Harajuku Girls

Documenting Japanese street fashion is all the rage nowadays -- whether in magazines, art house books, or pop music (I'm looking at you, Gwen Stefani). As readers may know, I love seeing how fashion is evolving over there -- whether its in style blogs like SushiCat or in J-fash magazines. It's a subject that I hold dear to me. That's why I'm happy to share news that my friend, Albert Siegel, has just published his first photobook, Harajuku Girls. Living in Japan, Albert spent a few years capturing the various subcultures of Japanese street fashion: Gothic Lolitas to Cosplay to Gyaru, and more. So, what's my small role to play? I art-directed and designed the book cover above. It was hella fun to do.

Small story: We became friends after I saw and complimented on a street fashion poster (the one below) hanging at my workplace. Turns out the photographer was Albert -- we struck up a conversation about Japanese street fashion and the rest was history.

Here's a peek at the inside pages:



Shameless posing? Check.



Cute fashionable couples? Check.

100 pages long, there's plenty of photographs to ooh-and-aww over. Some of the snapshots are worth having a poster of (Albert, go look into that, seriously). It's definitely worth a look if you're into Japanese fashion.

Harajuku Girls, $29.99