Perhaps nothing epitomizes the Wonderland-like quality of the Japanese recession like the giant orange Hermes box in the heart of Ginza, Tokyo’s most exclusive shopping district.

For Hermes International, the building-sized box, complete with signature orange packaging and brown ”ribbon,” is not merely a marketing tool but a reflection of the company’s confidence that even in bad times, there will be plenty of Japanese willing to pay hundreds of thousand of yen for one of its handbags. Such confidence is hardly misplaced.

Sure, unemployment is at record levels, corporate earnings are sinking, bankruptcies are at a record high, investment is down and the banking system is at the brink of disaster. But luxury goods retailers in Japan are thriving, even as overall consumer spending has continued to fall. – NYT (1998)

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” Feeling Decadent ”

01. The New Frontiers - The Day You Fell Apart
Mending (The Militia group, 2008)
02. The Long Blondes – Here Comes The Serious Bit
Couples (Rough Trade Us, 2008)
03. Tilly and the Wall – Pot Kettle Black
O (Team Love Records, 2008)
04. French Kicks – Love in the Ruins
Swimming (Vagrant Records, 2008)
05. Pomegranates - Whom/Who
Everything Is Alive (Lujo Records, 2008)
06. Panda Riot – Like Flowers At Night
She Dares All Things (Panda Riot, 2007)

note: Feeling a bit decadent. This is a standard mood list, near shoegazer sort of texture. I like the minor key tension vs. up beat walking tempo. Music for shopping in time of recession. Hey, at least the music is good, in dark and edgy sort of way. But nothing too removed from known formula. Which could ruin the balance. At any rate, somebody better snap this site out of slower tempo. I need something with beat! :D (I don’t know where everybody is, except jungle. Probably they all die from heat stroke. Either that or baking themselves somewhere in Majorca’s beach. ) Go out and have a decadent life today…

image: [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], [1, 2]
see also: Hacking Japan