“I don’t think it’s to appear to be healthy, it’s purely a style statement,” Tokyo-based French fashion designer Julien David said of activewear’s rise in the country. “The biggest shift in Kawaii is ...

The non-Japanese-speaking world’s encounter with kawaii is through colorful, hyper-cute fashion or art, and not through babies, puppies, and adorable grannies.

“I think kawaii, or cute feelings, reminds us of human connection that we sometimes forget,” says Hiroshi Nittono, director of the Cognitive Psychophysiology Laboratory at Osaka University.

Cute . . . kawaii. We seem to know it when we see it, but can we say what it actually is? Visiting Professor Simon May at Kings College London takes up this and other intriguing questions in his ...

The V&A’s carefully curated new gallery places kawaii culture in a long and varied design tradition, while celebrating kawaii’s diversity — beautiful, knowing, tacky and rebellious.

One of Japan’s most recognisable exports, the fashion for all things ‘cute’ is being embraced by Hong Kong enthusiasts and an open-minded public ...

Editor’s Note: Joshua Paul Dale is a professor at Tokyo Gakugei University. He is co-editor of “The Aesthetics and Affects of Cuteness”, and the editor of “Cute Studies,” a special issue of the East ...

Cute—"Kawaii" in local parlance—wears many guises in Japan. There's old-school kawaii, embodied by the helpless, mouthless gaze of Hello Kitty. There's the newer guy-cute, manifest by masses ...

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or ...