Taking a good look at Tokyo's eclectic fashion

It was the philosopher George Santayana who penned these wise words: "Fashion is something barbarous, for it produces innovation without reason and imitation without benefit." This is as true now as it was then, and if you do not believe me, go and wander the streets of Shibuya.

This is what Philomena Keet and her photographer did, though they were not looking for the apparent barbarism. Rather, they were in pursuit of something they eventually discovered or invented — herein called "the Tokyo look."

Just as decade mongering (the roaring '20s, the rebellious '60s) is used to create some illusion of stability in our troubled times, so the various "looks" (new Japanese interior design, sushi chic, Zen motifs in recent architecture) seek to anchor time and place and give some meaning to all the commercial overflow.

One such would be the "Tokyo look," here confined to Shibuya and Harajuku, plus a bit of Ginza-Marunouchi, a smidgen of "seedy Roppongi" and a single glance at prole Shinjuku. Defining chapters are titled "Shibuya Girls and Guys," "Spectacular and Subcultural," and "Youth Street Fashions," while sections in between are devoted to fashion-designers, fashion magazines, fashion boutiques,and fashion department stores.

One might think that the book is really about product placement except that the author's interest is as much on the people as it is on the clothing and that she identifies herself as an anthropologist who is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of London with a thesis on Tokyo street fashion. (They apparently do give degrees in Britain for such scholarly offerings.)

She has a ready eye for the folks who wear the gear here plugged. "Famous throughout the world for avant-garde street fashion, Tokyo is also home to some of the world's best-groomed, most stylish women. . . . Rare is the young female who steps out without foundation and makeup or who doesn't own at least one Louis Vuitton item, and the prevalence of high heels is such that it almost suggests some sort of genetic or physical predisposition."

The author is also aware of change on the streets ("bizarre styles still abound, but they are played out in more muted colors and shapes") and of the constant need for identification. "So, what is street fashion?" she asks and then answers that it is some kind of spontaneous combustion that ignites the youngsters themselves. "It has a bottom-up rather than a top-down mechanism for gaining popularity." She sees the streets of Shibuya as a baby fashion-incubator.

This is about as anthropological as she gets, however, because, while she is interested in her various barbarian tribes, she does not feel it necessary to account for them. Why did this one group abandon London punk attitudes but keep the clothes they came in? What motivates kids to court credit-card catastrophe by buying yet another outfit with built-in obsolescence? She does sometimes ask the kids themselves, but that is like asking a fish about water. As a Ph.D. candidate she could have dug a little deeper.

One cannot, however, accuse the designers of this book for not going far enough. Their product is so gawdy, so picture-packed, so utterly designed that its pleasures are those of the magazine rather than the book. In fact such book-zines or "mooks" are becoming something of a house specialty of this publisher.

Pink and puce, the publication is as much a riot of incongruity as the streets of Shibuya themselves. Set in tiny, smart (san-serif) type font, the text scrolls on and on in a manner much like the detailed sausage-curls, every one in its proper place, of the more conservative Shibuya maiden. It ends, properly, with a glossary ("kawaii, cute") and a Shop List where you can go and acquire some of the duds themselves.

And it isn't often that you can purchase innovation without reason and imitation without benefit at affordable prices.