While the Kuroshitsuji musical has the best-dressed audience, Design Festa attendees are the most original. A number of them were wearing their original creations, many of them using kimono fabric.
I arrived at 10:30am at the Big Sight knowing that it opened at around 11:00am. With my experience attending Comiket and the Tokyo International Anime Fair, I figured that that would get me inside the quickest. I needn’t have worried, since there was only a tiny queue. Many of the booth staff were still setting up at that time as well, so it wasn’t like I missed anything. You might as well arrive at a little past opening.
There was a huge variety of Stuff available to buy. At first glance, grandma-style Victoriana seemed to outstrip the goth Victoriana, but the latter was still there. One shop specialised in black gothic dresses with straps featuring crucified bunny rabbits.
I was amazed at the number of satirical T-shirts featuring un-PC depictions of Kim Jong-Il and other political figures, which I really don’t see much in Japan. There were torn shirts made from non-torn shirts, ordinary-looking jeans and patched together animal headpieces. I also saw a cool rabbit gasmark; but wear it once and you’re awesome, wear it twice and you’re that guy with the rabbit gasmask. There were also bars of home-made soap for sale, which intrigued me. I looked into it once and found I’d have to look for a lye (sodium hydroxide) supplier in Japan. That couldn’t be easy.
In the end, I bought two postcards by Akito, who seems to be inspired by H. R. Giger and anime. I would have loved to be able to buy artbooks from any of the booths or, even better, a collection from a selection of booths (yes, I realise that’s impossible). I don’t have anywhere to put the stuff on sale, or it’s not something I would wear or use, but it was so awesome I wanted to keep it to look at anyway. Photographs for that end (which are fine at most booths) seem mean-spirited.
Live painting area:
Booths:
(My friends declared the giant plant-thing to be ‘kawaii’ and ‘cute’. What do you think?)
Dolls:
More Booths:
(One of the booths specialised in making plastic keyrings with everyday objects subjected to a type of Japanese bondage called ‘kinbaku’. I thought this was awesome, but not everyone agreed!)
There were two stages. One was bigger, indoors and had more mainstream acts. The other was outdoors, tending towards goth/punk/indie and was like a tiny Glastonbury festival. This was what kept me at Design Festa from the very start until closing. The atmosphere was amazing. The bar next to the stage had the worst beer I’ve ever had, while the French-style hotdog stand tasted great and used real sausages.
Bands:
(Jack and Sally, plus two of Kojinshugi Gekijo.)
Psydoll, one of my favourites:
N.S.D.P, who seemed to have lots of female fans:
ENIGMATIC DRIVE did alt. jazz. I wouldn’t have said jazz was really my thing, but it was a great feeling at the end of the day to hear those notes echo into the sky as it got darker.
I’d rather use the words ‘kowai’ and ‘spooky’ to describe this plant-thing but well… your friend seems to have interesting taste.
On a side note, I’m disappointed by the absence of the rabbit gasmask in the photos but the watch-holding skeleton makes up for it. ^^
I got a second opinion and the other person also agreed it was cute.
Unfortunately I saw the rabbit gasmask just as I walked in, while everyone was still setting up. I didn’t feel able to start photographing stuff immediately. I found put later that it was fine and the booths that don’t want you to will have a sign up.
I loved the Victorian dinosaur. The same booth had a statue of a dinosaur being crucified too. Photo didn’t really come out well though.