As Kiyokazu Washida said, “Clothes Make People” (Washida 1993: 12), it could be said that clothing fashion has a great role in the formation of identity. In the modern and contemporary period, when the self and the world are imaginedand diffused under the influence of globalised media development, it seems to us that the ‘identity’ of our period is perceived at the crossing of how I and others look. Based on this idea, in our paper, I will discuss how the ‘identities’ of Japanese women has been constructed through the acceptance of Japanese fashion represented in French Media. Japanese fashion has been present in France since the end of the 19th century. The First wave of Japanese fashion in Paris was the kimono at the end of the 19th/beginning of 20th century. The second wave of the Japanese fashion in Paris began at the beginning of the 1970s when fashion designer Kenzo Takada came to Paris tolaunch his prêt-à-porter collection – such collections are followed closely by Japanese people within fashion. This influence created a base that prepared for the success of Japanese fashion designers such as Comme des garçons and Yohji Yamamoto in the 1980s. In the 1990s, not only Japanese professional designers but also Japanese street Fashion, which came from Japan to France as kawaii(‘cute’ in English) fashion and started to influence French fashion. Our hypothesis is that even if I have 4 periods in which Japanese fashion was in vogue in France, the identity of Japanese women has tended to be constructed as exotic: ‘immature’ or ‘incomprehensible’, which are far from Femme(‘woman’ in English) in France through Japanese fashion represented in French Media. I would like to make clear this process of the construction of Japanese identity by others.

In 2002, the worldwide success of Japanese pop culture was labelled by Douglas McGray as “cool Japan”, a way for the country to gain influence through its export of content, a phenomenon analysed as “soft power” (Nye 1990). McGray was emphasising the massive success of characters like the Pokémon or Hello Kitty, which were recent global hits at that time. Then the expression “cool Japan” was so successful that it became a key word with which to point to that global diffusion. Nevertheless, the process was running long before this moment in Europe, specifically in France. Japanese animation has been broadcasted on French television since the end of the 1970s, and manga began to be translated and published during the 1990s. Consequently, generations of French children grew up with Japanese pop culture as background entertainment. Some become so involved that they gathered as a fandom, an imagined community of Japanese pop culture lovers who share knowledge and references about what they love and the country from which it comes. Therefore, these fans are making a direct link between manga, animation and Japan, as they do so building dream images of the country. This process can be linked to exoticism as a way to represent otherness through symbolic and imaginary pictures. Since the Japonist movement, France has had a long tradition of exoticism focusing on Japan, and we can therefore raise the idea of new manga-related images as neojaponism, a way in which to renew traditional ‘clichés’.

France and Japan have a long history of mutual exchanges and interests. In both countries, many images circulated about the other and those pictures compose a specific exoticism. Exoticism is a specific attraction for a far and different site, and Japan occupies a special place in French minds since the Japonist craze at the beginning of the 20th century. Thus, in this tradition of representations, the recent worldwide success of Japanese popular culture (manga, cartoons, music, etc) has added a new perspective, specifically in France, where this pop culture has a long history. The Japanese cartoons began to be broadcast on national television during the 1970’s, and it filled the majority of children programs during the two following decades, a context that gave birth to a strong community of fans. One of the most eloquent testaments to this craze is Japan Expo, an event hold every year in Paris since 1999. In this convention, pop culture elements are mixed with more traditional aspects of Japanese culture and everyday life. Many famous Japanese artists are invited and the visitors can have fun with various activities. So, this unique place has been chosen to conduct a survey about the new images of Japan in France. Exoticism about Japan began with the opening of the country during the Meiji era, and, since then, Japan has always kept its image of being a unique and mysterious country, determined by the paradox of extreme modernity coexisting with strong traditions. The Japan Expo is then the occasion to question that idea and to confront it with the representations shared by the visitors of this event. Questionnaires have been distributed during the four days of the convention in July 2012 and the results give a portrait of a praised Japan, still comprehended on the central notion of paradox, but with new references taken into pop culture contents.