Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

‘Yeah, go, you can have him.’ ’Cause I was afraid.
Forty-five minutes went by. And then an hour went by.
All of a sudden the door opens, David comes
walking out. So beautiful. I was mesmerized. He had
flawless white porcelain skin. Carrot-red hair. Red
kimono. A sight to be seen. My fear was gone.”
Following the American tour, the Bowies sailed
alone to Japan on the cruise ship the SS Oresay,
departing from Los Angeles. The band followed via
airplane the day after his arrival. While Bowie was
working to conquer America, the Ziggy Stardust
record was selling steadily on the Japanese charts,
and by the time he was able to take up a local
promoter’s lucrative offer ($6,000 per show for ten
shows) to perform there, he had accumulated both a
loyal teenage and college-age fan base and the kind
of curiosity—and on occasion, scorn—from their
parents’ generation that he had inspired in England
and America at the start of the decade.
A student of Kabuki theater, thanks to the tutelage
of Lindsay Kemp, Bowie eagerly consumed the local
sights and culture, and the Japanese would come to
have a major impact on Ziggy’s third stage
costuming. Bowie could now afford costumes and
commissioned nine new stage costumes from
designer Kansai Yamamoto (whose models had
inspired the Ziggy haircut the previous year). The
new look for Aladdin Sane would be drawn from
both Noh and Kabuki and feature high-collared satin
cloaks designed to be removed with flourishes to
reveal a second layer underneath, or sometimes just