Japanese Harajuku Fashion
Japan is a country built on Confucian Eastern values and is undergoing rapid economic and cultural development. One of the ways that it is culturally developing is through fashion. Japan is known to be a place like no other when it comes to fashion. The variety of styles found in districts like Harajuku, Ginza, and Shibuya are never-ending. However, it is said that a major contributor to Japan’s fashion and many of its’ subcultures originated in the district of Harajuku.
Harajuku is a district in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan that has influenced the way the youth express themselves through fashion as well as impacted the fashion world on a global scale.
Harajuku is an area in Tokyo, Japan that goes from Harajuku Station to Omotesando, a tree-lined street stretching from the Meiji Shrine entrance to Aoyama-dor. Located on this street are cafes, upscale fashion boutiques, and many other local businesses. During the Pre-Edo period, Harajuku was only a small post town on the Kamakura Highway.
The farmers who lived in Harajuku had trouble with production due to the poor quality of the land. As a result, the villages were never able to prosper as farm towns. During the postwar occupation, there was an increase in businesses that popped up in Harajuku. Stores like Kiddyland, an all-age and ever-changing toy store that has an immense variety of toys including animated character products both domestic and foreign, Oriental Bazaar, one of the biggest souvenir shops that sell Japanese related merchandise in Japan, and Fuji Tori, a shop that sells antiques and high-quality contemporary art/statement pieces, alongside many other stores opened along Omotesando.
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Their goal was to appeal to the US military soldiers and their families that were stationed nearby.
In the 1970s, Japan had an economic boom which allowedthatallowed that the personal consumption of each individual to increase. People began to purchase and wear more out there foreign clothing that included lots of color and patterns instead of wearing the subtle and more so traditional clothing of Japan like Kimonos. This was influenced by Western fashion trends and Wabi-sabi, a Japanese concept that finds beauty in the imperfect and impermanent. Also during this time was the building of Palais France, a building that sells fashion clothing, accessories, furniture, and other goods, and Laforet Harajuku, a department store and museum. The introduction of these two businesses is what started the reputation of Harajuku. The area become known as the center for fashion retail and was popularized in the 1980s due to street performers and boldly dressed teens who gathered there on Sundays when Omotesando was closed to traffic.
For the youth, Harajuku was the perfect social setting to hang out, intermingle with other youth, shop, and show off their fashion. Many fashion styles came to form and rise during this time. Fashion subcultures such as Visual Kei, a punk style that came from mixing elements of soft rock music with glamour, Crow fashion, a punk style that women wore as a form of rebellion by dressing in all black from head to toe, the girly Kawaii fashion, a style in which girls wrote, doodled, and adopted cuter styles of dress to set themselves apart of others, and the more casual black on denim are examples of the different fashion styles that filled the Harajuku fashion scene.
During Harajuku’s prime in the 90s or what is known as Harajuku’s ‘Golden Age’, crowds of up to 10,000 people would gather on the scene to listen to and enjoy the live music performances. Fashion subcultures such as sporty fashion, an informal style with clothing that is attractive, suitable, and comfy, Gothic Lolita, a style that mixes elements of the Gothic style and Victorian/Edwardian style, Shibuya casual style, a style where the youth of the time take over the role in street fashion and accelerated trends towards casual dress, French Casual Men, a french-inspired style that was influenced by the idea that fashion is about coordinating instead of representing a group, Femme o1, a 1970’s fashion style partially influenced by club music, Kawaii: Schoolgirl, a style where uniforms and miniskirts and school uniforms are worn by girls, Ganguro gal, an alternative style in where dark skin, colorful hair, and outrageous accessories are worn by younger women, and lastly Urahara, a style from the backstreets of Harajuku that mixes street fashion with anime, emerged during this time. However, in 1998 the closing of Omotesando street on Sundays was abolished and caused the diversity of fashion subcultures to present on the Harajuku fashion scene to plummet.
Despite the decrease in subculture presence on the Harajuku social scene, the fashion scene continued to thrive. Although the iconic Lolita girls and schoolgirls weren’t present on the streets of Harajuku anymore, fashion subcultures such as Decora, a playful and childlike style inspired by 1980’s anime characters, Unisex Kawaii, an androgynous street clothing style that is worn by both males and females, Dior Homme o, a popular high-end style for men in which they wore more stylish and mature clothing, Serebukei, a style that mixes high-end elements with street fashion elements due to Japanese fashion going global, and fast fashion, trending styles sold by retail stores such as H&M and Uniqlo, replaced Harajuku’s ‘Golden Age’ counterparts. These styles came to rise due to the constant flow of fashion students from the nearby art colleges that would go to Harajuku to experiment with fashion.
Another contributing factor that allowed the Harajuku fashion scene to survive and continue to thrive was the FRUiTS Fashion Magazine created by artist and photographer Shoichi Aoki in 1997. Shoichi Aoki was first inspired to make the magazine by a photograph he had taken of a teen on the streets of Harajuku. That’s when he realized that the youth of the time were creating their clothing and mixing it with traditional Japanese clothing rather than following foreign fashion trends the older generations used to express their individuality which is something never seen before. Aoki knew he had to record these styles because they never were gonna exist again. FRUiTS is a street fashion magazine that published monthly issues. The magazine consisted of single full-page photographs of styles found on the streets of Harajuku with a brief description of what brands the people were wearing, the influence/inspiration behind the style, and some facts about the person such as their age and occupation. FRUiTS Magazine documented the ever-changing fashion trends that would come and go on the Harajuku fashion scene. As a result, the trends would slowly spread across the nearby neighborhoods and then throughout Japan. When explaining how the Harajuku fashion scene worked, Shoichi Aoki stated, “New trends would hit the streets of Harajuku every three months. All it took was for a few pioneers to start doing something new, and before you knew it everyone else was getting in on it too.”
Not only was FRUiTS Magazine a major influencer in the Japanese fashion community, but it was also a major influencer on a global scale. The magazine helped turn the attention of Westerners towards Japanese street fashion which in turn caused a rise of interest in Japanese fashion and the role of Japanese youth to switch. This all started when the magazine caught the eye of the elite art publishing house Phaidon. Together with Aoki, they decided to publish several high-end books containing the Harajuku street works of Shoichi Aoki. In addition to the books, they also held exhibitions at galleries all around the world. This stamped Harajuku’s culture as a part of Japanese culture in the eyes of the world. People from all over were intrigued by the refreshing styles Japan had to offer both on the streets and the runway. Designers like Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, and Yohji Yamamoto dominated the fashion world with their concepts of Wabi-sabi, a prominent concept in Harajuku. Western fashion took inspiration from this movement and incorporated it into their fashion on the runway as well. Furthermore, the role of the Japanese youth also shifted. Rather than being consumers of Western fashion trends, the Japanese youth of today have become the producers of the many futuristic creative styles that are trending.
People from all over the world are looking at Japan’s fashion community to see what they come out with next including youth from other fashion subcultures. For example, the youth from London have adopted elements of Japonism into their clothing. Japonisme is a style that uses Japanese motifs such as cherry blossoms, kanji letters, and dragons and/or techniques that emulate the Japanese art of the past. People have designed all types of clothing that incorporates incorporate Japonisme. Famous high-end Japanese designers have shown it on the runway, international brands like Adidas and Forever 21 have added the decorations to their clothing, and street fashion art/photography Mascarenhasincorporates incorporate incorporated it into the fashion fast their works.
Even though Shoichi Aoki continued to document the revolutionary outfits that filled the streets of Harajuku, the abolishment of ‘Pedestrian Paradise’- or the closing of Omotesando street on Sundays caused a lot of damage to the fashion scene. Because the youth did not have a place to gather anymore and show off their clothing, the fashion scene of Harajuku gradually began to die down over the years. In 2017, the photographer decided to stop publishing monthly issues of FRUiTS due to the lack of content to fill the magazine and a decrease in magazine readers. This has caused many people to wonder what the future held for Harajuku fashion or claim that the Harajuku fashion scene is dead.
While a lot of people believe that the Harajuku scene is dead, others believe it is in the process of evolving. Due to the increase of globalization and tourism today, Harajuku has moved from being solely a creative fashion scene where youth can experiment comfortably with different trends to a popular tourist spot filled with fast-food restaurants and global retail stores like H&M and Zara. This has caused more fast fashion fast-fashion clothing to be incorporated and mixed with other types of clothing from second-hand stores, high-end brands, and boutiques found on the Harajuku streets. Furthermore, the impact of FRUiTS Magazine shutting down has caused the generation of fashionistas that now roam the streets of Harajuku to give birth to many other publications that have taken its place both online-with websites like TokyoFashion.com- and offline-with free independent magazines like ‘Fanatic’. Fanatic is a college-student ran magazine that emulates Aoki’s FRUiTS Magazine. This goes to show that the youth of today are taking initiative in making sure their cultures do not go unrecorded, something not seen when Aoki was still publishing Issues.
In conclusion, Harajuku is a place that harbors many fashion styles. It has given the youth throughout history a place to express themselves and push the boundaries of their creativity. Because of that, unique subcultures that have not been seen anywhere else in the world were able to emerge. The way the youth of Harajuku have used fashion to express themselves has inspired others throughout Japan and the world to do the same. Many elements of Harajuku’s fashion can be seen being incorporated and emulated all around the world. This was possible because of Shoichi Aoki, the founder of FRUiTS Magazine. By documenting the distinct styles of Harajuku in a time when people did not notice the change in the role fashion had toon the youth, the Harajuku culture was able to stretch its influence to a broader audience. Despite the abolishment of Pedestrian Paradise, a major contributing factor to the continued success of Harajuku as a fashion style powerhouse, Harajuku continued to allure artists of all kinds to its fashion scene. As a result, many styles continued to roam the streets. But as the times change, so does Harajuku. Due to a decrease in magazine readers throughout time, Aoki decided to stop publishing monthly issues of his magazine. This has caused participants of the Harajuku fashion scene to take matters into their own hands in making sure Harajuku keeps going. Additionally, there has also been a change in clothing sources due to the effects of globalization. Retail stores have gradually made their way to Harajuku’s social scene which has generated more styles unseen before. However it is too early to tell where the Harajuku fashion scene will go but because of the importanimportantce fashion is to the youth of Japan, the outcomes are limitless.
Japanese Harajuku Fashion. (2022, Apr 26). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/japanese-harajuku-fashion/
