Maid in Japan

The hippest new Tokyo neighborhood is…Culver City? The trendy Los Angeles arts district is in a state of Japanomania over this fall’s Takashi Murakami retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art downtown. Most intriguing is the opening of Royal T, a gallery-cum-teahouse funded by collector Susan Hancock. Based on Tokyo’s so-called maid cafés (kitschy takes on the traditional Japanese teahouse, where clients are served by waitresses in sexy costumes), Royal T, which will stay open for one year, will have all the trappings of its Far Eastern counterparts but, unlike the originals, will be decorated with Hancock’s collection of contemporary Japanese art.

Waitresses: Noboru Hashimoto/Corbis; Rendering: Goto Design/wHY Architecture