Future Beauty. 30 years of Japanese fashion

It really surprised me to find this ad boldly headlined in katakana writing. Not that the advertiser –the Barbican Art Gallery– probably expected its audience to be able to spell it out, but the point was made notwithstanding; the poster was for an exhibition on contemporary Japanese fashion and, apart from the unmissable hint to the Japanese rising sun flag in the poster design, the medium guest-stars as the message: the use of Japanese characters goes straight to the point denoting 'Japaneseness'; whatever is the actual meaning of those characters is irrelevant; 'Japaneseness' on its own appears to be cool enough (and I’d also add fun and playful and quirky and edgy and kooky and even cute and so feather-light), and that is simply the perk. Even the skin is deeper, but I guess that’s what we have around these days.

By the way, the katakana headline –if you were curious to know– just reads “Barbican” (バー = ‘Bar’; ビ = ‘bi’; カ = ‘ca’; ン = ‘n’); it could have been expected, couldn’t it?

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Barbican Art Gallery: Future Beauty. 30 years of Japanese Fashion
Leicester Square Station (LU)
London