2009 DICTIONARY Issue 130, "Mountain People Are Wise"

It has been over two years since I interviewed fashion designer Setsumasa Kobayashi (remimx).

He is someone with foresight, a visionary eye.

I believe that's where fashion lies, but

now that the very role of fashion has changed dramatically in the last five or six years,

while the idea that one's way of life is fashion itself remains,

if you remove the 'n' from fashion—the luck, the warmth—it suddenly becomes,

like 'fashio',

in an era where the 'fashio'-like tendencies of Japanese society are so conspicuously revealed,

the role of fashion,

no longer derives its authority from free creativity and noble quality,

but has shifted towards flat rationality, that is, a convenient uniformization of 'good enough'...

it may be understandable that its role has changed so significantly.

The word "fascism" (Italian: fascismo) originates from
the Italian word "fascio" (bundle, group, union),
and "fascio" itself derives from the Latin word "fasces" (bundle of rods). The fasces were rods bound around an axe,
and were a symbol of the authority of Roman consuls...



Such pronouncements, delivered with the air of a Wikipedia-savvy know-it-all,

propagate Japan's 'fashio' and, without us realizing it, allow a disturbing sense of legitimacy to spread everywhere.

Do I need to choose my words more carefully?

So, the wise man of the mountains, Setsumasa Kobayashi, says that from now on, it's all about LIVE.

Only through LIVE can the truth of anything be conveyed.

He encouraged me, saying that the Dictionary Club's time is now.

And then, by chance, Miwa Sakamoto appeared.

She said she was heading to

the Dictionary Club's 'mt expo 2011'.



Even on the final day, fans were lining up outside the gate from early in the morning.

As expected, 99% of them were women.

That quiet yet intense energy, that LIVE feeling that can only be experienced by being there,

the live atmosphere of over a thousand like-minded people gathering from all over the country each day.

Though both are crowded, the great difference between a packed commuter train filled with dissatisfaction and the mt expo.

The creation of joyful energy is the hope for the future. I tell myself this, and move on to tomorrow.



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