is a Japanese photographer and creator of the magazines ''STREET,'' ''TUNE,'' and ''
FRUiTS
In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.
Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particula ...
.'' He also subsequently created the ''Fruits'' and ''Fresh Fruits'' (collections of Japanese street fashion) photo-books as a way of offering his photos to the foreign market.
Life and work
Aoki was born in
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
.
He began documenting
street fashion in Tokyo's fashionable
Harajuku area in the mid 1990s when he noticed a marked change in the way young people were dressing. Rather than following European and American trends, people were customising elements of traditional Japanese dress—
kimono
The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...
,
obi #REDIRECT Obi #REDIRECT Obi {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous title ... {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous title ...
sandals—and combining them with handmade, secondhand and alternative designer fashion in an innovative
approach to dressing.
In 1997, Aoki founded the monthly magazine ''FRUiTS,'' now a cult
to record and celebrate the freshness of fashion in Harajuku.
*''Fruits.'' Phaidon, 2001. .
*''Fresh Fruits.'' Phaidon, 2005. .
*''Street London 1985-1996.'' 2017.