Although they are very interested in looks and fashion and branded goods, the Japanese don’t seem to have an interest in beauty pageants.

Instead they’ve found a way to connect annoying cuteness with fashion and high-tech consumerism in something called Tokyo Girls Collection.

Tokyo Girls Collection is a fashion show and concert held in a large arena and is open to the public as well as journalists and buyers for stores. The models usually have a girl next door appeal and many are singers and actresses representing fashion companies and magazines and not professional runway models. Most appear to have eaten at least once in the last year.

The thing that makes the show interesting, even as it’s featured endlessly on the news for two days, is not only the spectacle of it but the shocking ordinariness of it all. This isn’t a Paris fashion show steeped in pomposity, false sophistication and the tragically trendy where the clothes being shown will never actually be worn–the fashion equivalent of concept cars–it’s ordinary looking people (albeit annoyingly cute ordinary people) wearing clothes that can be purchased at the show.

In fact, part of the spectacle is the droves of young women trying to watch the show whilst simultaneously working their smartphones to try to buy the clothes and accessories they’re seeing on the runway. In some cases the clothes can be picked up at the show; in other cases they are shipped to the buyer. Every year the news features a handful of young women who’ve both succeeded and failed to acquire what they were hoping to acquire. There are also interviews with women who’ve traveled several hours to be there.

The show has been popular enough over the past 10 years to spawn several rival shows–including a Tokyo Boys Collection–and has even been sent off to Beijing and the USA. It’s also grown in size and spectacle with more bands and more brands.

Eventually, I predict, it will simply become a concert and people will forget about the clothes.