Sometimes these Friday blog posts just write themselves.
It seems that Japanese actress Sola Aoi (苍井空, aka Sora Aoi and Aoi Sola/Sora) is in Beijing to shoot a new feature film, and who just happened to be on hand to offer some wardrobe suggestions than Beijing’s own Plastered T-shirts.
Aoi, who has 15 million followers on Sina Weibo, made her name not with her wardrobe, but by disrobing, having worked in Japan’s adult entertainment (AV) industry for about 10 years before deciding to go legit, into pop music and mainstream movies. While her popularity stems from her earlier body of work, she’s been credited with increasing the number of Chinese users of Twitter, due to own social media output, and even called for greater friendship between China and Japan, although that effort seems to have had less success so far. AdAge.com ranked Aoi ahead of Tom Cruise on a list of China’s 20 Most Engaging Foreign Celebrities, released in 2013.
Plastered’s founder and Creative Director Dominic Johnson-Hill, who was one of the Beijinger‘s 20 Most Interesting People for 2013, sent along a photo of Aoi showing off her shirt, which she will also sport in the film. “I can only hope that being Plastered will help her performance,” Johnson-Hill told the Bejiinger.
Aoi is a rare Japanese success story in a country where Japanese imports are not particularly popular. Except for Japanese food. And Japanese cars. And Japanese electronics. And karaoke. And Japanese adult entertainment. And …
Photo: Dominic Johnson-Hill/Plastered T-shirts