Dressed in Tokyo

Before Japan ends in an atomic war with North Korea and individual style stops mattering, I wanted to photograph some people who actually know how to dress. The kind of style you don’t see much in Berlin or Munich or anywhere else in Germany. So I wandered around Harajuku, Shibuya, and Shimokitazawa with a camera, using my broken Japanese on strangers and photographing whoever said yes.

There was Suzy, wildly colorful, looking cooler than cool in front of a vending machine. Kazuki and Akira, full hypebeasts. Lilly with red hair. Kanaho, who designs jewelry. One guy whose name I didn’t catch said something I didn’t understand, but I think he was making a point about pictures saying more than words.

What strikes me about Tokyo style is how unapologetic it is. People dress for themselves, not for some abstract idea of what dressing should look like. There’s a confidence in how they move through color and texture, pulling off combinations that shouldn’t work but do. In Germany, even in supposedly creative cities, there’s this baseline conservatism. Everyone’s optimizing, trying to look like a smarter version of themselves. In Tokyo, people are just trying to be themselves, which somehow ends up looking like something entirely different.

At least I have the pictures.