Fruits

The portraits gathered in photographer Shoichi Aoki's book Fruits point the way to an extraordinarily colorful array of youthful self-expression in a country typically not known for that — Japan.

There is energy and creativity in the teenagers who wear a mixture of high fashion and homemade ensembles. On the streets of Harajuku in Tokyo, they create a novel and intriguing record of life.

While the eye is drawn to the colorful and fascinating street fashion, the backgrounds — vending machines and ever-present Gap stores — are constant reminders of the global mass market.

Mr. Aoki's extensive collection of cult images represents a unique documentation of the explosion and changing face of street fashion throughout the last decade.

The streets and suburbs of Tokyo are captured in an innovative light — in celebration of the diversity of Mr. Aoki's sharply depicted youth.

At the same time, the youth depicted by Mr. Aoki leaves the observer wondering what the over-the-top character of the images indicates about the state of present-day Japan.

It is a country with a lot of potential and beauty on the one hand. But, on the other hand, it is also a country with a shaky economy and very stifling routines.

The latter in particular is highly frustrating to the country's youth. Mr Aoki's images may be understood as live-wire testimony to that split reality.

About Shoichi Aoki

Photographer Shoichi Aoki's interest in street fashion was sparked in the mid-1990s — when he noticed a marked change in the way young people were dressing in Tokyo's fashionable Harajuku area.

Rather than mimicking European and American trends, his country's youth were personalizing elements of traditional Japanese dress — kimono, obi sashes and geta sandals — and blending them with home-made, secondhand and alternative designer fashion. Inspired by this new fashion, the photographer established a monthly magazine called Fruits.

Since it began circulating in 1997, Shoichi Aoki's magazine has attracted an international cult following for its celebration of the freshness of fashion in Harajuku.