Fruits (magazine)
Cover of issue 95.
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| Categories | Harajuku fashion |
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| Frequency | Monthly |
| Publisher | Shoichi Aoki |
| Year founded | 1997 |
| Country | Japan |
| Based in | Tokyo |
| Language | Japanese |
| Website | Official site |
Fruits (stylized as "FRUiTS") is a Japanese fashion magazine covering the fashions of the Harajuku district of Tokyo, established in 1997 by photographer Shoichi Aoki. Excerpts from the magazine were compiled to create the Phaidon Press books Fruits (2001) and Fresh Fruits (2005).
An exhibition of Aoki's photographs for the magazine, developed by the Powerhouse Museum, has toured museums in Australia and New Zealand.
The photographs document the individualistic styles young people wear around the Harajuku district of Tokyo. If there are identifiable themes, they can broadly be described as fun, original, authentic, and the recording of emerging social trends and technology. The message seems to shout through the repetitive format of these photos; a modern person head to toe in the foreground against an urban backdrop: "You are the best stylist to express yourself".
The fashion styles showcased in Fruits have a parallel concerning the disregard to conventions that punk takes to the extreme. However, unlike the punk movement, there is less, if any, of a political agenda expressed by Fruits.
Fruits photographs styles which are distinct from Cosplay, which is a hobby where people dress like their favourite manga, anime, or video-game character.
The inside contains very few ads, most of which are to advertise a shop in Harajuku. The pictures take up the entire page, except for a white bar at the bottom which breaks down the person's outfit piece by piece to tell the reader where it was purchased (or in some cases, who made it), explains the "point of fashion" of the outfit (the main focal point of the ensemble), and gives a brief description of the person's age, social position, and interests. The back may include an interview with a staff member at the magazine. The very back shows reader-submitted pictures.
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