Fruits

In the 1990s, an innovative form of self-expression emerged from the streets of Tokyo. Teenagers and young adults appropriated key items of designer apparel and added their own, often wildly mismatched pieces and accessories—a too-short red striped schoolboy uniform with white platform space boots, for example, or a petticoat skirt with pink argyle socks, a Barbie purse, and a hooded cape with animal ears—to create personal fashion statements. Photographer Shoichi Aoki began documenting the trend in 1994, publishing his photos in a fanzine he called Fruits. This 2001 book is his first collection of photos, a riot of glossy color capturing a surprising individualism in Japanese youth culture.