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

Come on show me your cocoa beam

I confess that for some time I enjoyed looking at this ad. Maybe it was what seemed to me an unselfconscious style, a refreshingly naive and warm-hearted quality, a feel-good element.

But then I started to wonder, and so I paused my enjoyment, that maybe I was being a little bit of a victim of my own exotic gaze, that there was something a bit patronising about the ad, or at least a reasonable suspicion of being patronising.

Although not strikingly obvious, the ad is actually an ad within an ad, seemingly a picture of a roadside advertisement painted on a wall somewhere - one imagines - in Ghana, since it is there where Cadbury claims their cocoa beans are from.
So an "unselfconscious", "naive" and "warm-hearted" Ghanaian piece of advertising - an 'authentic', an 'original' - has been basically pasted on to the billboard spaces of the grey, cynical and decadent Britain, where a bit of Fairtrade chocolate will surely bring some comfort for the soul (and for the sugar-addicted metabolisms), and the joy of life of the wise African peoples will definitely do us good.

Well, am I being too ill-thinking to see a bit of the condescending myth of the noble savage there?

How not to get in a bad mood when being awaken from a sweet dream? And sweet is the Orientalist dream, I'm afraid, even more if it's Fairtrade.

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Cadbury Fairtrade: Come on show me your cocoa beam
Finsbury Park Underground Station
London

Walk Oman. The soul of Arabia

How likely would one be to find the soul of Europe by visiting the Alps?
How likely is tourism to deliver us souls of any sort?
Why might we want to chase souls in any case?

By pressing the button of the exotic spell, I know the ad probably gets what it aims to. But come on, this is the 21st century already: "The soul of Arabia"!? What's that?

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Oman Air: Walk Oman. The soul of Arabia
Russell Square Station
London

German precision at 4%

Is it precision what I like of my lager?
Is it stale national stereotypes what I like from a piece of advertising?
Twice no.

But sure, I get it: Beck's is a German "vier".

Utterly uninspiring.

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Beck's: German precision at 4%
Leicester Square Station
London

Premium Down

This is just one of the corridors of Oxford Circus station flooded with Uniqlo advertising.
What interests me of Uniqlo is how they play with their Japanese identity, not just in the ad above, where 'Japaneseness' is somewhat subtly implied by the logo in katakana writing (ユニクロ) and the Asian model, but in general in the stores, web and all public image.

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Uniqlo: Premium Down
Oxford Circus Station (LU)
London

The essential teatime

For something I love Britain: tea time.

Global times we live in, but I bet this ad coudn't be found outside the UK.

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Waitrose: The essential teatime

Euston Station (LU)
London

Be part of the times

Japan unusually portrayed in an ad that does not include a geisha. A bit disappointlingly, however, it features a robot

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The Times: Be part of the times
Leicester Square Station (LU)
London