Japan is warily welcoming Donald Trump as the U.S. president, wondering what his administration will mean for their security alliance and already seeing what it means for their trade relationship.
But there are no such mixed feelings about Trump’s eldest daughter: Ivanka Trump is widely revered as the perfect woman here.
Among some Japanese women, Ivanka Trump is seen as an aspirational figure who has combined motherhood and career while managing to look perfectly put-together all the time (although her glamorous Instagram photos never show the retinues of nannies and assistants and hairdressers that answer the question of “how does she do it all?”).
Japan remains a highly patriarchal society, where men spend long hours at the office and women are often expected to give up their jobs after getting married or having babies.
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But Trump offers an example of how to be strong but not scary, said Yuriko Shinzato, 32, a freelance writer and mother of a 6-year-old daughter. “She is a good example that a woman can do an outstanding job and handle a misogynist father like Trump, without pushing too much of a feminist agenda or confronting men too much,” Shinzato, who blogs about Ivanka Trump’s fashion and lifestyle, told the Japan Times. “That is something that Japanese women want but have a hard time doing in a still male-dominated society.”
As a result, the Trump daughter has quite a following here. The Japanese Internet was abuzz after the election at a tabloid report that Trump might be the next American ambassador to Japan, and she won Japanese fans when she posted a video of her daughter, Arabella Rose, performing the song “Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Pen” by the Japanese comedian known as Piko Taro.
Japanese women gush about her on social media. “This is the woman I like now. Ivanka Trump. I love it that she’s not only beautiful but also clever and has a graceful air. I think women should be kind and gentle,” wrote Sachiko W. on a portrait that Trump had posted on Instagram.
On Twitter, news announcer Mari Maeda posted a photo of Trump in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York. “Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka-san, who made it into the administration transfer team. She waved at me when I called out to her at the Trump Tower,” Maeda wrote. “What a figure she has even after having three children. So frank and cute!”
This popularity is translating into increased demand for Ivanka Trump’s fashion business in Japan. Sales have skyrocketed since Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. presidential election — although from a very low, almost negligible, base.
Waja, a popular Japanese online retailer, sells handbags and dresses on its Ivanka Trump page.
It averaged some 30 hits a day before the Nov. 8 election. Immediately afterward, it was racking up 10,000 hits a day, although that has since tapered off to about 500 hits a day. Before the election, Waja sold only a few Ivanka Trump dresses a month, said spokeswoman Yukie Suzuki. But it sold 170 dresses in November — 28 times as many as the year before — and another 140 frocks in December.
In the United States, Ivanka Trump’s sales suffered during the presidential campaign amid revelations of statements that her father had made about women.
“You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody?” Donald Trump told Howard Stern in 2003. “And I helped create her. Ivanka.”
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