The Lolita Complex: - Scholarly Commons Home

These designers, especially Kawakubo and Yamamoto who had each
first shown in Paris in 1981, were also inspirational to Vivienne Westwood.
Claims Claire Wilcox, “their impact was being felt in Western fashion,
despite [an]… initial hostility to their asymmetrical forms, sombre colours
and flat shoes. Westwood’s unfitted look… was in sympathy with the
Japanese aesthetic”. 31
In turn, Westwood has ever since been hugely successful in Japan. This
was signified in the inclusion of Tokyo as a site for her 30-year retrospective
exhibition (2004 – 2007). It is also measured by the fact that she not only
continues to sell her higher-end collections in that country but that she is
still popular with and creates fashions for Japanese street and subcultural
groups. As noted previously, one of her markets is G&L (Fig. 5).
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