Gwen Stefani Defends ‘Harajuku Girl’ Era by Claiming ‘I’m Japanese'

11.01.2023 - 17:58 / glamour.com

about her vegan beauty collection and past beauty ventures, doubled down on her defense of her “Harajuku Girl” era, which included a collection of fragrances first released in 2008. The perfume featured five bottles, one modeled after Stefani, and four modeled after her Japanese and Japanese American back up dancers whom she employed for the promotion of her 2004 album, Love.

Angel. Music.

Baby.Though the album and Stefani's embrace of the Harajuku aesthetic were celebrated at the time,  in recent years, Stefani has been and appropriating it for capital gain. When asked to reflect on that period in her life, Stefani has consistently defended her position, claiming that her Italian American father, who worked for Yamaha and spent decades traveling back and forth between Japan and California, inspired her interest in Japanese art, and specifically the vibrant Harajuku district in Tokyo. "I said, 'My God, I'm Japanese and I didn't know it,'" Stefani recalls of traveling to Japan for the first time as an adult.

Writer Jesa Marie Calaor, who is Filipina American, notes there was a beat of silence in their conversation before Stefani added, “I am, you know.”The 53-year-old then claimed twice more to be Japanese, at one point declaring herself “a little bit of an Orange County girl, a little bit of a Japanese girl, a little bit of an English girl.” The magazine notes that they followed up with a representative for Stefani for clarification, but they declined to provide a statement."If [people are] going to criticize me for being a fan of something beautiful and sharing that, then I just think that doesn't feel right," Stefani continued. "I think it was a beautiful time of creativity… a time of the ping-pong match between