Hasta La Gadget!

We just talked about some close-to-urban (pretty close, anyway) agriculture going on with Tokyo Milk, but there’s a lot going on in Japan from grass-covered vending machines to, well, grass covered cities. If you’re interested in some personal agriculture, the Green Capsule does all this on the ultimate micro scale. What if we really want a green city? Maybe not as green as this building in Fukuoka, but at least something the breathes a little.

Beverage company Suntory has been working on a project, Suntory Midorie, aimed at bringing more green into Japan’s urban areas, inside and out. To this effect, the company has developed original systems for roof top gardens (“Midori no Yane,” or “green roof”) and wall-side foliage (“Hana no Kabe,” or “flower wall”). These systems draw on a technology developed by Suntory that replaces natural soil with a new synthetic kind, called “pafcal,” that is purportedly light, promotes growth, and requires little maintenance.

Both Midori no Yane and Hana no Kabe were officially launched on March 3rd in the Tokyo and Kansai area (Kyoto, Osaka, and Kobe cities). Suntory had already put up a few Hana no Kabe in their Tokyo headquarters and in Café Solare, located in the Suntory Museum in Osaka. We’ve also spotted one for promotional purposes, branded with the tag Suntory Midorie, at the entrance to Shibuya’s Center Gai shopping street (pictured below).

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Shibuya, a trendy teen retail area, get a dose of green. Last season’s Tokyo Girls Collection publicized the launch of the Shibuya +1 no Mori (Shibuya +1’s forest) project, symbolized by the planting of three trees outside of Shibuya station. The Shibuya + 1 no Mori campaign was created in collaboration with the NPO Gaia Initiative.

Trend Potential
Japan is going green, but in ways that are creative and profitable for the businesses pushing these trends. For more information on green “Eco” trends in Japan, subscribe to the Trendpool database for ideas to help businesses innovate.

Celebrity-designed or endorsed products and giveaways continue to show up in big promotions in Japan. This time, gum giant Lotte is running a promotion with the still-popular boy band sextet KAT-TUN to give away 6,000 KAT-TUN “selected” cases for Lotte Plus-X gum.

Buyers of the gum can enter the “Lotte Lottery” by using the code inside the wrapper online or by mobile phone, and play the accompanying mini-game for points.

The cases themselves are interesting in that they aren’t overtly branded and are rather fashionable considering that young women are already paying for similar blinged-out cases for mints and other small items. Of course, Kat-Tun’s real roll in the design/choosing of these items is up in the air, but isn’t it just a *tad* more realistic than believing that Paris Hilton or Avril Lavine designed entire lines of clothes and accessories?

Trend Potential
Japan’s celebrity-designed products are unique, and are going by a model that behaves differently from the typical “pop star fashion line” or perfume. Read the full version of this Macro Trend with multiple global examples in our Trendpool database.

Click for our 2008 Tokyo Girl’s Collection report

The Tokyo Girls Collection is best known for blending forward-thinking e-commerce strategies with the appeal of a classic stadium extravaganza. While three dozen popular domestic fashion brands stage runway shows of their latest looks, audience members can purchase the items as seen immediately with their mobile phones through a dedicated mobile retail site. The event also eschews typical fashion world exclusivity by offering a general admission ticket for just $40 (less than a typical concert ticket), regularly attracting a crowd of 20,000 plus teens and 20-somethings.

According to organizers, a remarkable 57 million yen ($580k) worth of merchandise was sold during the event as users accessed their phones to grab the latest looks as they were first revealed on the catwalk.

Below is a report from our friends at Diginfo News

Event producer Branding Inc. is the media company behind top portal and retail websites Girlswalker.com and Fashionwalker.com. According to a survey conducted last season by the company, 85.6% of respondents in their teens or twenties spend nearly 100 minutes on the mobile internet per day and more than 70% have used their mobile phones to shop at least once in the last year.

Now in its 8th season the Tokyo Girls Collection also features an increasing number of partner booths and presentations, collaboration projects, and spin-off activities in addition to the mainstay fashion shows and pop singer performances. Event partners include leaders from diverse industries, such as cosmetics, automotive, and food & beverage.

Trend Potential
The Tokyo Girl’s Collection is a big deal, not just for fashion, but for mobile, e-commerce, publishing, New Media, and more. This is why we go to every TGC and document it top to bottom with sound analysis on the trends, marketing collaborations, and technology behind the events. For our full report and the connection to related global trends, you’ll find it all in the Trendpool. For companies and individuals interested in experiencing the action themselves, our Tokyo Trend Tours can integrate the next TGC event with a full retail experience in the city.

Iconic street fashion magazine FRUiTs is producing a retail space, FRUiTs MiX, in the brand new Marui One department store in Shinjuku. This is the first move of this kind for the famously progressive publication, and one that takes the brand into far more mainstream, accessible territory. A number of locally influential Harajuku boutiques (like Faline and Dog) and vintage shops (Berberjin) are involved in the project. Street savvy designer Nozomi Ishiguro has also been tapped to create a limited edition line, Nozomi Ishiguro FRUiTS PUNCH, for the select shop.

Marui One, which opened on February 20th in the high-traffic, oft-visited Shinjuku district of Tokyo, is positioning itself as a showcase for Tokyo fashion to Japan and the world. Each floor gets its own theme: the first is Tokyo Pop City, the second goes to FRUiTS, the third is “Romantic Casual,” and the fourth will sell contemporary kimonos under the banner “Asian Modern.” Floors 5-8 are taken over by Marui Young, the arm of the department store chain specializing in gothic, Lolita, and punk styles.

Like the Beams CULTuART Store we covered previously, Tokyo retail institutions are looking to capitalize on the city’s cool quotient.

We said previously that the organizers of Tokyo fashion trade show Rooms have a number of antennas out, and they definitely are picking up a few different trend waves. Here is another example: Rooms Link Shibuya Triangle.

For the duration of the three-day invitation-only event, Rooms is holding collaboration events for the general public at two well-known retail spaces, Omotesando Hills and Parco department store in Shibuya. This is the first time that the trade show has directly appealed to consumers, following a general trend towards giving the (purchasing) public a taste of traditionally closed industry-only events.

At Omotesando Hills the collaboration took the form of wall panels from artist Ryoono (who is also exhibiting at Rooms) as well as an exhibit with items from the exhibition.

Meanwhile Parco, under the theme “Pair Look,” has a number of special edition branded “his and hers” products on display in the 6th floor Parco Factory.

There is also a neat display at the entrance of photos of couples from years past (taken as actually street shots for Parco’s culture magazine Across). Each of the life-sized portraits has a mirror for a face allowing shoppers to imagine what they may have looked like in, say, 1984.

Trend Potential
Rooms Link Shibuya Triangle represents a real shift in the fashion industry’s attitude towards guarding its exclusivity and giving in to consumer demand. The Trendpool explores other consumer-centric industry trends from fashion to crowdsourced FMCG.