Fashioning Japanese Subcultures

Tokyo as a fashion city is still marginal from a global perspective, but it is no longer merely a city in which Western fashion is widely appreciated and consumed. Since the mid-1990s, Japanese youth have been playing a crucial role in forming unique fashion communities and producing creative styles that reflect their subcultural affiliation and identity. The youth subcultures in Tokyo are geographically and stylistically defined, such as Lolita in Harajuku, Gyaru and Gyaru-o in Shibuya, Agejo in Shinjuku and Mori Girl in Kouenji, among others. The Japanese subcultural phenomena that blur the boundary between professionals and amateurs for models, photographers, merchandisers and designers, are drawing attention and gaining popularity, and are spreading internationally through individual and institutional networks. This insightful research, based on thorough ethnographical fieldwork in Tokyo, is the first theoretical and analytical study on Japan's contemporary youth subcultures and their stylistic expressions.