Combination of Dream and Reality: Harajuku

Everyone who visits Harajuku can feel like they are in some other universe. Think about the characters which are in the movies and comic books standing in front of you. Harajuku is a place like this. The teens who have limitless imagination and creativity make this world. Every spot you look at, you will see another character and style created by an intensive mind. Every style has a different story, a different point of view or a different daily mood.

First samples of Harajuku fashion that comes our present with all of the extraordinary and colorfulness are actually based on the end of World War Two. At the end of the war, American soldiers and their families settle down in Harajuku. After a while, Harajuku started to look different than the other places as an architectural aspect and in terms of shops and in many ways. People who like different things also liked this colorful place. Harajuku became a haunt for the teens. Then Japanese people settled in Harajuku and thats how it all started. Teens combined Japanese traditional culture with West culture and clothes. Actually, society doesn’t like the people who have a different style but especially after the ’70s, young people started to oppose them. They met at the Harajuku to show their styles and tastes.

Harajuku which has the most colorful, bold and rebel teens in Japan, has no rule and limit about fashion. Teens’ message is so obvious: We don’t do the same things with others. We don’t wear the same things as others. We are different from others. We don’t care about the beauty standards and trends imposed on people.

They follow all-time trends and combine them for their tastes rather than follow the current trends.  Even if their style changes day by day or periodically, they wear things which are reflecting their personalities. They create their style with unexpected pieces like colorful hairs, wigs, colorful circle lenses, corsets, crinolines, different kinds of hats, platform shoes and everything that comes to mind. The most important thing about their style is to be one and only. They wear everything they want without care about what other people say or think. While they create their styles, they get inspiration from the Harajuku’s symbol Takeshita Street and they shopping from there and they also get inspiration from the brands and designers like Comme des Garçons, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto or some Instagram accounts and models.

Each of them has a different story about meeting with fashion and Harajuku. Some of them were impressed by the magazines that they read their childhood days, some of them were captivated by the magical atmosphere of Harajuku.

While they don’t know about what to do in their lives, don’t have an idea about their passions, have communication problems or those who just want to have fun are say that their lives changed after they come to Harajuku. Their point of view to themselves and their point of view to life changed.

There are no rules and pressures, there is no one to tell them what they should do or no one to judge them. They feel more peaceful when they come there because Harajuku is a place where the teens feel more happy and free, where they can show who they really are. They can challenge themselves or get new experiences.

The teens who have experienced a lot or continue to experience new things, the teens who go after their dreams also support other people to go after dreams and be themselves.