As part of Kawaii week, the Anime Club of Elgin Community College invited Kamilah Jones, 26, to the Spartan Auditorium on Wednesday, Sept. 24 to speak about her uniquely inspired Japanese street fashion (J-Fashion) clothing line Hard Decora.

The style of Decora is just one of many subcultures that are contained within the J-Fashion style. These include the styles of the soft, pastel-colored Fairy Kei, the subtle Victorian-esque Lolita, and the loud, cosmetic-heavy Ggyaru. Decora is best characterized by its bright, bold colors and plentiful accessories, and Jones makes it her own by adding an underground, gritty twist.

Jones derives her inspiration for her clothes and illustration from a combination of sources that include WWE, Gorillaz artist Jamie Hewlett and comic book artist Sophie Campbell. Jones also has a comic book of her own in the works that bears the same name of her clothing line. Jones’ website states that Hard Decora is an apparel and illustration brand that promotes “aggressive individuality”. I asked Jones what exactly she meant by that.

“I feel like being aggressively cute is ‘yes, I am cute’ but also, like, ‘I stand up for myself, and I don’t care what other people say about what I’m wearing’,” Jones said. “And if you want to argue with me about it, I’ll argue with you about it.”

Jones explained that wearing this extravagant clothing can be a response to those that make unfair assumptions and judgments on others based off of what they see. Her website states that by wearing these clothes and expressing yourself to such a degree, you are challenging the status quo by simply existing.

“You need to really stand up for yourself when you’re wearing these clothes and things like that,” Jones said. “A lot of people will say that dressing this way is childish and that you’re just trying to avoid the reality of being an adult, but it’s a statement.”

Fatima Maniya, an attendee of the presentation, was very excited to hear and speak with Jones about Decora and her personal interest in J-Fashion.

“I’ve always been into Japanese fashion since I was younger,” Maniya said. “You look around and you see people wearing kind of the same things and when you see someone dressed so colorful and different, it’s nice.”

Much like anime, the popularity of Decora is steadily rising in the United States. Jones, stationed in Oak Park, IL, has over 10,000 followers on Instagram and visits anime conventions such as Anime Central in Rosemont, IL, Tekko in Pittsburg, PA and Katsucon in National Harbor, MD to showcase her clothing line.

“A lot of what Decora derives from is anime,” said Anime Club Vice President, Emily Cherkinian. “So a lot of their inspiration comes from or came from anime.”

Anime Club is using this year to exhibit many things about Japanese culture that often goes overlooked and misunderstood, such as demonstrating J-Fashion with a kawaii week and an event with Students Who Are Not Silent (SWANS) on LGBTQ+ representation in anime.

“I have a project I’m working on now; I don’t want to release it yet, but we have some really exciting stuff coming up,” Cherkinian said. “We’re really revamping Anime Club this year, trying to introduce Japanese culture and how anime ties into that. We really want to educate our members that anime is just one part of Japanese culture, and there’s so much we can learn from them.”