The Japanese Rebellion against the Western High-Heels: When Feet Represent the Head

The resistance to high-heels in flatland Japan and the growing popularity of original Japanese brands convey important information not only about the meaning of footwear in a barefoot society. It also reflects well the shifting images and values of Western products, and the strong impact of socio-political revolutions on brands and consumption practices. Japan is definitely changing and new tastes appear very fast. Are you ready for the Japanese 2020 and Beyond?

The Japanese anti-heels rebellion - is it a symptom of a desire for physical comfort, a return to traditional values, or an anti-Western quiet revolution? Tough question for every brand in Japan, and not only in the footwear business since the answers carry a global chain-reaction impact for everybody. The latest #KuToo revolution is a wake-up call for all of us to listen and focus since in Japan, revolutions start from the bottom, from the feet up!

Foreign shoes, like many other foreign products, have for long been tools of instigating revolutions, building resistance, and conveying anti-traditional and anti-institutional sentiments. This has become even more meaningful since the end of the bubble era. From the platform shoes of the young rebelious kogyaru subcultures in the nineties and up to the high-heel evening shoes, Western shoes symbolize strength, multicultural values, and political currency which defines social classes and the group distinction. In Japanese culture, the place of the "foreign" is the place of change, debate, and conflict, be it a product or a person. It's interesting to see that the current #KuToo rebellion is not against the traditional salaryman suit worn by many women at work (where are all the feminists?), nor is it against the working hours, the salaries, or women's opportunities to become CEOs. It is against the shoes. And not the Japanese shoes, though some of them have quite high heels or platforms. Pay attention - it is not even against all the Western shoes, meaning it is not a certain ideology. It is particularly against the high-heel shoes, a special design of footwear that carries meaning and fantasies in many cultures' fantasies and not only in Japan. The high sharp heel is not just a shoe elevation. It's a footwear with character, a source of erotic desire and sexual fetish, and at the same time a symbolic device of female empowerment. Think of ballerinas turning on their toes, or the Chinese high-class women with lotus shoes sitting with their expensive garments closed on a pedestal. Feet, shoes, and toes are what we stand on, our power and our connection to the ground. What, then, are the women really revolting against? Does the image of a successful career woman in Japan must be accompanied by a loss of femininity and masking of sexual symbols? Is there no possibility for women to advance unless they become more like men? The answer is rooted in Japanese history as much as it is in contemporary Japan that is changing and rebalancing its connection with its past. Gender in Japan today is in a struggle to change the traditional focal point of men and women - women no longer housewives at home but they need to be encouraged to work, and men on the contrary need to be encouraged to stay at home since overall there is less work and now they can be husbands and fathers and not only state-serving salarymen. But the issue goes much deeper into history when genders were less segregated and less distinguished from each other, when men were taking female roles and doing kabuki and women, the vice versa, could be the best spies and warriors in the field. This was until Meiji period which introduced western images and codes of conduct from the outside and led to differences of gender, appearances, and behaviour in the public space. Japanese society has never really accepted this process. Now they have a door of opportunity to shift back. Finally Japan is in the process of becoming Japanese.

Footwear is part of Shinto religion, it is not only a covering of the feet. The segregation of inside and outside (uchi-soto) in Japanese society has never been related only to the footwear people used but a to religious and cultural practices originating in Shinto with its values of purity and cleanness. Leaving the shoes at the entrance of the house, in a special place, goes beyond comfort or the owner's wish to keep the tatami neat. It is enough to make a quick list of all the products of foot-care creams and scrubs, anti-smell deodorants and massages, and shoe cleaning sprays and shines in order to realize this culture developed a unique obsession for its feet, shoes and everything in between. It is quite amazing when we think shoes have entered Japan only at the beginning of the twentieth century, a very new history compared to the Western one. The footwear was one of the symbols of the West and of becoming global, professional, and belonging to a certain unique group/class according to the style of the shoe and the price. This hasn't changed much though there was a constantly growing division of different shoes into smaller groups of footwear styles definition. In one of the researches I conducted, it was interesting to see that the Japanese imagination associates certain shoes to Japanese history rather than to western imported products even when they were an imported famous brand. Platform shoes, for example, were seen as part of authentic Japanese culture since they reminded people of the geisha and oiran tradition of Yoshiwara in old Edo and they were easily disregarded as rebellion. One of the young kogyaru  I talked to even thought this was the reason the subculture revolution failed, “we were too much part of Japanese tradition and not unusual. We were unusual only for the foreigners at the time.” Another example is the simple high-heel working shoes that reminded people of career women since they saw them first in American movies where working women with high-heels were in a central role. Overall, the research showed some interesting results implying not all western shoes are connected to the ideas of the west and to older images of looking modern, independent and powerful. Some have already migrated and re-established their image with a local color and meaning.

The Japanese are increasingly more proud of their own brands who design shoes with flexible soles that fit like a glove and can adjust to the feet of the wearer. In the past, the Japanese shoes used to have only three main sizes: S, M, L. The separation reflected well the collective values of Japanese society that were strongly focused on harmony as a key value of society. When I was a newcomer in Japan, it was quite strange for me to notice many people who were struggling to go through the day with shoes which were 1-2 sizes too big. Especially if the shoes were western style designed with heels which caused serious and dangerous loss of balance to the wearer. Japan was a tight collective society where people had to conform to the existing reality and thus wear one of the three possible options in the market. But slowly and quietly things changed, as they usually do in Japan. Slowly and quietly. Everything seems stable, harmony is still the key value, and suddenly one day Japan is no longer the quite and collective society it used to be. By now, footwear had endless shapes, and it comes in many sizes, perfectly designed up to the millimeters to meet the needs of different individuals. The society is transferring to the age of personalization and growing individuality. What, then, is the next stage and what can we learn from the footwear revolution?

Japan's complicated relations with Asia, from Fukuzawa Yukichi's theory of Leaving Asia to PM Abe's invitation to President Xi Jinping last month has been paved over many years of dramatic changes, wars of gains and loses, socio-economic crisis and political upheavals. The return to Asia is a step in a return to traditional values in which the stiletto sharp heels, as well as other Western products and fashions, represent today a set of values the Japanese are no more willing to adopt and use blindly solely for their brand name and history. The anti-heels rebellion represents a new generation of higher individuality, a generation that no longer buys images and symbols no matter what the product is. But it is a period of transition and deep conflicts on many levels. On the one hand, the values of other cultures are no longer the sole mirror-image for the future and many aspirational dreams, of both individuals and companies, look to the past and to their own history as a source for the new future. On the other hand, harmony is still the most important value and therefore the "foreigner" still offers new opportunities and possibilities of debates, conflicts, and above all negotiation of potential new identities and new social classes that cannot be designed within traditional Japanese society. The West is a center of attraction-repulsion love-hate relationships, probably as it has always been.

And as for the high-heels? Well, women with money and women in executive and high positions will continue to wear them since this is - still - the dominant powerful image of the career woman. But this is true for now, summer 2019. The growing popularity of Japanese fashions and makers, and the conspicuous fast-increasing presence of Japanese brands in China and India show not only Japan is changing, and very fast, but so is the entire brand map in the major powers in Asia. Western brands are here "for the time being". Though if they don't start adapting, I am not sure for how long.