The cheerful and decadent Japanese decoding trend is coming to America

a TikTok has been viewed nearly 650,000 times It opens with green and white frosting being smeared onto a regular phone case. A reading of Creepypasta about a faceless man being played on a speed clip as a hand enters and wraps around the edges. Plastic decorations are added one by one – butterfly, flowers, glitter powder and small pearls around the cutout for the camera lens.

The frosting isn’t edible, and a phone case isn’t just an exercise in decorating. TikTok is part of a file maximum A design aesthetic that is starting to catch on in the US, where clean and simple phone accessories have been ditched in favor of it The busiest cases you’ve ever seen. Every corner of the case is covered in gems, glue, glitter, and 3D extras including small stuffed animals. The result is a sumptuous—and blissful—embrace of the impractical, pinned to devices on which most of us run our lives’ work but are nearly indistinguishable from one another.

“It would be very uncomfortable to hold it,” reads a caption on TikTok. “Girl don’t bother you but how will that be in your pocket?”

Believers decoded are out of questions. “decode“Model” — short for “ornament” and “denua,” the Japanese word for phone — is reminiscent of the flashy foldable phones of the 2000s, where every inch of the device was covered in ornament. But compared to the flabby, click-to-click cellphones, the set-top box’s extravagant aesthetic is more in contrast to the devices it now covers: the sleek, unobtrusive smartphones that define it. corporate minimalism This has become synonymous with the term “high technology”. All of our phones look the same now – We might do something interesting for the cases.

Easy enough to visit Pete Coates, a small craft studio in Flushing, Queens. It’s still easier to pick and choose the right charms for your phone case. The hard part is to stop controlling yourself.

An entire wall in the studio is covered with rows of small acrylic drawers and shallow dishes, each containing a unique miniature figurine—or “charms,” ​​as they’re often referred to. They range in size, color, style, and materials, from a penny-sized rubber fried egg to 3-inch KAWS dolls, mini typewriters, and telephones. Miniature Baguette Drawer Blank, Used by DIY Customers.

Emily’s Cutes House opens in October 2021, inspired by similar works famous in China. (You asked the edge Just use her first name.) Although DIY shops are more common in China, Emily says this is the only DIY decoding studio in New York. Her client base is largely made up of teens and young women between the ages of 16 and 24 who come in groups—especially on weekends—to decorate phone cases, picture frames, hair clips, and AirPods cases.

For $39.99, customers get a new clear silicone case for their phone, plus all the charms, beads, and figurines they can fit in. The charms are attached to the case with a super strong “whipped cream” glue that is similar to frosting but thicker and stickier. Customers choose a plastic frosting tip that gives a cake-like effect, and Emily gives a quick lesson on how to attach a squeeze tube to make the glue look tidy.

“Some people go crazy because they see so much magic,” says Emily. Others come with a reference photo from Instagram from which they copy a design they found. The Hello Kitty and Kuromi figurines are especially popular with customers.

In one instance, I settled on the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach: Mario and Pikachu, a TV that says “TV” and a peach sponge that I later realized was scented. On the other hand, I decided to be a bit more conservative and opted for bright yellow frosting glue, plastic diamonds, and stuffed bunnies and strawberries.

After I carefully press charms onto a bed of piping glue, Emily places the phone cases into clear plastic tote boxes with a handle on top—like something a slice of birthday cake would be handed. Several days later, once the glue seemed to have completely dried, I took out the battered dark blue case I bought when I got my phone and replaced it with a Cutes House stuffed animal case.

The case is comically large in my pocket. The blurry strawberry is very close to the camera’s wide-angle lens, giving the super-resolution images a fuzzy red dot in the corner. Mostly, the case is an effective way of distraction and fidgeting. As I wait for the train, I find myself absentmindedly petting the soft little plush toys that are now glued to my iPhone.

Is it the most practical for everyday use? No, but it’s perfect to use when the mood strikes and for mirror selfies.

There’s just something special about the decoder cases, though they’re a little bulkier than the out-of-the-box option. In a time of mass-produced, low-risk, algorithm-friendly tasting uniformity, there’s an allure to owning something unique and one-of-a-kind, even if the item is as mundane as a phone case. You might hate a bunny-strawberry-glitter frosting box, but you couldn’t buy yourself one even if you wanted to. Likewise, each person who comes to the Cutes House and decorates something will leave with an item that they chose on purpose and made themselves.

The desire to modify and personalize our technology is insatiable. Apple, perhaps realizing this, introduced more tools for tweaking iPhone lock screens last year. iPhone colors continue to expand. there A sprawling market For custom app icons, platforms like Snapchat have introduced the feature to paying subscribers. In a way, Decode is just a flashier physical appearance for the exact same market.

As indicated by the origin of the name, decoding was historically popular in Asian countries such as Japan and China. Many of the artists and business owners decoded are also Asian and are tapped into trends and aesthetics that are popular in Asia and have yet to penetrate in the United States.

Decryption vendors believe the pattern will continue to expand in the United States. During the first four months of opening her Etsy shop, Los Angeles-based decoder artist Qian Qian “Fiona” Lin says she didn’t sell a single phone case. A fan of the style first, she bought the bags online and then stocked up on the supplies to make them herself. Lynn now runs her own Etsy shop, Handmade FifiAs a side business, he sold decoded phone cases, hair clips, hand mirrors, and other items. Relatively simple cases run about $20, with more ornate styles running around $55. Since orders started rolling in, Lynn says her business has only continued to grow.

Lynn has dozens of little talismans in drawers at home, in the workspace where she makes bags to sell online. I’ve made hundreds of cases so far and have perfected the hand motions to make the whipped glue look even and the placement of the lures balanced. It takes about an hour to submit each case.

“It doesn’t take long,” says Lynn. “But the design and the idea take more time.”

Expensive decoupage can look messy, but there’s a calculated art to jamming dozens of little charms onto colorful frosting glue. Adding too many pieces, Lin warns, and the styling can end up looking messy; Choosing lures in the same color scheme also helps make the final product look more cohesive.

Lin works with clients to come up with a design or color scheme for their case, sending photos of available charms and possible arrangements. Lynn, like Emily, says her clients especially love the Sanrio and Disney characters. The anxiety about choice I felt while making a case at Cutes House, seems to be a familiar feeling. Lin had a hard time choosing a favorite magic.

“They are all nice,” she says, laughing. “I love them all.”

Consumers have an endless choice of mobile phone accessories, and phone cases are a multi-billion dollar industry — from sculpted resin cases handcrafted by artists to the mass-produced pink camouflage OtterBox cases sold at local Verizon stores. Lane, who also sells the bags personally at fairs and craft markets, says a big draw for customers is the cases’ deconstructed novelty—despite the heft and added weight of glue and embellishments, customers want something different than everyone else has.

“They don’t want the same style as everyone else,” says Lane. “They want private.”

Lin uses the decoding state and switches it frequently. She estimates that she changes her phone case once a month to test new designs for her store. But I’m surprised to see Emily opt for a matte, unglazed case with a minimal Year of the Rabbit design, something you might find hanging on a shelf in a store—no beads, charms, glitter, or toys to be found. She prefers to keep something simple on her phone, lest it get dirty at work.