Product Description

Tokyo is home to the most creative and stylish fashion in the world. The Tokyo Look Book takes us on a dazzling journey through the streets, clubs, and boutiques of this trendsetting city to introduce us to the people who wear the latest fashions and the people who make them. Crammed with cool, full-color photographs of Tokyo's trendy teens and twenty-somethings captured candidly as they work and play, this is a comprehensive look at the richly varied fashion scenes that thrive in Japan's capital city -- from the "gal" mecca of Shibuya, to the goths and cosplayers who hang out on Jingubashi bridge on Sundays, through the cutting-edge kids on the Harajuku backstreets, to the stylish young professional men and women on Omotesando Boulevard.

Yuri Manabe's distinctive photographic portraits are complemented by insightful text from British anthropologist and fashion expert Philomena Keet, who offers witty and informative background information on each of the fashion scenes introduced, and a plethora of soundbites and quotes from the featured fashionistas. In addition, there are interviews and spotlights on Tokyo's hottest fashion designers, magazines and boutiques, including:

HIBUYA 109: Shibuya's iconic shopping mall
GLAD NEWS: One of 109's leading boutiques
REIKO NAKANE: A former trendsetting "charisma"109 shop girl, now producer of her own fashion label
MANA: Japanese pop star and designer of "Elegant Gothic Lolita" brand, Moi-meme-Moite
H.NAOTO: Creator of the popular goth/punk brand
TAKUYA ANGEL: Creator of the cult cyber-kimono brand
EAM MESSAGE: Designer of skate/streetwear brands
DOG: Owner of a cult street-fashion boutique
SHOICHI AOKI: Creator of the influential street-fashion magazine FRUiTS
GARCIA MARQUEZ GAUCHE: The husband-and-wife team behind this stylish brand for young women
5351 POUR LES HOMMES: A fashionable men's brand
TOKYO FASHION WEEK: A peek behind the scenes
MANNENYA: Purveyor of traditional Japanese workmen's outfits

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48214 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9784770030610
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Armed with a PhD in Tokyo street fashion, anthropologist Keet hits the pavement to interview and profile several distinct tribes of fashionable Tokyo youth in this eye-catching style guide. Keet combines her findings with bold graphics, more than 200 color photographs, information on popular shops and brands, and interviews with several Tokyo-based fashion designer to "take the reader beyond the outer layers of clothing and into the minds of the wearers." Starting in the "street fashion epicenters" of Shibuya and Harajuku, Keet introduces the fast-paced trends of the teenage gyaru, the panda-like make-up of yamamba street kids, the "Little Bo Peep" dresses of the Lolitas and the colorful costumes worn at the biggest anime and manga convention in Tokyo. Beyond the highly visible "extreme minority fashions," Keet also covers the more sophisticated clothing of upmarket Ginza and the Marunouchi business district, showcasing "style tribes who are little known outside of Tokyo, but who represent what is probably the dominant fashion aesthetic." While Keet's method of spontaneously meeting and interviewing subjects gives the book a you-are-there feel, similarly impromptu photography can be frustratingly repetitive (many one- or two-shots playing stiffly to the camera), and occasionally out of focus. Still, with its cheerful format and knowledgeable commentary, this book is sure to catch the eye of young fashionistas around the globe.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"From Goth to Gyaru, Japan's groundbreaking street fashion is rounded up in The Tokyo Look Book." --Elle
"[The Tokyo Look Book] showcases full-color photographs of the stylish set, but also interviews designers such as Naoyuki Ohira and members of the Goth rock band Moi- meme-Moitie." --Womens Wear Daily

"The beautifully photographed book is notable not only for the great variety of looks it documents, but also for providing insight and background into the root of Tokyo street style and the individuals who constantly reinvent it. " --Fashion Wire Daily
"The Tokyo Look Book offers a colorful peek at what the kids are wearing these days on the sidewalks and catwalks of the capital city. Not only does she profile specific youth subcultures concentrated in a few celebrated districts, but she also turns a lens on the rest of Tokyo society." --Budget Travel (online)

About the Author

PHILOMENA KEET is currently carrying out doctoral research into Tokyo street fashion with London University's School of African and Oriental Studies. YURI MANABE is a Tokyo-based photographer whose work has appeared in a variety of prestigious music and fashion magazines.

Customer Reviews

Like Touring the Streets of Tokyo with a Fashion Expert!
Doctor of Tokyo fashion Philomena Keet's Tokyo Look Book takes the reader directly to the streets of Tokyo with herself as our guide and ears, and photographer Yuri Manabe as our eyes. Their colorful book is loaded with photos and such specific cultural and subcultural fashion information that an amateur on the subject, such as myself, will feel quite overwhelmed at first. If you too are a novice, you'll be amazed at the subtle differences the trained eye notices in fashion styles and cliques that rule the Tokyo scene. The book is divided into 5 chapters: Shibuya Girls and Guys, which focuses on energetic young teen styles, Spectacular and Subcultural, which holds more theatrical styles like the popular Lolita, Goth, and Cosplay, among others, Youth Street Fashion, which takes a look at young people whose style is fashion for fashion's sake, The Stylish Female, which is much like it sounds, a section on slightly older, more professionally fashionable young women, and finally, Young Men At Work, which is sort of the male version of The Stylish Female. The book also takes a look at popular locales and interviews various designers who are particularly en vogue.

The Tokyo Look Book is a visually fun read and has plenty of info for someone new to the whole Japanese fashion scene. I, myself, being a professional artist and having noticed how popular certain Japanese styles are in commercial art and illustration today, found it to be quite fascinating, but I also realized that what I would have preferred would have been a book focusing on that second chapter, Spectacular and Subcultural. This is because it's those extreme, theatrical styles that are naturally most prevalent in U.S. illustration these days. I know there are a few books out there that do cover some of those very popular styles specifically, and I'll have to pick some of them up, but for the broader view of styles worn by young people on the streets of Tokyo, The Tokyo Look Book is an excellent guide.

Missed opportunity
Although the subject matter is inherently interesting, this could have been a much better book. Probably the biggest problem is that for a book so reliant on its images, the photography is generally uninspired and the quality of the photos mediocre. Also, though the author fancies herself an "anthropologist," the text consists mostly of superficial descriptions with little insight or analysis. This is an example of a book that might have worked better as a website.

A Wonderful Walk Through Tokyo
It's been five years since I've been to Tokyo and I'm pleased to see that wonderful place hasn't changed. Well, according to Yuri Manabe's photos, the city I know and love hasn't changed. The young people, the shops, the city, the attitude, the smiles, the stares, the stars in the eyes, it's all here as this book which walks you through the most fascinating place on the face of the earth.

I've had THE TOKYO LOOK BOOK for a couple weeks now and it's waterlogged as all get out, because I've spent several nights in a steamy bath, paging through it and remembering why I love Tokyo so much, better than Paris, Tokyo is, at least to me. Paris is the heart of the planet, Tokyo is the soul. If only I could spend my life between the two. I can't, but this book gives me Tokyo and for many nights to come I'll be laughing, crying, dreaming and remembering, wondering why I can't change my life so I can go back and stay.

Ah well, you can't always get what you want. I'll get back there, but till I do, I'll treasure this book.

Reviewed by Stephanie Sane