Wed, Aug 28, 2002 page12

• Fashion outlets cater to Japan's `bubble juniors'

  CONSUMER TRENDS Retail outlets are beginning to target young girls who have a very unique sense of style

  • AP
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  The color of choice is definitely hot pink at Nicola, a Tokyo clothing store filled with glittery hearts and cartoonish prints, where teenage girls are dead serious about shopping and the fashion taste is precariously neither grown-up nor childish.

  The clothing market for girls from 9 to 14 years old is growing so rapidly here the Japanese have even invented a term for the phenomenon -- "bubble juniors."

  

  Natsumi Mase, 12, selects cosmetics at a Nicola outlet in Tokyo's Harajuku fashion district, yesterday. Retailers are hitting pay dirt in the young-girl segment of the market.

  PHOTO: AP

  It's a reference to the daughters of women in their 30s and early 40s who lived through the heyday "bubble" days of the late 1980s, when speculative lending and soaring land and stock prices drove up individual spending in Japan.

  Twenty years later, this nation is mired in an economic downturn. Consumer spending is flat -- except for the bubble junior crowd.

  Women who used to spend big bucks on designer wear back in the bubble days are now mothers eager to pass on the same passion for shopping and clothes to their teenage daughters.

  "Sometimes we can wear the same outfits," said 35-year-old Ayako Sato, who said she spends as much as ?400,000 (US$3,000) on a wardrobe for her 12-year-old daughter, Erika. "I want her to develop taste in clothes."

  In department stores and on bustling streets, brands like Angel Blue, Daisy Lovers and Chubby Gang are popping up, catering to young customers craving fashions bearing smiley faces, twinkling stars and strawberry designs.

  Nicola sells lingerie in polka-dot fabric, designer cosmetics targeting children, apple-shaped plastic handbags and candy in pop-art-like packaging. The prices can be high -- such as ?8,800 (US$75) for a pair of lime green jeans -- but that doesn't matter to young consumers.

  "It's so cute," said Natsumi Mase, a sixth grader who was trying on a denim miniskirt. "I want to become a star in musicals."

  While the blossoming fashion craze offers some hope for the sagging economy, some observers worry that it doesn't portend progress for women in this long male-dominated society.

  Although some of the more rigid traditions have faded, pressures are still high on women in Japan to be docile fashion plates. Serious careers are relatively rare for women, and nearly half of this nation's working women hold only part-time jobs.

  Kazuhide Miyamoto, editor in chief of Nicola magazine -- which boasts a circulation of 220,000 and is credited with nurturing the teen fashion market, in part, through its Nicola fashion store -- insists the girls aren't victims of a manipulative fad. "Up to now, Japanese women were like sad sheep who could only consume. Japanese women of the future are going to be trend setters," he said.

  But marketers pursue boys in a very different way.

  "Video games, personal computers, sports -- boys develop their own individual interests," Miyamoto said.

  Young Japanese girls can spend freely on fashion because they have access not only to their parents' purses but also to those of their doting grandparents.

  Japan has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, giving girls a larger share of their grandparents' money.

  The Nicola store has averaged about ?7 million (US$60,000) in monthly sales since it opened in April, but raked in 12 million (US$102,000) in May, a month heavy on holidays in Japan when even dads get into the shopping act. Other companies are also beneficiaries of the growth in bubble junior spending.

  Narumiya International, a Tokyo clothing maker behind several teenage brands, has more than ?22 billion (US$187 million) in annual sales.

  "The clothes aren't in the best of taste, but I can understand why kids would want it," said 43-year-old Kyoko Okumura while examining a rack lined with fluorescent colored tank tops with her 13-year-old daughter.

  Yuji Watanabe, an analyst at Okasan Securities in Tokyo, believes the juvenile vogue trend is likely to continue for some time.

  "The fashion business that appeals to diverse tastes has been growing in Japan since the 1990s," he said.

  "It's natural the trend had to eventually spread to children."
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