Talk:Kaneko-Kei

I'm choosing to use Kaneko-kei for lolibrary's entry as I have been when blogging in English, however, I think an equal argument could be made for PinHa-kei. PinHa and Kaneko both fit the naming convention used for Milky, Viviko, Emiku, and so forth. However, Emiku doesn't go beyond ETC to other brands by the same designers, where as this fashion tribe / style / whatever we want to call it for sure does. Kaneko himself seems to be what ties everything and binds it. Kaneko-kei as a term for the style also is practical in that it saves us from having to have Pink House (Brand) and Pink House (Style) as two entry titles.

On I don't know much but I'm learning's post (, the author suggests that Kaneko-kei is not a style because "When we think of mori kei, or dolly kei, or cult party kei, or even other Japanese fashions like decora and lolita, there is a sense of not only a style that goes along with it, but an aesthetic and a community. Think of mori girl and lolita meetups, talks about lifestyle and activities that fit the fashion. "Natural kei" does not have that." "PINK HOUSE as a brand and fashion style does exist, but it has no community and aesthetic."

I would propose that part of the issue is that Kaneko-Kei's height was pre-social media, pre-internet and much of the community for the style when it existed online, existed in message boards and geocities type sites which are now gone. The few personal homepages from the early 2000s I can still access (aside from Wonderful House), contain cross links to each other, coord sharing, closet showing off, and blogging about doing things while wearing PH. This is in-line with Lolita fashion in the same era. Reading through Wonderful House though, I do get a sense of there being an aesthetic, a lifestyle for this style in the writings of Kaneko himself which would have been apparent to the readers of An An, and later Olive. I also do believe that there is a lifestyle aspect to Olive and Olive Girls, considering Olive's selling point was as a lifestyle magazine. What I think may be the case, however, is that the lifestyle associated with Kaneko-Kei overlaps with the lifestyle associated with proto-lolita fashion, and other fashions popular with readers of Olive. Some small number of photos of groups of young women in PH remain from the early 90s, suggesting if not meetups, at least social interaction between multiple people wearing the same style.

The timing is also particularly hard to pin down; interviews and articles suggest Kaneko was designing Pink House style items for Nicole in the 1970s, but it's difficult to find magazine scans or even physical magazines that feature 1970s Nicole items. --Raine-dragon (talk) 22:35, 30 September 2022 (UTC)