by Jacquie Angt

The fact that Chronicle Books published Style Deficit Disorder: Harajuku Street Fashion Tokyo for New York Fashion Week 2008 in February should have been a hint to the universal influence the little street of Harajuku wields.

Once upon a time, it was a place for the Japanese to look at foreign culture and style. Today, the view is reversed— through the looking-glass, the international fashion institution is the awestruck Alice in Wonderland in search of its muse in Harajuku’s cross-pollinated street culture, which is just a mere square-mile of a neighborhood but has made Tokyo’s mark on the world’s fashion map as a cutting-edge style mecca, driving the world’s most trailblazing designers with inspirational sparks of brilliance. It is the portal to a bold new world.

“You walk into Harajuku and — bam! — you’re in outer space.” What, exactly, is Harajuku? Is it a place, the nerve center at the heart of fashion?

Is it a symbol, brought to life by the characters who want to do (or be) something now?

Is it a language, an idea, a concept, a philosophy, articulated and circulated through street fashion publications?

Or is it a moment, borne out of a vicious acceleration as Harajuku races towards the next Big Thing?

This certainly explains the book’s title. As Godoy noted: “Trends appear in a flash and disappear just as quickly. Kids move in and out of styles with amazing agility. One-time stars of the scenes are wash-up has-beens weeks later. Anyone who stays put is left behind: fashion plat leftovers. More roadkill on fashion’s street runway. Harajuku is a headless beast that is at the mercy its desires and restlessness.”

“You Harajuku girls, Damn, you've got some wicked style” – Gwen Stefani, “What You Waiting For?”.

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