Shoichi Aoki's Tasty FRUiTS Basket

“90’s Harajuku Style” is permanently embedded into my vocabulary. When I awake at 6am, and stumble through my closet to stretch tops of their hangers, tug skirts from drawers, and stuff my double-socked feet into platform shoes, my half-conscious brain is thinking, simply, “90’s Harajuku Style.” This is thanks to photographer Shoichi Aoki.

In the early 90s, Japanese kids were taking fashion to a level far from anything else in the world- they paid no attention to European and American trends, instead finding inspiration from their own history and culture. Something about Japan mesmerizes me. The art is entirely in its own lane. I love it.

I try to make sense of this for my own sanity. I credit Japan’s ethos to their 250 years of isolation from the rest of humanity. While the complexities of a “developing, modernizing” society were taking place overseas, Japan was stuck in what Westerners referred to as fairyland.

“In 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry had arrived in the Bay of Edo with steam-powered warships, fired seventy-three cannons in a show of dominance, and demanded Japan end its self-imposed isolation and open trade with the United States. Japan was forced to join the modern world,”

“The difference between the two nations could not have been more striking. Japan was a feudal society. They had not progressed technologically for more than two centuries since closing their ports in 1633. Yet Japan performed a miracle. In an instant, the entire nation focused on modernization. Against all odds, Japan not only resisted becoming a colony of the United States, but in a mere sixty years showed themselves to be a Great Power. The world was astounded,” (Yanagita Kunio, Tono Monogatari, 1910).

The rapid change must have been painful. I think this history has embedded itself into the roots of Japanese society and affects the youth and art.

In 1997, Shoichi Aoki founded the monthly FRUiTS magazine, where he documented his photographs of Harajuku street style. Harajuku is a cultural hub in Tokyo, a place where the youth gather- or rather, gathered– and expressed themselves. Nowadays, things look different in Harajuku. There is a reason FRUiTS is no longer in print.

Shoichi refers to the people he photographed as “fairies,” referencing their serendipitous and free states of being. He says one of the biggest reasons for the magazine’s closure was the disappearing amounts of fairies on the streets.

It was 1996 when the Tokyo youth declared themselves. Aoki remembers the kids pioneering their own styles- he called it “a Japanese fashion revolution.” What made it even more unique was that “back then that’s really not how fashion worked. Fashions were just trends made up by designers, brands, and magazines, and “fashion sense” was simply what you called it when people choose which ones to adopt,” (i-D 2017). This movement sprouted as something else entirely.

Unfortunately, this movement has now vanished. The Harajuku streets have been converted solely to consumption zones, removing any pedestrian walkways to make optimum room for parking. Aoki also blames smartphones, social media, and fast fashion, which all destroy innovation and support a horribly homogenous society.

Shoichi has hope for the future of Tokyo fashion. I don’t. The metaverse will continue to grow and people will continue to become overwhelmed in the doubt of an overtly judging and globalized world. Meanwhile, I will sit in this corner, gushing over FRUiTS archives.