、きっとニューヨーカーの好奇心の高さと、適応力の早さ、応用力の確かさを見込み、売り上げを狙ったに違い有りません。

有名な「フラットアイロンビル」を斜向いに見ながら、東京とはまだ違った「イータリー」をお楽しみあれ♪




***後日、土曜日の夜の閉店間際に立ち寄ったところ、ワイン片手に買い物を楽しむ光景が見られたので、まったりと楽しみたいのであれば、当分の間土日の昼間は外した方が良さそうです。

火曜日, 9月 21, 2010

sandy hook, NJ



この日曜日は、ピア11のフェリー乗り場からフェリーで約30分の場所にある島、サンディ・フック(NJ)へ行ってきました。

この島は昔軍事施設のひとつとして使われていたらしく、至る所に発射台や、ミサイル基地とそのレーダー基地が残っていました。アメリカン・スパニッシュ戦争に始まり、第二次世界大戦中や、冷戦時代中にキューバやソ連を威嚇し、マンハッタンを守る目的で約50年前くらいまで実際に使われ ていたとのこと。ミサイルの発射台の見学は流石にモノモノしい雰囲気でした。(その際、蚊に8カ所も刺されていた〜!!!!そのうち6カ所は、なんとTシャツの上から。知らぬ間に攻撃を受けていたとは、恐 るべし)



この日のスケジュール:

7時20分頃アパートを自転車を漕いで出発。予定のフェリー乗り場へは8時過ぎに到着。既に一日の体力40%くらいを消耗。

8時15分のフェリーに乗り、9時には目的地へ。早っ〜!うちのサムはなんと言ってもアーリーバードなんです。早過ぎて乗り合わせたお客さんは5人とまばら。ちなみに乗ったフェリーの速度が思ったより速くて怖かったです。→そのお陰か、乗車時間は45分と聞いていたのに、30分で目的地まで着きました。

クドいようですが、なにせ時間が早過ぎ。島の第一印象は無人島。
(昼がちがづくにつれて、続々と後発のフェリーでNYからも人が到着。ホッとする)

一難→漕ぎ始めていきなり、前輪のタイヤの空気が抜けていることに気がつく。

凹まずに自転車屋さんへ。(18インチタイヤなので、チューブ交換は出来ないとのこと)パンクでは無い事を祈りつつ空気を入れてもらった。とても親切なカップルでした♡

気を取り直して、出発!それでも午前中はずっとまたタイヤが萎んでしまわないか心配だったけれど、残り一日大丈夫でした。

去って、又一難→島をほぼ半周した頃、お腹がすく。まだ10時頃だったため、レストランが開いていなくて、とてもヒモジイ思いを経験しました。(知っていたら、お弁当を持参したのにっ!!!)

売店近くのテーブルで店が開くのをひたすら待ちます。

10時半開店、と聞いたけど、結局開いたのは11時近く。

メニューにあったのは、ホットドックとフレンチフライ...
ないよりはマシ、と気を取り直して、美味しく頂きました。

ランチも結局似たような売店しかなく、この日は一日合計で3個のホットドックを食べる。

さてさて、ビーチはというと。とっても気持ちがいい。もうオフシーズンとあって混雑はしてないけど、ファミリーやカップルが最後の夏を楽しんでいました。海水もまだ温かかく、波のずっと向こうの方にマンハッタンが幻の島のように浮かび上がっているのが見え、とっても素敵でした。

帰りは34丁目でフェリーに下ろしてもらい、最後の力を振り絞って帰宅。

今回もやっぱりサムさんのお陰で、朝練、闇連付きの合宿のような壮絶なプチ自転車旅行となりました。

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong in Conversation with Michael Mayer: The Creators of Broadway's American Idiot






Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong in Conversation with Michael Mayer: 
The Creators of Broadway's American Idiot
 
http://www.92y.org/shop/event_detail.asp?productid=T-LC5BT03 

先週末に参加してきました。


<個人的な嗜好で付けた映画のレーティング>

Cairo Time ★★★★ 配役が最高でした。

Eat Pray Love ★★★ うーん、ラストは好き。

Going the Distance ★★★★★★ 脇役たちが「Chasing Amy」を彷彿させる。これ絶対見て欲しい!

Inception ★★★ 自分の中でマトリックスと被ってしまった。

The Kids Are All Right ★★★ 中年期のあなたへ。

 

 


 

 

 

 

火曜日, 9月 07, 2010

The NY Times 記事「 American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?」

日本でも随分と話題にのぼっているそうですが。グランドゼロから2ブロックの場所にモスクを建設するか否かを巡って、再び“自由で平等な国、アメリカ”が試されています。911テロは9年経った今も、多くの人に悲しみを与え続けています。今回もモスク建設論争から新たに生まれたイスラム教徒への憎悪の念によって、善良なイスラム教のタクシードライバーが若い白人男性によって殺されました。記事には自由を求めてアメリカに移住して来たイスラム教徒の人々が困惑している様子が描かれています。

通っていた大学で世界経済を教えていた教授は“人が他の国へ移動する最も明らかな理由は‘経済力の向上を求めてだ’”と言っていました。ひとつの神以外信じてはいけない教えを受けた者が他の宗教徒との共存を法律で定められている国で生きてゆく事は、日本古来の「精霊信仰/アミニズム」などを理解出来る日本人には到底考えられないと思うのだけれど、移住して来た理由が経済的なものであるなら、ここで生きていく以上彼らに取ってはそのあり得ない“寛容や妥協”といった知恵が必要だと思いました。

前回の冬期オリンピックを見ている時に、アメリカ生まれの日本人がアメリカ代表として出場しているのを見て”アメリカの人は懐が深い”、と思わず唸ったのですが、宗教上の問題となると分かったつもりでいて、全く次元が違うようです。



September 5, 2010

American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?



For nine years after the attacks of Sept. 11, many American Muslims made concerted efforts to build relationships with non-Muslims, to make it clear they abhor terrorism, to educate people about Islam and to participate in interfaith service projects. They took satisfaction in the observations by many scholars that Muslims in America were more successful and assimilated than Muslims in Europe.
Now, many of those same Muslims say that all of those years of work are being rapidly undone by the fierce opposition to a Muslim cultural center near ground zero that has unleashed a torrent of anti-Muslim sentiments and a spate of vandalism. The knifing of a Muslim cab driver in New York City has also alarmed many American Muslims.
“We worry: Will we ever be really completely accepted in American society?” said Dr. Ferhan Asghar, an orthopedic spine surgeon in Cincinnati and the father of two young girls. “In no other country could we have such freedoms — that’s why so many Muslims choose to make this country their own. But we do wonder whether it will get to the point where people don’t want Muslims here anymore.”
Eboo Patel, a founder and director of Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based community service program that tries to reduce religious conflict, said, “I am more scared than I’ve ever been — more scared than I was after Sept. 11.”
That was a refrain echoed by many American Muslims in interviews last week. They said they were scared not as much for their safety as to learn that the suspicion, ignorance and even hatred of Muslims is so widespread. This is not the trajectory toward integration and acceptance that Muslims thought they were on.
Some American Muslims said they were especially on edge as the anniversary of 9/11 approaches. The pastor of a small church in Florida has promised to burn a pile of Korans that day. Muslim leaders are telling their followers that the stunt has been widely condemned by Christian and other religious groups and should be ignored. But they said some young American Muslims were questioning how they could simply sit by and watch the promised desecration.
They liken their situation to that of other scapegoats in American history: Irish Roman Catholics before the nativist riots in the 1800s, the Japanese before they were put in internment camps during World War II.
Muslims sit in their living rooms, aghast as pundits assert over and over that Islam is not a religion at all but a political cult, that Muslims cannot be good Americans and that mosques are fronts for extremist jihadis. To address what it calls a “growing tide of fear and intolerance,” the Islamic Society of North America plans to convene a summit of Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders in Washington on Tuesday.
Young American Muslims who are trying to figure out their place and their goals in life are particularly troubled, said Imam Abdullah T. Antepli, the Muslim chaplain at Duke University.
“People are discussing what is the alternative if we don’t belong here,” he said. “There are jokes: When are we moving to Canada, when are we moving to Sydney? Nobody will go anywhere, but there is hopelessness, there is helplessness, there is real grief.”
Mr. Antepli just returned from a trip last month with a rabbi and other American Muslim leaders to Poland and Germany, where they studied the Holocaust and the events that led up to it (the group issued a denunciation of Holocaust denial on its return).
“Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s,” he said. “It’s really scary.”
American Muslims were anticipating a particularly joyful Ramadan this year. For the first time in decades, the monthlong holiday fell mostly during summer vacation, allowing children to stay up late each night for the celebratory iftar dinner, breaking the fast, with family and friends.
But the season turned sour.
The great mosque debate seems to have unleashed a flurry of vandalism and harassment directed at mosques: construction equipment set afire at a mosque site in Murfreesboro, Tenn; a plastic pig with graffiti thrown into a mosque in Madera, Calif.; teenagers shooting outside a mosque in upstate New York during Ramadan prayers. It is too soon to tell whether hate crimes against Muslims are rising or are on pace with previous years, experts said. But it is possible that other episodes are going unreported right now.
“Victims are reluctant to go public with these kinds of hate incidents because they fear further harassment or attack,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “They’re hoping all this will just blow over.”
Some Muslims said their situation felt more precarious now — under a president who is perceived as not only friendly to Muslims but is wrongly believed by many Americans to be Muslim himself — than it was under President George W. Bush.
Mr. Patel explained, “After Sept. 11, we had a Republican president who had the confidence and trust of red America, who went to a mosque and said, ‘Islam means peace,’ and who said ‘Muslims are our neighbors and friends,’ and who distinguished between terrorism and Islam.”
Now, unlike Mr. Bush then, the politicians with sway in red state America are the ones whipping up fear and hatred of Muslims, Mr. Patel said.
“There is simply the desire to paint an entire religion as the enemy,” he said. Referring to Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the founder of the proposed Muslim center near ground zero, “What they did to Imam Feisal was highly strategic. The signal was, we can Swift Boat your most moderate leaders.”
Several American Muslims said in interviews that they were stunned that what provoked the anti-Muslim backlash was not even another terrorist attack but a plan by an imam known for his work with leaders of other faiths to build a Muslim community center.
This year, Sept. 11 coincides with the celebration of Eid, the finale to Ramadan, which usually lasts three days (most Muslims will begin observing Eid this year on Sept. 10). But Muslim leaders, in this climate, said they wanted to avoid appearing to be celebrating on the anniversary of 9/11. Several major Muslim organizations have urged mosques to use the day to participate in commemoration events and community service.
Ingrid Mattson, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, said many American Muslims were still hoping to salvage the spirit of Ramadan.
“In Ramadan, you’re really not supposed to be focused on yourself,” she said. “It’s about looking out for the suffering of other people. Somehow it feels bad to be so worried about our own situation and our own security, when it should be about empathy towards others.”

月曜日, 9月 06, 2010

The NY Times 記事「A Day to Dance or Weep?」

誕生日があの911と同じ日。テロ事件以来、二度と自分の誕生日を心から祝えなくなった人、祝ってもらえない人。やりきれない悲しみを抱えた人たちの思いが綴られています。日本だと、例えば「地下鉄サリン事件」の日・・・となるのでしょうか。“出来る事なら誕生日を変えたい”という意見もあり、他人事で済ます前に、もし自分だったらと考えさせられる記事でした。日本にいるときよりIDを見せる機会が多いと思いますが、その度に相手から異様なリアクションをされたら彼らに取ってもウンザリだろう。 911は世界中を震撼させた事件だけに、アメリカ人以外にも同じ悩みを持つ人も多いことだろう。


September 3, 2010

A Day to Dance or Weep?


ON the morning of her 40th birthday, Dana Foote woke up to blue skies and indulgent plans: a massage, a facial and a party with friends at a favorite Italian restaurant in her Greenwich Village neighborhood. She dropped off her young son and daughter at school and was chatting on the sidewalk with a few other mothers when a plane flew overhead, noticeably loud and low. A few minutes later, a school official came out to report that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. And Ms. Foote arrived home just in time to see the second plane crash, from the terrace of her apartment.
Perhaps it is needless to say: the birthday was forgotten.
Every year since, there is a strange confluence of events for those born on Sept. 11. It might be a point of pride to share a birthday with literary lions (D. H. Lawrence and O. Henry) or celebrities (Maria Bartiromo, Brian De Palma, Valentino and Moby), but sharing the day with a national tragedy is a conundrum.
Many believe that it’s inappropriate to be festive while the rest of the country observes a somber anniversary. Every time they fill out a form at a doctor’s office, show a driver’s license to rent a car, clear passport control at the airport or otherwise present identification, they get a quizzical response, somewhere between sympathy and shock.
“I preface showing my ID by saying, ‘It’s a strange birthday,’ ” said Ms. Foote, a gift-bag designer, who attends a memorial service every year on Sept. 11 before she feels entitled to celebrate. “I sort of apologize for that day. And I always get ‘The Look.’ ”
The phenomenon is perhaps akin to a Dec. 7 birthday for an earlier generation, but unlike Pearl Harbor, 9/11 is an event known by the date it occurred, forming an immediate visceral association.
Some people born on Sept. 11 deflect attention with the European calendar format: day before month. Obstetricians report women due to deliver on Sept. 11 who insist on scheduling an earlier C-section to avoid saddling their child with a tainted birthday. At P.S. 22 in Staten Island, children born on Sept. 11 made a poignant video declaring that their birthday had been “taken away” and “ruined.”
The day of the attack was the 50th birthday of Holly Hotchner, director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and a large party was planned, with guests from around the world. Many of them never made it, once the airports shut down. “And nobody felt like a party,” Ms. Hotchner said.
Instead, she bought a big tin of caviar and a quantity of vodka. “And that is a tradition I’ve continued,” she said, “although the tin has gotten smaller — I spent too much that year.” But she regrets that she cannot yet make a pilgrimage to a memorial garden at the site of the trade center, which remains essentially a hole in the ground. “It would be comforting to go down there on my birthday,” she said, “and see that wounds had been healed.”
New Yorkers may assume squatters’ rights to the heartbreak of that day, but a Sept. 11 birthday can feel stigmatized in any part of the country. Deborah Newmyer, a TV and film producer in Los Angeles, will continue her tradition of lunch with beloved female friends on her 52nd birthday this year. “But I’ve never claimed the date back as my birthday,” she said. “It’s always overshadowed by something grander than my coming into the world.”
Barbara Rambo, a management consultant in San Francisco, had once worked in Tower Two and spent the early hours of her 49th birthday watching that building crumble. “Being 3,000 miles away made the feeling of helplessness grow exponentially,” she said.
Her “cake” that year: brownies made by her son for a sidewalk bake sale to benefit the families of firefighters who died in the rescue effort. Several weeks later, 9-year-old Stewart Goossens presented Engine Company 3 in Manhattan with a check for $457.93. “I lost a lot friends on 9/11,” Ms. Rambo said, “so every year part of that day is spent thinking about them.”
On the day of the attack, G. Parker Johnson was having a birthday breakfast with cousins at a greasy spoon in his hometown, Atlanta. “While I was eating, there were six missed calls and four messages on my cellphone,” he said. “I thought they’d be birthday greetings, but they were all saying basically, ‘Dude, are you watching this?’ ”
“Every birthday since then has been a more sober experience than it otherwise would be,” said Mr. Johnson, now 42 and a music producer in Lyons, Colo. “It’s hard to celebrate when you know thousands of people are directly mourning a loss, and millions of others are mourning indirectly. I did not have a big blowout 40th birthday because of 9/11. It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the corner.”
Hiding under the covers on his birthday makes no sense to Kareem Collie, a graphic designer from Brooklyn who will turn 36 this Sept. 11. “I recognize what took place that day, but I don’t internalize it,” he said. “When I look back on 9/11, it’s an event that happened on one day in the monumental number of birthdays I hope to have in my life,” he said. “That day does not represent me, it represents a horrible event.”
Others refuse any restraint out of a conviction that they must not hand the terrorists even the tiniest victory. “My birthday has always been my favorite holiday because it’s all about me,” said Lara Goerlitz, a catering manager at the Houstonian Hotel in Houston. “I worked nights at the time of the attack, and I was sleeping in that morning, but my phone kept ringing. I finally answered a call from one of my best friends, who was sobbing. My birthday was really an afterthought that year.”
But in the ensuing decade, Ms. Goerlitz has reclaimed her party-girl mode with a vengeance, and for her 40th birthday this year will take a dream trip to Europe. “The most profound effect on me from the World Trade Center was realizing how short life is,” she said. “What I took from it was: carpe diem.”
Sometimes an effort to celebrate “normally” backfires. Jennifer Parenti, a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, was stationed in Boston on the first anniversary of 9/11, which was her 29th birthday.
“We had a fairly solemn memorial service at the time the plane had hit the Pentagon,” she said. “One of our bosses gave a speech, and then he said, ‘Now everybody wish Jennifer a happy birthday!’ And they had cake. It felt rather weird.”
And sometimes a little child shall lead them. When Dahlia Gruen was sent home from school in Boston on the day of the attack and realized that her parents weren’t at work, she first thought they’d come home early to celebrate her 10th birthday.
“There were rumors about an airplane crash,” she said, “but it didn’t really sink in.” The following year, she commemorated the day as a true child of the digital age: She created a Web site called Birthday Spirit, encouraging fellow Sept. 11 birthday babies to take a cake to their local firehouse. “I wanted to change the way I celebrate,” said Ms. Gruen, now a freshman at Northwestern University, “to do some good.” Another site called the Philanthropic Family suggests celebrating a Sept. 11 birthday with a day of service or charitable donation.
The day of the attack was to be Catherine Karp’s 30th birthday, with classical connotations of imminent decrepitude. “It’s the first birthday that lets you buy black plates at the party store,” said Ms. Karp, a novelist in Portland, Ore.
She has briefly considered celebrating her birthday on Sept. 10 or 12. “But that doesn’t feel right,” she said. “The shadow of the day is always there and always will be there, but I’m not going to let anybody take the day away.”
Next year, her 40th birthday will coincide with the 10th anniversary at ground zero. “I don’t feel the huge dread I might have felt otherwise,” Ms. Karp said. “The events of that day made aging seem like such a minor worry.”
Indulging in black humor, Mark Pener suggested that “the tragedy of turning 40” this Sept. 11 will fit the somber mood of the day. “Sometimes I tell people that I’ve legally changed my birthday,” said Mr. Pener, a construction consultant in Brookline, Mass.
“I wish it were possible, maybe through an act of Congress,” he said. “My birthdays are always pretty low key, but this year I think there’s something secret brewing with my family. Maybe they’re changing my birthday by entering me in the witness protection program.”
Choosing one’s birthday may not be an option, but there are 365 choices for a wedding day, and Elizabeth Brown-Inz chose Sept. 11 for her marriage to John Kingman. “We wanted the wedding on a Saturday in warm weather, and everything was booked for June, July and August,” said Ms. Brown-Inz, the membership manager at the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan. “I’m not superstitious, and I decided 9/11 was fine.”
It became even finer when she discovered that the date was actually her late grandparents’ anniversary, and their legacy seemed to confer a welcome sanction for Ms. Brown-Inz.
Even if she’s not superstitious.

The NY Times 記事「Asian-Americans Climb Fashion Industry Ladder」

間もなく始まる2011春夏ニューヨーク・ファッション・ウィーク。今年はブライアントパークからリンカンセンターへと会場を移しての初の開催となります。もうひとつ初の試みが、“Fashion GPS”を導入したチェックインシステムです。デザイナー側があらかじめQRコードをEメールで招待客に送信しておき、当日バーコードを発券して入場するそうです。QRコードを貰っていない場合は、チェックイン・カウンターへ言ってRSVPで登録した名前を告げて同様にバーコードを貰います。このバーコードを手にしない限り会場には入れない訳です。来場する側としては少々心配で、いつもより確認に時間を割いてしまいそう。そんなショーの開催を5日後に控えたこの土曜日、NYタイムズのトップセクションの下の方に面白い記事が載っていました。

 かつてカルバン・クライン、ダナ・キャラン、マーク・ジェイコブス、マイケル・コースといったユダヤ人デザイナーが牽引していた米国ファッション界ですが、最近ではまだ27歳という若さのジェイソン・ウーを始め、アレキサンダー・ワン、リチャード・カイ、デレク・ラムといった若いアジア人デザイナーの活躍が目立っています。今年6月に発表されたCFDAの受賞者も全てアジア人。そんな彼らにインタビューをしながら、トップに躍り出ていくアジア人デザイナーの潜在能力のありかを検証しています。


September 4, 2010

Asian-Americans Climb Fashion Industry Ladder



The mood was set early at the American fashion awards ceremony at Lincoln Center in June, an event often likened to the Oscars of the fashion world, with a guest list that included celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker and Gwyneth Paltrow and almost every top designer.
In quick succession, three men were called to the stage to accept their awards as the best new designers of the year: Richard Chai for men’s wear, Jason Wu for women’s wear and Alexander Wang for accessories.
It was the first time that all three prizes given by the Council of Fashion Designers of America were awarded to designers who are Asian-American. That same night, the fashion council announced three scholarships, each for $25,000, won by student designers of Asian heritage.
“It’s so exciting,” said Mr. Wu, who became a household name not only in this country, but also in his native Taiwan, when his dress was selected by Michelle Obama for her husband’s inauguration. “Not too long ago, Donna Karan and Michael Kors were the young designers of America. Now there are a lot of firsts for all of us as Asian-American designers.”
Their ascent to the top tier of New York fashion represents an important demographic shift on Seventh Avenue. At the Fashion Week that begins here on Thursday, many of the most promising new designers are of Asian descent, a group that includes Mr. Wang and Mr. Wu; Thakoon Panichgul, one of the stars of the documentary “The September Issue,” about Vogue magazine; Prabal Gurung; Phillip Lim; and Derek Lam — names that are increasingly likely to represent the future of fashion.
Major design schools around the world have seen an influx of Asian-American and Asian-born students since the 1990s, partly through their own recruitment efforts in countries with rapidly developing fashion industries, like South Korea and Japan, and partly because of changing attitudes in those countries about fashion careers. At Parsons the New School for Design, roughly 70 percent of its international students enrolled in the school of fashion now come from Asia, according to school officials. At the Fashion Institute of Technology, 23 percent of the nearly 1,200 students now enrolled are either Asian or Asian-American.
“F.I.T. is a pretty diverse place, but this is the most obvious change we have seen,” said Joanne Arbuckle, the dean of its school of art and design. “It is remarkable when you compare it to many years ago. I don’t think we ever had these numbers of students from Asian countries or Asian-American students. And it is a growing population.”
The rise of Asian designers in America has actually come in several smaller waves, including one that marked the emergence of Anna Sui and Vera Wang in the 1980s. In the last few years, however, as a new generation of designers has asserted itself in New York, Asian-Americans have been at the forefront. In 1995, there were only about 10 Asian-American members of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Today there are at least 35.
This has happened largely for the same reason that the New York fashion industry, through the ’80s, was populated most visibly by designers of Jewish heritage, like Calvin Klein, Ms. Karan, Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs and Mr. Kors. Throughout the 20th century, generations of Jewish immigrants had created a thriving garment district in New York, first as laborers, then as factory owners, manufacturers, retailers and, eventually, as designers. Many of today’s Asian-American designers say they experienced a similar evolution from the factory to the catwalk, since some of their parents and grandparents were once involved in the production of clothes.
Mr. Lam, whose luxury ready-to-wear collections evoke a classically uptown ideal, is a designer of Chinese descent who came to New York by way of San Francisco. His grandparents owned a factory there producing bridal gowns. His father imported clothing from Hong Kong, but Mr. Lam said he wanted to pursue a more creative course and enrolled in Parsons, graduating in 1990. Before starting his label in 2002, he worked for Mr. Kors in New York.
“I grew up around clothes,” Mr. Lam said. “It was like a default. Fashion became one of the few outlets for Asian-Americans who wanted to put their name out there.”
When he went out on his own, Mr. Lam, though well received, faced a difficult road. No one bought his first collection, and he and his business partner had invested their savings in the business.
But after several seasons, the collection took off. He has since won several awards, including the accessories prize from the fashion council in 2007; opened two stores Manhattan; and developed a clothing and accessories line for the luxury brand Tod’s. During a recent trip to Shanghai and Beijing, he said, he was stunned by the level of awareness of his work there.
“There is this understanding that there is a group of Asian-American designers who are coming up in the world, and there is a sense of pride,” Mr. Lam said.
The cultural changes that have enabled would-be designers to pursue their chosen careers have happened slowly. Ms. Sui told The International Herald Tribune in 2008 that designers of her generation were often asked by their families, “Why do you want to be a dressmaker when you could be a doctor?”
Mr. Wu said those pressures were still there as recently as a decade ago. “When I was applying to Parsons, my mother had never heard of it,” he said. “Now, everyone in the generation after me wants to go to Parsons. Fashion has become a more prominent career in the eyes of Asian parents.”
Unlike the avant-garde work of Yohji Yamamoto, Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake — Japanese designers who took Paris by storm in the 1980s — there is no discernible aesthetic connection among the designs of Asian-Americans. Alexander Wang’s street style looks nothing like Mr. Lam’s polished dresses, nor the colorful mash-up prints of Peter Som, who also consults on sportswear for Tommy Hilfiger. None would care to identify their styles as “Asian-American.” Carmen Chen Wu, a Parsons student who received one of the fashion scholarships this year, noted that she is of Chinese descent, but was born in Spain, “so technically, I’m a Spaniard.”
But one thing their heightened visibility has done for them as a group is to create opportunities in Asia, where the realm of luxury fashion had long been exclusive to traditional European houses like Louis Vuitton and Chanel.
Since his triumph with Mrs. Obama, Mr. Wu has been invited to return to Taiwan in October to help design a residential building, and he is developing a line of eye shadows with Shiseido that will be sold throughout China. Mr. Som said his business was growing faster in Asia than anywhere else, noting that the speed of information today has made consumers in South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand as knowledgeable about new designers as they are about the historically major brands. Mr. Lam said he had been invited to return to China next month to appear as a judge on “Creative Sky,” a popular new reality television competition.
On that show, aspiring fashion designers compete in a series of runway challenges, much like those on “Project Runway” in the United States. The major difference is that the ultimate prize is not the chance to show a collection at Fashion Week, but something that is now becoming far more prestigious in Asia.
The winner gets the opportunity to go to Parsons — as a student.

The NY TImes 記事: Nordstrom Links Online Inventory to Real World



週間前オンライン・ショッピング・サイト「WWW.ZAPPOS.COM」でレースアップ・ブーツを購入してみた。上げると切りがない程オンラインショップのサイトはあるが、SHOPZILLA.COMAMAZON.COMNET-A-PORTERから、デパートや小売り店が管理するオンラインショップまで、どれもユー ザーフレンドリーなサイトのデザインにビックリする。例えば何点か続けて「アンクルブーツBooties」をクリックすると、選ばなくてもサイトの中 から似たアイテムも探しててきて提案してくれる。“ブーツ”というカテゴリーでもデザインは様々だし、何百といアイテムを全てチェックしなくても良いので便利だ。どんどん提案してくれるので決められなくなってしま、とい欠点はあるが、欲しいものと更に近いものを見せてくれるのであれば、購入する時には自分も満足してるに違いない。

先日オンラインを利用したおもしろい搬入システムの記事を読んだ。「消費者がオンラインで在庫から目当ての商品を見つけ、買わずに最寄りの店舗にその商品を取り寄せ、良かったら買」といシステムだ。ォールマートから始まったといわれる搬入システムのひとつ。より消費者の立場に立っていて有りそでなかったアイデアだが、巧みなロジスティックの開発なくしてはあり得ない。大手デパートの「ノードストローム」もこのシステムを利用したところ売り上げが伸びているとい

これまでカリフォルニア、シカゴ、ダラス、ニューヨークと住んでみて、気候も違えば人々の生活スタイル、レジャー、食文化、ファッションの好みの違いを目の当たりにした。
――そうなのだ。少し脱線するが、好むと好まざるとは関わらず“郷に行っては郷に従う”で、ダラスでは“いつもゴルフが出来る装い”と言わんばかりに毎日ポロシャツを着ていたし、みんな南部の太陽に良く生える明るい色の装いが多かった。独特のメガチャーチが台頭し「Dress Barn」風なファッションをして教会へ行く人を多く見かけた。引っ越して来て驚いたのは、東京以上にニューヨーカーが黒っぽい装いをしている事だ。80年—90年代にコムデ・ギャルソンやYOJIが注目され、感化されていつも黒い服を来ていた事を思い出す。まさに“ブラック”がスタンダードという時代だった気がして懐かしくなったのだが。――

当然全米で展開するデパートは、各店にローカライズされた賢い品揃えが必要だが、今回の記事にあるよに“消費者がワ ン アイテムから直接商品の搬入を希望出来るシステム”があれば、確実に売れる商品が店舗に増えるのだ。例えそのアイテムが売れなかったとしても、その地域の 消費者がどんなアイテムやカラーを好んでいるのかが分かり、同じ志向の消費者がいる確率は別の地域よりも高いといえる。結果、番目に見た消費者がそれを購入して行くことも考えられる。そんな傾向を素早くロジスティックがキャッチして、見込みのある品を店舗へ送る、なんて事も出来そうだ。小売り店もオンラインショップのように完全に消費者主導になって、MD要らずのストア・オペレーションなんて時代が来るかもしれない。でもその結果、値下げ品が減ったりしたら、バーゲンセール好きな一消費者としては大変困るのだが。


August 23, 2010

Nordstrom Links Online Inventory to Real World


SEATTLE — Retailers have been flailing about a bit in their efforts to get people to shop again, deploying all sorts of gimmicks and promotions to spur customer spending.
Wal-Mart hoped that deeper cuts in its standard rollbacks would be a draw, but then said the prices went too low. At Saks, perhaps customers would go for designer labels if the lines offered less-expensive items. And for Macy’s, how about inexpensive clothes by Madonna?
The secret, at least for Nordstrom, has not involved a piercing insight into a customer’s mind. Rather, it has changed the way that it handles, of all things, inventory. And that has brought the department store more success in improving sales than at most of its competitors, whose recent reports signaled that their consumers were still cautious.
The change works this way: Say that a shopper was looking at a blue Marc Jacobs handbag at Nordstrom.com. She could see where it was available at nearby stores, and reserve it for pickup the same day.
More significant, if the Web warehouse was out of that bag, it did not matter. Inventory from Nordstrom’s 115 regular stores is also included. Maybe there was just one handbag left in the entire company, sitting forlornly in the back of the Roosevelt Field store — it would be displayed online and store employees would ship it to the Web customer.
What Nordstrom did on its Web site — displaying stock from both the Web warehouse and its stores all at once, was unusual. And that, said Jamie Nordstrom, president of Nordstrom Direct, drove “some pretty meaningful results.”
In fact, Nordstrom, based in Seattle, has been the department store with one of the best improvements in same-store sales over the last year, when its overall sales reached $8.26 billion. While it may not seem revolutionary, a melding of Web site and store is surprisingly rare in the retailing world.
“You’re talking about traditional retailers that have traditional ways of doing things, and sometimes those barriers are hard to break down,” said Adrianne Shapira, an analyst at Goldman Sachs.
Wal-Mart has added a feature where online shoppers can ship items to nearby stores, and Target.com shows which stores carry which items, but customers cannot buy them in advance.
Among Nordstrom’s competitors, such fluidity is hard to find, Ms. Shapira said. “I don’t see anyone going to the length they are,” she said of Nordstrom. In the 11 months since Nordstrom made the inventory change, its same-store sales — sales at stores open more than a year, a crucial measure in retail — have outperformed the department store average measured by Thomson Reuters.
In those 11 months, Nordstrom’s same-store sales increased by an average of 8 percent. In the 11 months before the shift, they decreased an average of 11.9 percent. (The improvement is not all because of the inventory change — the economy improved, and Nordstrom made other operating changes.)
Nordstrom began overhauling its online approach two years ago, adding the option to shop and buy online and pick up the item in a store. “It was the first thing that we did, because the No. 1 call we got at our call center was, ‘Hey, I’m looking at this item online, can I look at it at my store?’ ” Mr. Nordstrom said.
The company was also trying to increase the number of people who shopped at Nordstrom in more than one way, since those so-called multichannel shoppers spend four times, on average, what a one-source shopper does, Mr. Nordstrom said.
Inventory was a big issue, too. If Nordstrom.com did not have the item someone wanted, it was not as if the customer would wait for the company to restock it, Mr. Nordstrom said. “If we don’t have it, you’re going to go back to Google and say, ‘Who else has it?’ ” he said. “We have 115 full-line stores out there — chances are one of them has it.”
In September 2009, the company wove in individual stores’ inventory to the Web site, so that essentially all of the stores were also acting as warehouses for online.
Results were immediate. The percentage of customers who bought merchandise after searching for an item on the site doubled on the first day, and has stayed there (although, Mr. Nordstrom cautioned, that doubling was from a small base).
“Customers that were looking for an item, we had their size,” he said. That meant the company hired a few more shipping employees to wrap and send items from each store. But, he said, increased sales more than offset the cost.
It also means that inventory is moving faster, and often at higher prices. “If we’re out of something on the Web site, it’s probably late in the season and the stores are trying to clear it out,” he said. “By pulling merchandise from the store, you’ve now dramatically lessened the likelihood that you’ll take a markdown.”
Nordstrom’s inventory turnover, which measures how quickly a company goes through inventory in a given year, went to 5.41 in 2009 from 4.84 in 2005, a five-year high.
“The health of our business when we’re turning faster versus turning slower, it’s night and day,” Mr. Nordstrom said.
Keith Jelinek, director in the global retail practice at the consulting firm AlixPartners, said that Nordstrom’s changes could give it a competitive advantage, but showing accurate inventory information to customers was difficult.
“The customer ordering via the Web site is not concerned with where the product is, only that it is in stock,” Mr. Jelinek said in an e-mail message, but that could easily go wrong if a sales clerk entered an incorrect item number, which would “incorrectly display what the customer could see online. While, for the retailer, their financial inventory is still accurate.”
On Saturday, Nordstrom introduced an updated Web site, trying to make it more interesting for customers and easier to navigate.
The new site adds editorial features, like blogs about fashion and videos and photos of Nordstrom customers showing the clothes they chose for work and for weddings. Mr. Nordstrom said the company drew from sites like Net-a-Porter, which combine magazinelike stories with shopping. The site will also allow customers to post messages or photos. While customers are no doubt swamped with social-networking options already, Mr. Nordstrom pointed to the more than 120,000 product reviews added to Nordstrom.com since that feature was introduced last fall.
The company has also improved how shoppers can search for products, allowing searches with multiple criteria — check boxes allow someone to search for, say, a purple cocktail dress under $150 for a curvy figure.
Web-design experts asked to review the site were split on its success. Martin Zagorsek, a partner at Launch Collective, a fashion-business consulting firm, said that the editorial features did not promote the products mentioned within them, which was “a no-brainer.”
But Andy Rhodes, director for commerce at the marketing firm SapientNitro, said that Nordstrom had long been ahead of the game on the digital-to-physical connection, “and it’s nice to see they’ve brought that capability to the forefront with the new Nordstrom.com.”
All the changes, Mr. Nordstrom said, were about satisfying customers, but that translated into profits.
“We can sell more without having to buy more inventory,” he said. “That plays through to margins and, ultimately, earnings.”