Between the imaginary and the real - A night in Shinjuku and a scene of "Kokeshi" (November 1970)

Between the imaginary and the real - A night in Shinjuku and a scene of "Kokeshi" (November 1970)

In 1970, the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, especially the Kabukicho area, was attracting attention as a center of subculture and underground art, along with the high economic growth of the city. The entertainment district, with its twinkling neon lights, was lined with theaters, clubs, bars, jazz cafes, and mini-theaters, where a diverse range of people gathered each night. The "Kokeshi," a cross-dresser who appeared there, attracted people by calling herself "Elizabeth Taylor in the mirror" in a white see-through suit, heavy makeup, and sunglasses, armed with her refined sense of beauty from the Nagasawa Setsu Mode Seminar. Her style of dressing in Western clothes without resorting to kimono symbolized the anonymity of the city and self-production, and her presence alone at night in a crowded store was described as "glamorous like a group. At the time, Shinjuku was also the center of the underground, where Shuji Terayama, Juro Karo, and others were active, and where the bounda
ries of sex, gender, and expression were dismantled. Kokeshi dolls, with their humor and dress, were symbols that transcended the dichotomies of fiction and reality, male and female, and stood at the crossroads of postwar urban culture and aesthetics. Shinjuku, where she/he lived, was "a place where you can be no one and nothing.