Interview

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Over the last two decades, Japanese street fashion has undergone a radical transformation. Throughout much of the 1980s, an economic bubble in Japan fueled a fervent hunger for Western luxury labels such as Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Gucci, Prada, Armani, and Burberry. When that boom turned to a bust in the early 1990s, the country fell into a deep recession, driving a logo-manic rebellion among Japanese kids, whereby youthful unrest took the form of conspicuous consumption. In the West, the tradition of teenage-rebel fashion has often involved adopting a kind of underclass stance, but within the more strictly defined—and paternalistic—structure of Japanese society, really sticking it to your parents in the post-bubble era required spending money that they no longer had by devouring, customizing, prominently displaying, and sometimes even defacing the very same status-signifying brands that they so coveted. This gave rise to Tokyo’s teenage wasteland, the Harajuku shopping district, which even today more closely resembles a chaotic 24-hour open-air fashion show, but which also provided the environment in which Hiroshi Fujiwara and a group of like-minded musicians, stylists, and designers infused the scene with a different sensibility.

A budding DJ and punk-rock obsessive, Fujiwara had traveled to London and New York City in the 1980s, immersing himself in the white-lightning insurgent innovation of the cities’ respective post-punk and hip-hop scenes. For Fujiwara, the experience was nothing short of a revelation. In the early part of the decade, Japan’s primary contribution to international fashion mainly consisted of high-end modernist designers such as Rei Kawakubo, Issey Miyake, and Yohji Yamamoto. But in hip-hop and skate culture especially, Fujiwara saw a seamless world in which music, fashion, and art formed the basis of an entire youth-oriented lifestyle. Before Fujiwara, it seemed as though most DJs in Tokyo played whatever records the bar or club they were spinning at happened to have on hand; but, inspired by the hip-hop DJs he saw in New York, Fujiwara started taking his own records to gigs and mixing obscure tracks into his carefully curated sets. He hooked up with a hip-hop label, Major Force, and began wearing Western skate brands like Stüssy. In 1989, he started his own clothing line, Goodenough, which brought a high-fashion consciousness to the design of streetwear. Both immediately achieved a cult status among Harajuku kids, who embraced what Fujiwara was doing as a movement toward fashion that was less about adolescent rebellion and more about youthful self-expression. In 1993, he helped two young style enthusiasts—Jun Takahashi, who would go on to found the avant-garde label Undercover, and Nigo, who would launch his own line, A Bathing Ape—open a Harajuku store called Nowhere, which stocked their respective wares as well as those by Nike and Adidas, and an assortment of international street brands. But more important, Fujiwara fundamentally changed the face of Japanese street style, giving easily produced pieces like T-shirts, sweatshirts, and sneakers a currency (and a price point) once reserved for Western designer goods, and he became a chief architect of the scarcity- and limited-edition-obsessed culture that now dominates street fashion on a global level.

Maintaining relevance for more than 20 years in a trend-consumed and unforgiving market such as Japan’s is quite a feat, but Fujiwara—or HF, as his friends know him—has managed to do just that. Today his influence can be seen in a multitude of arenas. Many contemporary street-influenced Japanese fashion creators have gained popularity outside their homeland in recent years, but Fujiwara laid the foundations on which they have built mini-empires. He helped write the textbook definition of clean, understated “stealth” styling by knowing just what’s right at any given time, and through his three-man operation, Fragment, he has designed and consulted for a multitude of internationally recognized heavy hitters, including Nike, Levi’s, and Starbucks. His website, Honeyee.com, a collaboration with SOPH. founder Hirofumi Kiyonaga and Visvim designer Hiroki Nakamura, has also become one of the most widely referenced street-fashion hubs on the web.

Recently on a balmy Saturday afternoon Fraser Cooke caught up with the 46-year-old Fujiwara near his Roppongi Hills residence in Tokyo for a civilized chat over a cup of tea.