Japan fashion told to forget Paris, focus on Tokyo

Tokyo may be the style capital of Asia, but with South Korea and China snapping at its heels and Japan’s most iconic brands rooted in Europe, the city is being urged to haul its fashion week into the big leagues.

Tokyo Fashion Week kicked off its spring/summer 2017 season showcase on Monday with six days of events intended to promote 50 brands, a mixture of the established and the new.

Yet Japanese labels that are household names in the West — led by Kenzo, Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and Comme des Garcons — eschew home shores for the bright lights, prestige and visibility of Paris.

Tokyo Fashion Week attracts only 50,000 visitors — just a quarter of the total number that attend New York’s two annual fashion weeks, and also lagging behind London, Paris and Milan.

Held after the fashion merry ground exhausts the “big four”, few make the extra trip to Tokyo, and not many in Japan believe they are missing out.

According to a poll from local website Fashionsnap.com, only 20 percent of the Japanese fashion industry, including designers, stylists and editors, consider Tokyo’s events to be of interest.

The calendar, the no-show by the biggest brands, reluctance to open their doors to the wider public and sluggishness to embrace see-now, buy-now were all listed as shortcomings by the 221 people surveyed.

– ‘Focus on your own’ –

The award-winning, Milan-based Turkish designer Umit Benan, wants to change all that.

“Everyone needs to get together to make the Japanese fashion week much better,” the menswear designer told reporters after making his Tokyo debut, having announced he would ditch Paris fashion week

He called Japan’s menswear the “most sophisticated you’ll see in the streets” and said Tokyo was packed with the world’s most creative buyers and designers, along with some of the most sophisticated consumers around.

“I think you really need to focus on your own fashion week, trying to create new waves in Japan fashion,” he said, joking that he loves Japan so much, he visited 40 times in the last five years.

He called Japanese fabric second only to Italy’s. But unlike in Italy, where high fashion is governed by precision, he said the Japanese were willing to take risks, such as mix nylon with cashmere.

“The Italians don’t have the balls to mix nylon into a 200 euro fabric,” he said. “In Japan they’re very flexible and very creative, spontaneous… when you touch it you’re like my God what is this?”

While Tokyo has long been a springboard for up-and-coming designers, neighbouring Seoul, with its vibrant street style, and Shanghai, as the commercial capital of China, are attracting increased interest.

“To me, Tokyo is the Asian fashion centre with long fashion-forward history,” said Hong Kong designer Vickie Au who brought her “Urban Chill” collection to Tokyo after showing in New York.

The street look, minimal style and clean lines of her House of V label, this season inspired by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry is well suited to Japanese taste.

– ‘Beauty of the craft’ –

While she has boutiques in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, and online, she is looking to break into the Japanese and US markets.

Au cited Yamamoto, the famed Japanese designer based in Paris, as an inspiration, praising him as a master of “modern and avant-garde tailoring”.

Christelle Kocher, creative director of up-and-coming French label Koche, also said she had learnt from Yamamoto and that it had been special to be the only French brand participating in Tokyo this season.

“Japanese culture is really refined and I think may be more than other places, they understand the beauty of the craft and the beauty of the time to make beautiful things,” she said.

US retailing giant Amazon is sponsoring Tokyo Fashion Week for the first time, and among the fashion set in Japan there are hopes that it can help rebrand the event into something brighter and larger.

The company is already the largest clothing retailer in the United States and fashion vice president for Amazon Japan, James Peters, signalled that he is determined to replicate that success in Japan.

While Tokyo still follows a six-month delay between catwalk and store, he said Amazon would be happy to help Japanese designers facilitate see-now, buy-now collections increasingly at the fore in New York.

“I think if that’s what the designers want to do, we’re ready to do it,” he told AFP at the week’s launch party.

Europe hits Apple with $14.6 billion tax bill

Ireland must recover up to 13 billion euros ($14.6 billion) in unpaid taxes from Apple, Europe's top regulator ruled on Tuesday.

 

The tax ruling is by far the biggest the European Union has ever made regarding a single company, and it could spark a huge transatlantic row over how Europe treats big U.S. companies.

Apple shares fell almost 3% in premarket trading. The company will appeal the decision. It said the ruling upended the international tax system and would damage jobs and investment in Europe. Ireland also intends to appeal.

The Commission said the Irish government had granted illegal state aid to Apple (AAPL, Tech30) by helping the tech giant to artificially lower its tax bill for more than 20 years. 

"Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies -- this is illegal under EU state aid rules," said Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, Europe's top antitrust official.

Apple paid tax at 1%, or less, on profits attributed to its subsidiaries in Ireland, well below the 35% top rate in the United States and even well below Ireland's 12.5% rate. 

That prompted complaints by both European and U.S. lawmakers, who argued the deal gave Apple an unfair advantage in exchange for creating jobs in Ireland. CEO Tim Cook was even called to testify on Apple's tax deal before a Senate committee in 2013.

The bill for tax benefits, plus interest, covers 2003 to 2014. Apple has more than $231 billion in cash on its balance sheet to cushion the blow.

Apple (AAPL, Tech30) is not the only American company that has recently found itself under scrutiny over its European tax affairs.

The European Commission ordered Starbucks and Fiat Chrysler to repay millions in taxes last October.

Starbucks (SBUX) has to pay back up to 30 million euros it saved thanks to a sweetheart tax deal with the Netherlands. Fiat Chrysler (FCAM) was ordered to repay a similar amount after a similar deal with Luxembourg.

Both companies have appealed the decisions. 

The EU is also probing the tax arrangements of Amazon (AMZN, Tech30) and McDonald's (MCD). Google (GOOG) is under investigation over its taxes in France and a couple of other European countries.

The ruling against Apple's tax deal comes despite a stern warning from the U.S. last week. The Treasury Department urged the European Commission to stop its tax crackdown on American companies, saying it would consider "potential responses" if Brussels doesn't change course.

Nigerian women and Europe’s sex trade

Sex-in-Europe

Trafficking for prostitution into Europe by Nigerians has reached a tipping point. In a newly-released report, the United Nations International Organisation for Migration warns that the trafficking of Nigerian women for prostitution is at a “crisis level.” The report, which covers the first six months of 2016, laments that gullible Nigerian girls – some with the help of their families – are being recruited at an increasing rate by criminal gangs for European sex markets. This is alarming; it is embarrassing for the nation.

The IOM investigation found that criminal gangs were exploiting the migration crisis in the Middle East to smuggle Nigerian girls into their sex slavery networks in Europe. It says that the pimps dangle tales of prosperity before the girls and their families, and convey them through migrant camps spread across West Africa. From there, they land in war-torn Libya, where they repeatedly suffer gross abuse. Eventually, they are taken to Europe. In reality, they are being sold for between £4,000 and £10,000, ending up there with debts of up to £40,000 that they have to repay by engaging in prostitution. This is a high-wire game of deception, which should be brought to an end.

Apart from being subjected to abuse, some die on the tortuous journey. Their major destinations are Britain, Spain and, especially, Italy. A flourishing sex trade has been in existence for decades between Nigeria and Italy, but now there is a sharp increase, with Delta and Edo states reportedly heavily involved. IOM officials say “Edo is the hub” of trafficking in Nigeria. It behoves the two state governments to act, and launch aggressive campaigns to dissuade prospective preys.

According to the IOM, 3,600 Nigerian women reached Italy between January and June, nearly four times the figure for 2014, and double the figure in the first half of 2015. At this rate, the final tally for 2016 might surpass the 5,633 recorded in 2015. “What we have seen this year is a crisis, it is absolutely unprecedented and is the most significant increase in the number of Nigerian women arriving in Italy for 10 years,” says Simona Moscarelli, anti-trafficking expert at the IOM. “Our indicators are the majority of these women are being deliberately brought in for sexual exploitation purposes.”

The situation is equally terrible in Britain. Kevin Hyland, head of the United Kingdom Anti-Slavery Commission, says Nigerians constitute the majority of the 13,000 modern slaves there. “The rise in the numbers is staggering. Nigerian women and girls are enslaved and sexually exploited here in the UK,” Hyland says. His lamentation resonates with Nigerians. Even at home, prostitution, described as the “world’s oldest profession,” presents a long-standing conundrum. In spite of the seemingly official unwillingness to admit the magnitude of the problem, prostitution is deep-rooted in our communities.

While some of the teenagers are being lured into this depraved life, there are many women who willingly subject themselves to such indignity on the grounds that they want to make ends meet. Their predicament is being blamed on the worsening economic condition. As a result, they dive headlong into prostitution. This is an infantile dream, a hoax being perpetrated by vicious manipulators.

In truth, most of the filthy lucre being made in the global sex trade is being shared by the vicious criminal operators. In Britain, the Office for National Statistics’ computation in 2009 – the first time prostitution income was factored into the GDP – arrived at a figure of £5.3 billion a year. The latest figure from a research by Urban Institute, an American think tank, puts the number of prostitutes worldwide at 42 million. Urban says the global sex trade generates $186 billion, with criminals living large off the proceeds of a trade that is still an offence in many parts of the world. According to TheRichest.com, prostitution is one of the largest and most profitable industries in the United States for criminal gangs.

So, what to do? First, strengthen the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, the Nigerian Immigration Service and other border agencies. The government has to infiltrate the sex network groups smuggling girls out of Nigeria. The routes might be many, but the government agents should familiarise themselves with them and curb the activities of the human traffickers before they leave our shores. It is a huge task that will need modern technology, intelligence and information, but the government should not succumb to the gangs profiting from the illicit trade.

NAPTIP is making slow strides. It has to make examples of suspects by prosecuting them and deterring others. For instance, a new law in France imposes a fine of $4,000 on those soliciting sex from prostitutes. In some jurisdictions, prostitution is punishable by a fine, and it is said to be illegal in 109 countries. However, the law alone cannot tackle the scourge. The internet age has even made it more difficult for the law to achieve its aim. Instead of walking the streets in search of customers, sex workers now use online media to negotiate with clients. This way, they evade the long arm of the law.

To redress the dilemma, several countries are adopting the Nordic Model, which was pioneered by Sweden in 1999. The model makes it a crime for the buyer of sex only, not the seller. Iceland, Canada, Norway and Northern Ireland are in this category, while prostitution is highly-regulated in The Netherlands, Poland and Austria. In Switzerland, sex workers must register, undergo mandatory weekly health check-ups and obtain a certificate.

Our government has to do more to sensitise the populace about the dangers of prostitution. We need to put our girls in school and establish programmes that can wean them off the streets. The state governments concerned should establish their own anti-human trafficking agencies, while NGOs should join the crusade in earnest through incentives and well-defined programmes.

By the Punch Editorial Board