I have started blogging today in an unusual way for me: I have uploaed all the pictures first (ad yes there are many). Difficult to do, it took me some time, because I think the Asian inspiration is immense in our day to day lives so it was almost impossible to grasp everything I wanted to. As you will notice, there is no food (yes, weird for me) included in this blog, otherwise I would have never managed to finish and to post it for you.
The idea for the blog entry of today came after reading a magazine on the 2011 trends. After what Kenzo did in the 70's with the "Jungle Jap Style", the Asian influence is this year extremly strong, being present on runways ad in daily life situations.
Coming back to the pictures I have posted, if I just briefly skim through them, there is a strong sense of colour to be noticed. Colour, colour, colour! Isn't 2011 just wonderful? Just look at the amazing ad campaign of Louis Vuitton for the SS11 season here and you will love it! But apart from the colour, you can see that most of the inspiration can be linked to nature and to a certain state of mind, one which is relaxing ans spiritual and embedded in tradition. You can see passion and seduction in any form of art, ancient knowledge and wisdom, grace and, most of all, the purest way of love.
As I looked through the collection outcomes of some designers, I came to the conclusion that their Asian influence relied mostly on countries such as China, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea, so I started looking at what could haveinspired these designers but also at what other aspects of our lives are made wonderful by ths influence. Here's my short (trust me, I could have gone more in depth) selection:

Asian fan - Photo: http://www.moriental.com/assets/images/FAN010.jpg
I have started with the fan because this is such an useful object on hot days, but we never see its functionality directly, but rather go behind the meaning of a fan: it can be a weapon - one for seducing or one for killing. Because I have no interest in any violence, I have chosen further on pictures of the Korean fan dance, a dance which is called "Buchaechum", which is performed during many celebrations. The women are wearing the traditional Hanbok and creating various images with the fans. I recommend you look it up on YouTube, if you haven't seen it until now.

The Japanese Culture has also some arts and procedures which are now present in our Westernized worlds as well. One of them is the tea ceremony. I admit, you don't get tea like in Japan, but it has become more and more usual for people to go out and have a tea with their friends. Bucharest also has seen more and more tea houses open during the past years. It's a wonderful way of socializing while enjoying great flavour in a cup. And drinking tea means also taking time: for yourself and your companion.
Another type of arts is Origami, the art of paper folding. This has been a great inspiration to the fashion world, as we have seen the folding technique used for many garments. I am also the proud owner of a red origami-shirt from Zara. As for the Zen gardens....shhhh...start meditating!!! It will do you good after a full day at work!

The influence of Asia reaches also to interiors and exteriors of houses, to decoration and architecture. Here you can observe the exterior of a Korean hose and garden. After that, there are two pictures, one representing an asian-inspired bedroom and a very couture-like asian-inspired bathroom. These have little to do with the initial way of living, but they are picking up Asian symbols to create an Asian universe.


Exteriors and decorations influenced by Asia are usually very festive and remind people of joy and festivals. A well known object like this is the lampion. Less is known about the fact that the lampion is also inspired by nature, by a fruit called Physalis. This fruit was initially used by traditional Asian Medicine.


And yes, it is nature, such as the physalis fruit, which finally inspired most of the designers which prepared Asian-related garments for 2011. It was actually a lot of fun picking out some of the models/garments and searching nature-related art which could have been the reason for these creations. And I found what I was looking for!



