Never Before Published Photographs Celebrating the Eclectic and Bizarre Street Fashion of Japan's Teens


Follows the Popularity of Phaidon's Fruits and Fresh Fruits


A fashion phenomenon born in the underground clubs of Tokyo and Osaka has made its way aboveground. The streets of Japan are filled with teenagers clad in corsets, spikes, lacy Victorian dresses, dark eye makeup, black spandex, frilly tutus, patterned knee-highs, ruffled bows, and wigs of all lengths and styles. A mixture of high fashion and home-made ensembles, the Gothic and Lolita scene is one of the more bizarre hybrids of Japanese street fashion, boasting thousands of devotees who dedicate their lives to creating ever more flamboyant and original variations of this fused style.


GOTHIC & LOLITA, edited by Katsuhiko Ishikawa with photographs by Masayuki Yoshinaga, is a new and exclusive photography collection that celebrates the eclectic and bizarre Gothic street fashion of Japan's teens. Specially commissioned by Phaidon Press and based on the creative design of the best selling Fruits and Fresh Fruits, GOTHIC & LOLITA features portraits and group shots of Japanese Goths and Lolitas both at home and in the urban centers of Tokyo and Osaka.


Presented in a simple format with a funky design, hundreds of teenagers posed for the camera in their imaginative and often surreal outfits and offered personal insights into the idea behind their personal fashion choices. The responses are sometimes surprising, sometimes shocking, often hilarious, and always compelling. The images combined with the text, which is presented in question and answer format, present a unique "look book" of one of the more surreal aspects of Japanese popular youth culture. GOTHIC & LOLITA allows us to trespass on the streets of Japan and witness in an informative yet entertaining way this fashion phenomenon.


The origin of this eccentric fashion movement traces back to Osaka in the mid 1990s when young teenagers adopted Gothic fashion in response to the clothes worn and promoted by Japanese Gothic rock bands. Influenced by Western fashion trends from the mid 1980s, young teenagers, predominately adolescent girls, dress head-to-toe in gothic costumes and late-Victorian dress. GOTHIC & LOLITA charts the current trend from the clubs of Tokyo to the streets of Harajuku and Akihabara.


These street fashions provide inspiration to professional and would-be fashion designers, as well as teenagers and `Gothic' fans from coast to coast.