Label Text:
edition: 15/20

Western-style bars were an important fixture of Ginza, offering entertainment and imported alcohol to cosmopolitan Tokyoites. The name of this bar, French for “Smile Bar,” was meant to evoke the exciting demimondes of Paris, and was especially appropriate for Ginza, whose boulevards and plazas were inspired by Haussmann’s Paris. While the interior of Bar Sourire does evoke a Parisian brasserie, complete with rows of well-lit bottles of alcohol, ferns on stands, and even what appears to be a Neoclassical sculpture, the female bar attendants at lower right still wear kimonos. In contrast, the man at lower left, who could be a patron or a piano player, sports a jaunty cap and Western-style suit. The people of Ginza, like their surroundings, were also in flux.

BB, 2014

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