ordinary supermodels

Pawel Jaszczuk's “HIGH FASHION” and what it says about Japan's work culture

Hi there! This mini essay is the third part of a 5 part series where I examine various photography collections and reflect on how they each have reshaped by own view on life. This was a pretty sobering essay to write, but I’m glad we’ve made it halfway through.

“HIGH FASHION” is a book containing a series of 84 photographs taken by Pawel Jaszczuk of drunk salarymen sleeping in the streets of Tokyo. Taken between 2008 and 2010, he would head out on his bicycle after midnight, between 1 am and 4 am to photograph these salarymen, often strewn amongst the streets of Japan in wildly amusing positions.

The name “HIGH FASHION” came from the juxtaposition of seeing these salarymen, caught in the flash of Jaszczuk’s camera, still in their expensive suits and slumped over in poses akin to one a supermodel would make for a shoot— ridiculous in its artistry. Of course, the irony lies in the fact that the backdrop of these poses were not the carefully curated ones seen in a fashion magazine, but rather the grimy concrete of midnight Japan. But if not for that, the glossy pages on which the photographs are printed on, mixed with the extravagance of the poses are reminiscent of a Vogue magazine, quite literally the very epicentre of high fashion.

Jaszczuk draws on this brand of deeply satirical humour to probe the viewer to push past the initial absurdity of it all, to look beyond the photograph and at the true cause of what brought these otherwise very dignified and proper salarymen in this exact position of lying on filthy ground.

Masterfully making use of irony, Jaszczuk uses the striking difference between the viewer’s expectations of seeing Japan presented as it usually is: a country characterised by its emphasis on cleanliness and presentation, and instead presenting to the viewer a completely different image of Japan: dirty, undignified, imperfect. In doing so, he challenges the viewer to evaluate their own perceptions of Japan and its work culture, to deepen their understanding into one that is more nuanced, more real.

But first, to better understand this collection, one has to be familiarised with Japan’s work culture. While many things are integral to Japan’s culture, one key aspect of it—an over-emphasis on hierarchy— has seeped into Japan’s work culture and now forms part of the very foundation of it, setting up a complex web of unspoken rules and turning the corporate world into a minefield littered with hidden mines ready to go off at the smallest mistake, becoming a key reason as to why the phenomenon of drunk salarymen has become on so ubiquitous with Japan’s workplace.

This series of photographs shines a light on a phenomenon that serves as the culmination of a toxic insistence on hierarchy, deferential compliance, and complex corporate politics: Nomikai. It’s a Japanese word used to describe a drinking party, though in this case it refers specifically to a business setting and amongst colleagues.

This battlefield of complex workplace politics is one few are willing to miss out on, and for good reason. For one, alcohol serves as free-flow social lubricant; it’s not too hard for a boss to overlook the presence of an annoying co-worker when they are too drunk to talk straight. Furthermore, these events are often the first step to receiving promotions, contracts, and other work related benefits, making them the perfect place and time to suck up. Play your cards right, and this night of drinking could result in an easy opportunity to climb the corporate ladder.

But I think what this specific collection of images show is something darker than a lucky chance to make it big. It shows the grim reality of what happens when deferential work culture— the social obligation for a worker to comply to his higher-ups, his superiors— is placed in a situation that causes it to spin from merely a social norm into something more insidious: a power imbalance.

This imbalance gives superiors leeway, consciously or not, to push workers beyond their limit, a privilege cemented by the worker’s inability to refuse any order at risk of destroying his position, his job, his life as he knows it. This kind of power is perpetuated by Japan’s heavy emphasis on maintaining hierarchy.

Behaviour like raising your voice at younger workers and criticising them, even when they are really in the right, is commonplace in Japan. That’s why such a strongly defined and respected hierarchy system is so dangerous, because it gives higher-ups the power to switch the narrative so strongly that even acts of verbal and physical abuse are considered permissible.

Especially in a setting that involves alcohol, a substance known to intoxicate and blur all rational thought, this can cause nomikai to very quickly escalate from a happy gathering to genuinely dangerous. Even if nothing happens at the party itself, the train systems in Japan stops at around 12am, leaving many of these workers passed out and on the streets, in very vulnerable positions.

It’s easy to dismiss the worker’s poses in Jaszczuk’s collection as being simply humorous, but upon further inspection the photographs reflect this deep sense of futility— of a desperate clawing for success, even at the expense of one’s dignity, but nevertheless a fight that can never be won. There is something so cruel about being trapped in a system that fights to actively suppress you, to stretch you to your limit, all while dragging and exhausted body through 60 hour work weeks.

It calls into question the very way work has been presented, how the narrative that it is a necessary burden has been rationalised by society when in fact work does not need a be something completely devoid of enjoyment, of passion. And so maybe, as much as the workers felt coerced into drinking beyond their limits, maybe some part of them hidden deep down, enjoyed the brief reprieve from a never ending cycle.

Because I must imagine that for these salarymen, the few hours they got away from reality must have felt like heaven: drunk on beer and detached from the harsh reality of life, blissfully unknowing of the world that thrums to life beneath their still bodies. Oh, what a cruelty it must have been, to wake up once again, shirts cleanly pressed, with no choice but to continue this battle they knew was never going to be won.