Harajuku
Harajuku (原宿 "meadow lodging")
is the common name for the area around
Harajuku Station on the
Yamanote Line in the
Shibuya ward of
Tokyo,
Japan.
Every Sunday, young people dressed in a variety of styles including
gothic lolita,
visual kei, and
decora, as well as
cosplayers
spend the day in Harajuku socializing. The fashion styles of these
youths rarely conform to one particular style and are usually a mesh of
many. Most young people gather on
Jingu Bridge, which is a pedestrian bridge that connects Harajuku to the neighboring
Meiji Shrine area.
Harajuku is also a fashion capital of the world, renowned for its unique street fashion.
Harajuku street style is promoted in Japanese and international publications such as
Kera,
Tune,
Gothic & Lolita Bible and
Fruits.
Many prominent designers and fashion ideas have sprung from Harajuku
and incorporated themselves into other fashions throughout the world.
Harajuku is also a large
shopping district that includes international brands, its own brands, and shops selling clothes young people can afford.
Location
Harajuku is an area between
Shinjuku and
Shibuya. Local landmarks include the headquarters of
NHK,
Meiji Shrine, and
Yoyogi Park.
The area has two main shopping streets,
Omotesandō and
Takeshita Street (
Takeshita-dōri). The latter caters to youth fashions and has many small stores selling
Gothic Lolita,
visual kei,
rockabilly,
hip hop, and
punk outfits,
in addition to fast food outlets and so forth.
Omotesandō has recently seen a rise in openings of up-scale fashion shops such as
Louis Vuitton,
Chanel, and
Prada. The avenue is sometimes referred to as "Tokyo's
Champs-Élysées".
Until 2004, one side of the avenue was occupied by the
Dōjunkai Aoyama apāto,
Bauhaus-inspired apartments built in 1927 after the
1923 Kantō earthquake. In 2006 the buildings were controversially destroyed by
Mori Building and replaced with the "
Omotesando Hills"
shopping mall, designed by
Tadao Ando.
The area known as "Ura-Hara", back streets of Harajuku, is a center of Japanese fashion for younger people—brands such as
A Bathing Ape and
Undercover have shops in the area.
History
Harajuku as it is now traces its roots to the end of
World War II during the
Allied occupation of Japan.
U.S. soldiers and government civilians and their families lived in a
nearby housing area called Washington Heights. It became an area where
curious young people flocked to experience a different culture and
stores in the area stocked goods marketed towards middle and upper class
Japanese and Americans.
In 1958, Central Apartments were built in the area and were quickly occupied by fashion designers, models, and photographers.
In
1964, when the Summer Olympics came to Tokyo the Harajuku area was further developed, and the idea of “Harajuku” slowly began to take a more concrete shape.
After the Olympics the young people who hung out in the area, frequently referred to as the Harajuku-zoku,
or the Harajuku tribe, began to develop a distinct culture and style
unique to different groups and the area. From this distinct style grew
the culture of Harajuku as a gathering ground for youths and as a
fashion mecca.
Styles
The term "Harajuku Girls" has been used by English-language media to
describe teenagers dressed in any fashion style who are in the area of
Harajuku.
This fashion infuses multiple looks and styles to create a unique form
of dress. The cyber-punk look takes its influence from gothic fashion
and incorporates neon and metallic colors.
Punk style in Harajuku is more of a fashion than a statement.
Its fashion mainly consists of dark colors, plaid, chains, and zippers.
Punk style is also one of the more gender-neutral fashions in Harajuku.
Ganguro
is a style that symbolizes the average American teenager. The term
translates to ‘black-faced’. The basic look is what Westerners would
call a ‘California girl’, with bleached hair, dark skin, fake eyelashes
and nails. It is not clear how Ganguro came to be. Many assume
it originated in the early 1990s, and was meant as a way of rebelling
against the traditional Japanese ideas of beauty (pale skin, dark hair,
etc.)
Cosplay
is more of a costume-based style. A cosplay enthusiast will usually
dress as a fictional or iconic character from a band, game, movie,
anime, or
manga.
Ura-Hara is another section of Harajuku, which caters to a mostly male population interested in a
hip-hop,
graffiti, and skater fashion and culture.
Ura-Hara is seen as the opposite of Harajuku in that it’s more hidden and reserved.
In addition to Harajuku is its counterpart, known as
Visual Kei.
this refers to the style of bands and their fanbase. The term Visual
Kei literally means a ‘visual style of music’. The melodies of the music
these bands perform often resemble eighties rock,
heavy metal,
or techno; in some cases, the sound is a good mix of the three. The
fashion began in the 1980s, when American metal bands were popular.
Japanese fans loved how their idols would dress frantically and paint
makeup wildly on their faces, so they began to emulate their style. This
mimicking is also known is costume play, or cosplay
Impact
Some countries have embraced this culture and arrange meetings under
the same fashion as their Japanese counterpart. For example, in
Colombia they are frequently held at the surrounding area of the
Virgilio Barco Library in
Bogotá.
Sumber :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harajuku
