Takeshita-dori
Young people who had no interest in the prevailing trends gathered in Harajuku, and the street became a place to show each other what they had put together.
Style encyclopedia
原宿系Harajuku
Origin/JapanCountry
Colour and pattern piled on by addition, born in Harajuku. At its centre is an attitude: the question is not whether it suits you, but whether you want to wear it.
Where it began
It grew out of what young people were actually wearing on Takeshita-dori and the backstreets around it. The street-snap magazine FRUiTS, launched in 1997, photographed them issue after issue and carried the look abroad, which is how it came to be named as a style at all.
How it spread
It reached the world through the streets of Harajuku and the street-snap photography taken there — the lineage that most shaped the overseas image of Japanese street fashion.
How to recognise it
Several primary colours at once, patterns layered without hesitation, accessories used in quantity. It is the exact opposite discipline to styles built by subtraction.
What it costs
¥3,000–20,000. Mixing secondhand with new is assumed, so the range is wide.
Timeline
Era
early 1990s – now
Price range
¥3,000–20,000
Dominant
—
Key brands
ACDC RAG · MILK · LISTEN FLAVOR · Candy Stripper · PUNYUS · ANAP · WEGO
Headings are written in the language of the style's place of origin.