Japanese lifestyle irresistible for westerners.

Under the title “Yen for Japan”, the online magazine Luxury Defined from Christie’s International Real Estate recently reported on the fascination of the Japanese lifestyle and aesthetics in interior design for many people in the western hemisphere.

The starting point of this trend is said to be an article by a newspaper journalist in 1885, which reported on a newly opened exhibition in Knightsbridge, London: “The whole scene (is) quaintly Oriental and almost bewildering at the first view in such as no stay-at-home Englishman has ever before had within his reach.” The exhibition in question was the wildly popular Japanese Village, in which up to 100 “genuine natives of Japan” performed daily tasks and rituals around an ersatz Japanese village, Luxury Defined continues.