Style Without Apologies

Fell down a Harajuku Hipster rabbit hole this week. It’s a Tumblr that just collects kids from Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai—whoever’s walking around with the kind of confidence that comes from not checking if what you’re wearing is supposed to work together. Schoolgirls in Shibuya layering colors that shouldn’t sit next to each other. Models from Seoul who make you think they’ve figured something out. Guys from China in outfits that look like three different aesthetics somehow became one person.

I used to think style was about taste, about knowing the rules well enough to break them correctly. Watching these kids, I don’t think they know any rules. They just got dressed and didn’t apologize about it. That indifference to consensus—that’s what separates the people who look like themselves from the people who look like an idea of what they should be. Most fashion blogs get that backwards. They show you people who nailed it. This just shows you people being themselves, and somehow that’s more interesting.