When
I lived in Tokyo in the 1980s one of my favorite pastimes was observing
the street fashion bursting all around me (and trying in my own way to
emulate it). And every time I have visited Japan since (trips too
numerous to count!), I still can’t get enough of it. I’m not talking
about the more over-the-top stuff like Lolita Goth or those manga maids
and cos-play, or the wildness you might see in the
Fruits
series. And I’m not talking about Gwen Stefani’s lame attempts at
capturing Harajuku fashion. I’m talking about how many young people
(and some not-so-young) make an effort to look “put-together” when they
go out of the house. In Tokyo or Osaka or Kyoto you don’t just “throw
something on” when you go out, even when you’re running errands. You
take pride in your appearance and feel good about yourself.
And
this isn’t all about brands and haute couture. In fact, it’s often
absent from the scene. This is about how young women (and men too) take
disparate pieces of clothing, shoes and accessories and come up with a
creative, fashionable outfit that expresses their personality along
with the latest fashion trends.
I was a big fan of the Sex and
the City TV show, but even though I love fashion I was never crazy
about the clothes on that program. The outfits seemed inaccessible and
often the result of over-trending, which led to the four women often
looking like fashion victims instead of trendsetters.
I
certainly haven’t been all over the world, but I have spent quality
time in Manhattan, Chicago, Los Angeles and Paris, and have lived most
of my life in San Francisco and its environs. And I think Japan (and
especially Tokyo) still rules the street fashion world. Japanese put an
importance on accessible, smart style that I don’t think exists to this
extent anywhere else in the world, though I have to say I do not have
much experience with London (only spent two days there long ago) and
I’ve yet to visit Hong Kong, Seoul, or Shanghai (which I assume
probably take their cues from Tokyo).
Of course I’d love to hop
a plane right now and be back in the thick of Tokyo fashion, but thanks
to the Internet I can see what’s happening on Tokyo streets right now.
There are many Web sites devoted to Tokyo street fashion, but one of my
favorites is
Tokyo Street Style.
TSS offers photos of the fashionable strolling the top fashionable
Tokyo districts: Shibuya, Harajuku, Ginza, Daikanyama, and Omotesando
and is updated weekly.
When I wanted the art department at my
publisher to change Midori’s face on the original cover of Midori by
Moonlight, I sent them three photos from the Ginza section and they did
a great composite job of creating the face I had envisioned for her.
The pictures on TSS are all real people—not models—and show that everyone can have a great sense of style if they want to.