Difference between revisions of "Current events"

From ShashiWiki
Jump to: navigation, search
 
(16 intermediate revisions by the same user not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
Researching With Shashi: A Workshop on Using Japanese Company
+
='''The Shiseido Culture: Design, Fashion and Marketing '''=
and Institutional Histories and Archives
+
Sponsored by the Japanese Company Histories Interest Group (Shashi Group)
+
  
Thursday, March 31
+
Sponsored by Japanese Company Histories Interest Group (Shashi Group)<br>
7:00PM-9:00PM, SESSION# 191
+
Sunday, March 24, 2013 10:15 am – 12:15 pm, Session# 357<br>
Hawaii Convention Center 
+
Manchester Grand Hyatt / Madeline D<br>
 +
San Diego, CA<br>
  
ABSTRACT
 
Japanese company and institutional histories open windows into the past.  Richly illustrated and packed with information, chronologies and data while layered with corporate and societal values, shashi provide rich research value.  Corporate and institutional archives preserve sources used for the histories along with extensive primary resources of administration.  While most corporate archives in Japan are not open, some have moved to collective repositories, now accessible to researchers. Shashi are useful for research in many fields and disciplines as well, providing information that creates context, allows three-dimensional views of individuals, and illuminates case studies.  This workshop explores the research potential of shashi and archives, as well as the limitations that make them challenging to use, along with practical workarounds that can help.
 
  
1. Yasuhiro Eguchi, Professor, Department of Intercultural Communication, Gakushûin Women’s College, Japan
+
Abstract of Panel:<br>
Paper title: A Study of Practical Uses of Company Histories (Shashi)
+
Shiseido Cosmetics Company commemorated 140 years anniversary in 2012. The company has built originality that is worthy of being called the Shiseido Culture with its excellent business sense and design and becomes world renowned brand.  The company has cultivated and re-edit and continually communicate the Shiseido Culture within and outside of the company and it makes contributions to society through design and marketing.  The company has also considers the Shiseido Culture and its history to be an important management asset and has published more than 60 titles of Shashi, or company history books, and publications related to design and advertisement since 1957.  For researchers who study art history, cultural history and business history, these publications are very important primary resources. This panel invites four researchers to discuss how the Shiseido Culture have had effects on history of design and advertisements in Japan, relationship between imperial Japan and women’s fashion, and Japanese marketing in colonies.  <br>
 +
<br>
  
First, my paper will discuss approaches to increase the collecting of shashi, a challenging task due to their autobiographical nature and their distribution via non-commercial channels. Strategic actions (IR • PR, CS R, M & A, branding, etc) are required of today's companies, so the strategic implications (mission) for shashi has increased. Therefore, I will discuss what meaning shashi hold for users, and reconsider the position and meaning of shashi for stakeholders. My analysis will show that by considering three types of value creation (pleasure), namely the pleasure of discovering and collecting, the pleasure of cataloging, and the pleasure of being used by users, we can recognize the importance of switching from archeological values to marketing values when discussing shashi.
+
Chair: Gennifer Weisenfeld, Duke University<br>
 +
<br>
 +
Paper 1. Rebecca Nickerson, Ph.D., Independent Scholar<br>
 +
Designing Women: Miss Shiseido, Tanaka Chiyo, and the Making of Imperial Style in Japan<br>
  
2. Dr. Ann Sherif, Professor, Oberlin College
+
Abstract
Paper title: Technologies of Printing and Regional Literatures in Hiroshima, 1945
+
This paper analyzes how Komai Reiko—the first “Miss Shiseido”—and Tanaka Chiyo—“Japan’s first fashion designer”—shaped modern ideals of femininity and transformed women’s cosmetic and fashion practices in 1930s Japan. In 1933, Shiseido recruited Komai to work as a full-time consultant to launch the company’s “Miss Shiseido” marketing campaign, designed to bring Shiseido’s image of feminine beauty directly to consumers through beauty demonstrations. A prominent advocate for working women’s rights, Komai accepted Shiseido’s offer precisely because she knew it would increase her visibility as an example of the progressive Japanese woman—she subsequently gained fame as a beauty expert who was at once a wife, mother, and successful, working woman. In 1932, Tanaka began her career at Kanebo, where she taught women how to use the company’s textiles to make Western-style clothes and quickly became a leading expert on women’s fashion. Like Komai, Tanaka balanced her career with her duties as a wife and mother and she fiercely disagreed with the notion that Japanese women should wear kimono for the sake of the nation or Japanese tradition, arguing instead that women deserved the right to choose clothes that suited their modern lifestyles. Komai and Tanaka did not identify themselves as feminists, but their careers enabled them to challenge traditional feminine norms and empower Japanese women to act as subjects with the capacity to shape ideals of femininity through their consumption practices and the choices they made in assembling their appearance. <br>
 +
<br>
 +
Paper 2.  Annika A. Culver, University of North Carolina at Pembroke<br>
 +
Shiseido’s ‘Empire of Beauty’: Marketing Japanese Modernity in Manchukuo, 1932-1945<br>
  
When war, political upheaval, and economic and material scarcity disrupt a publishing industry, how do writers find their way back into print? I will explore the ways that technologies of printing and politics intersected with literary and media discourses in World War II and post-atomic bomb Hiroshima. An examination of the regional publisher Chugoku Shimbun and renowned poet Toge Sankichi allows us to see the dynamics of regional publishing and cultural consumption, in contrast to the dominance of the Tokyo literary establishment and publishing industry.
+
Abstract<br>
 +
During the 1931-45 Japanese occupation of northeast China, Japanese businesses, including Shiseidô, extended their reach into Manchukuo, where the Japanese modernity they sold communicated success and prosperity under imperial Japan's auspices. In 1931, the company's first outlet opened in Dairen, and by 1937, its Mobile Beauty Salons traversed the Japanese empire with "Miss Shiseidô" representatives passing through Manchurian cities.  Throughout the colonies, Shiseidô expanded a view of Japanese women's flawless white skin, along with their willingness to embrace modern, scientific rational practices to improve domestic life.  The company's vision of imperial beauty for the continent emphasized a harmonious melding of Japanese science and Chinese tradition, beginning with the Blue Bird line (seichô in Japanese, qingniao in Chinese) of soaps, detergents, and toothpaste made by Mitsui for "Manchurian" customers and exported to Manchukuo after 1932. Shiseidô targeted marketing strategies specifically to colonial Japanese and “Manchurian” consumers, with Blue Bird's signature yellow boxes featuring Japanese script instead of English to communicate Japanese modernity.  In 1940, after the company built its own Manchukuo-based factory, Japanese-born Manchurian Film Association star Ri Kôran even posed for cosmetics posters as the archetypal Chinese modern girl with bobbed, permed hair. Shiseidô’s unique modernist visual culture sold images of an empire of beauty, where women consumers on the continent helped support an emerging politics of national identity in their product choices. The company's intersection of modernist advertising and national propaganda reveals the multifaceted interests of organizations like Shiseidô involved in marketing the Japanese empire and its appealing modernity.<br>
 +
<br>
 +
Paper 3. Gennifer Weisenfeld, Duke University<br>
 +
Shiseido and Transwar Design: The Case of Yamana Ayao<br>
  
3. Masataka Yano, Archivist, Resources and Historical Collections Office, Library of Economics, University of Tokyo
 
Paper title: Corporate data (kigyô shiryô) and Archives, focus on company histories
 
  
First, from a viewpoint of an archivist, I will differentiate corporate data (kigyô shiryô) from its function (creating entity, contents, etc) and form (media, etc). From this differentiation, I will show that there are many different levels of kigyô shiryô. Then, I will introduce the kigyô shiryô which are held by the Resources and Historical Collections Office, Library of Economics, University of Tokyo, according to such differentiation. I will also introduce trends related to the material collected, the state of preservation, and the status of access to the library by the public.  Pros and cons related to external institutions holding kigyô shiryô are discussed.  The relationship between shashi compilation project and external archives will be discussed using selected materials from the collection.
+
Abstract<br>
 
+
Renowned designer and art director, Yamana Ayao (1897-1980) worked for Shiseido on and off from 1929 until 1969. When he first joined the Shiseido design division, critics humorously asked, “Will Yamana become Shiseido-ized or will Shiseido become Yamana-ized?” They quickly came to the conclusion that Shiseido was Yamana-ized, as the designer’s distinctive style became synonymous with Shiseido advertising all the way through the early postwar period. While the war often stands as an insurmountable divide that seemingly severs cultural developments in Japan right at mid century, the transwar continuities can be more striking than the ruptures. This divide is particularly apparent in the history of design, despite the fact that advertising and propaganda production seamlessly traded places through the war, and the same roster of professional designers and advertising specialists who worked throughout the 1930s and 40s reconstituted the design world immediately after the end of the Occupation. As a founding member of the important advertising design associations: the Tokyo Advertising Art Association (1931), Nippon Kōbō (1933), and the influential Japan Advertising Artists Club (1951), and as a key designer for Shiseido and many major corporations into the postwar period, Yamana’s enormous contribution to the public visual sphere across the twentieth century is indisputable. Thus, his work for Shiseido provides a valuable opportunity to explore often neglected transwar connections, illuminating how postwar design and advertising was built on a deep foundation of practice and a professional network developed in the prewar and wartime periods.<br>
4. Maureen Donovan, Japanese Studies Librarian, Associate Professor, Ohio State University
+
<br>
Paper title: Japanese Company Histories as Repositories of Tacit Knowledge
+
Discussant: Sarah Frederick, Boston University<br>
 
+
<br>
With the Japanese economy continuing to languish in the doldrums, a special issue of The Weekly Toyo Keizai (commemorating 115 years of publication) carried an article urging businessmen to consult Japanese company histories to find the tacit know-how they need to re-start the economic engines of the country. This paper examines the role that Japanese corporate histories play in preserving a company’s hard-earned tacit knowledge, embedded in stories meant to last for generations, and why this is making them increasingly relevant in the 21st century, not only for businessmen but also for scholars.
+
Organizer and contact parson: Hiroyuki N. Good, hng2@pitt.edu, University of Pittsburgh<br>

Latest revision as of 23:04, 25 January 2013

The Shiseido Culture: Design, Fashion and Marketing

Sponsored by Japanese Company Histories Interest Group (Shashi Group)
Sunday, March 24, 2013 10:15 am – 12:15 pm, Session# 357
Manchester Grand Hyatt / Madeline D
San Diego, CA


Abstract of Panel:
Shiseido Cosmetics Company commemorated 140 years anniversary in 2012. The company has built originality that is worthy of being called the Shiseido Culture with its excellent business sense and design and becomes world renowned brand. The company has cultivated and re-edit and continually communicate the Shiseido Culture within and outside of the company and it makes contributions to society through design and marketing. The company has also considers the Shiseido Culture and its history to be an important management asset and has published more than 60 titles of Shashi, or company history books, and publications related to design and advertisement since 1957. For researchers who study art history, cultural history and business history, these publications are very important primary resources. This panel invites four researchers to discuss how the Shiseido Culture have had effects on history of design and advertisements in Japan, relationship between imperial Japan and women’s fashion, and Japanese marketing in colonies.

Chair: Gennifer Weisenfeld, Duke University

Paper 1. Rebecca Nickerson, Ph.D., Independent Scholar
Designing Women: Miss Shiseido, Tanaka Chiyo, and the Making of Imperial Style in Japan

Abstract This paper analyzes how Komai Reiko—the first “Miss Shiseido”—and Tanaka Chiyo—“Japan’s first fashion designer”—shaped modern ideals of femininity and transformed women’s cosmetic and fashion practices in 1930s Japan. In 1933, Shiseido recruited Komai to work as a full-time consultant to launch the company’s “Miss Shiseido” marketing campaign, designed to bring Shiseido’s image of feminine beauty directly to consumers through beauty demonstrations. A prominent advocate for working women’s rights, Komai accepted Shiseido’s offer precisely because she knew it would increase her visibility as an example of the progressive Japanese woman—she subsequently gained fame as a beauty expert who was at once a wife, mother, and successful, working woman. In 1932, Tanaka began her career at Kanebo, where she taught women how to use the company’s textiles to make Western-style clothes and quickly became a leading expert on women’s fashion. Like Komai, Tanaka balanced her career with her duties as a wife and mother and she fiercely disagreed with the notion that Japanese women should wear kimono for the sake of the nation or Japanese tradition, arguing instead that women deserved the right to choose clothes that suited their modern lifestyles. Komai and Tanaka did not identify themselves as feminists, but their careers enabled them to challenge traditional feminine norms and empower Japanese women to act as subjects with the capacity to shape ideals of femininity through their consumption practices and the choices they made in assembling their appearance.

Paper 2. Annika A. Culver, University of North Carolina at Pembroke
Shiseido’s ‘Empire of Beauty’: Marketing Japanese Modernity in Manchukuo, 1932-1945

Abstract
During the 1931-45 Japanese occupation of northeast China, Japanese businesses, including Shiseidô, extended their reach into Manchukuo, where the Japanese modernity they sold communicated success and prosperity under imperial Japan's auspices. In 1931, the company's first outlet opened in Dairen, and by 1937, its Mobile Beauty Salons traversed the Japanese empire with "Miss Shiseidô" representatives passing through Manchurian cities. Throughout the colonies, Shiseidô expanded a view of Japanese women's flawless white skin, along with their willingness to embrace modern, scientific rational practices to improve domestic life. The company's vision of imperial beauty for the continent emphasized a harmonious melding of Japanese science and Chinese tradition, beginning with the Blue Bird line (seichô in Japanese, qingniao in Chinese) of soaps, detergents, and toothpaste made by Mitsui for "Manchurian" customers and exported to Manchukuo after 1932. Shiseidô targeted marketing strategies specifically to colonial Japanese and “Manchurian” consumers, with Blue Bird's signature yellow boxes featuring Japanese script instead of English to communicate Japanese modernity. In 1940, after the company built its own Manchukuo-based factory, Japanese-born Manchurian Film Association star Ri Kôran even posed for cosmetics posters as the archetypal Chinese modern girl with bobbed, permed hair. Shiseidô’s unique modernist visual culture sold images of an empire of beauty, where women consumers on the continent helped support an emerging politics of national identity in their product choices. The company's intersection of modernist advertising and national propaganda reveals the multifaceted interests of organizations like Shiseidô involved in marketing the Japanese empire and its appealing modernity.

Paper 3. Gennifer Weisenfeld, Duke University
Shiseido and Transwar Design: The Case of Yamana Ayao


Abstract
Renowned designer and art director, Yamana Ayao (1897-1980) worked for Shiseido on and off from 1929 until 1969. When he first joined the Shiseido design division, critics humorously asked, “Will Yamana become Shiseido-ized or will Shiseido become Yamana-ized?” They quickly came to the conclusion that Shiseido was Yamana-ized, as the designer’s distinctive style became synonymous with Shiseido advertising all the way through the early postwar period. While the war often stands as an insurmountable divide that seemingly severs cultural developments in Japan right at mid century, the transwar continuities can be more striking than the ruptures. This divide is particularly apparent in the history of design, despite the fact that advertising and propaganda production seamlessly traded places through the war, and the same roster of professional designers and advertising specialists who worked throughout the 1930s and 40s reconstituted the design world immediately after the end of the Occupation. As a founding member of the important advertising design associations: the Tokyo Advertising Art Association (1931), Nippon Kōbō (1933), and the influential Japan Advertising Artists Club (1951), and as a key designer for Shiseido and many major corporations into the postwar period, Yamana’s enormous contribution to the public visual sphere across the twentieth century is indisputable. Thus, his work for Shiseido provides a valuable opportunity to explore often neglected transwar connections, illuminating how postwar design and advertising was built on a deep foundation of practice and a professional network developed in the prewar and wartime periods.

Discussant: Sarah Frederick, Boston University

Organizer and contact parson: Hiroyuki N. Good, hng2@pitt.edu, University of Pittsburgh