style
The Harajuku Style

December 14, 2011

Fashions vary drastically from culture to culture, but in Japan fashion often has the feel of a cultural melting pot, a blending of every popular style around the world in an effort to create something startlingly new. This look is nowhere more evident than in Tokyo’s Harajuku district where teenagers and young adults play hookie from work and school to assemble experimental ensembles from the area’s eclectic boutiques.  It’s called “Harajuku Style” and this sartorial cross between OSM and  j/k has launched some popular looks:  the Gothic Lolita—in which teenage girls wear frilly, knee-length dresses like aristocratic, religious school girls; the Visual Kei— a cross between 1980’s punk rockers and female video game characters; and the Kawaii & Decora—a style that pairs brightly colored child’s clothes in polka dots, ruffles and big bows with a ton of outrageous accessories from stuffed animals to plastic umbrellas to oversized sunglasses. While Harajuku Style may strike the outside observer as a fashion disaster or party dare at first glance, it’s this carefree experimentation from Tokyo’s trendiest shopping area which gives the rest of the world a test run in playful dress combinations that work—and of course, those which don’t.

(Image: LHOON)

(Image: LHOON)

(Image: ChaTo)

Sam Feeder is a poet/writer/ photographer who works primarily in Los Angeles and Austin. Feeder is a careful observer and tries to experience as many different aspects of life as possible, ranging from travels all over the world to discovering that hole-in-the-wall restaurant or bar no one knows about.

Image: ChaTo