More fun than the current urban US styles

The world of High Fashion, to me, is very overrated and as about comprehensible as the game of cricket. However, there always will be certain fashion statements that are commendable and more to the point, fun. Take for instance the swank area of Toyko, Harajuku, where back in the mid to late 90s, photographer Shoichi Aoki started documenting street fashion that changed from following American and European fashion to something completely their own. Teenagers were designing their own fashion, combining traditional Japanese dress with homemade and other designer fashions. The completed ensembles run the visual gamut from goth to anime and a combination of everything in-between. Aoki started a monthly photographic fanzine titled FRUiTS that showcased these teenagers and their wondrous accomplishments and in 2001, Phaidon Press (a publisher of fine art books) published a compilation of Aoki's photographs titled FRUiTS. This was followed up by a second volume just now published titled FRESH FRUiT.



Here's a sampling of some of the images as they are difficult to describe. They are , in fact, something to just view and absorb. Weird? Maybe. Silly? Maybe. But one can not deny the uniqueness that now High Fashion is attempting to copy.