Encyclopedia of Japanese Fashion

This encyclopedia gives the dated record behind the essays: designers, labels, shops, magazines and the places where Japanese fashion was made. Dates are taken from company histories, museum records and trade press, and where accounts disagree the entry says so. Garments and terms are in the Visual Glossary; every name is also in the A to Z Index. Return to The Fashionista Bible.

Timeline · The Paris generation · Tokyo designers · Ura-Harajuku and the back lanes · Contemporary labels · European houses · Select shops · Denim and reproduction makers · Magazines · Places · Notes on dates

Timeline, 1945 to today

• 1945 to 1952. During the Occupation, American surplus and used clothing reach the black markets; Okachimachi’s ‘America Alley’ sells jeans and later merges into Ameyoko.
• 1951. Kensuke Ishizu opens a shop in Osaka that becomes the VAN brand in 1954.
• 1955 to 1956. The Taiyozoku, or sun tribe, of rebellious postwar youth appears in Shintaro Ishihara’s novel and the films that follow.
• 1964. The Miyuki-zoku gather on Ginza’s Miyuki-dori in VAN paper bags; police clear them in September, before the Olympics.
• 1965. Take Ivy is published. Kenzo Takada arrives in Paris.
• 1970. Kenzo opens Jungle Jap in Paris; Issey Miyake founds Miyake Design Studio; an·an publishes its first issue on 20 March.
• 1973. Miyake shows his first Paris collection, for autumn/winter.
• 1975 to 1976. The Made in U.S.A. catalogues appear; Beams opens in February 1976 and Popeye follows that summer.
• 1977. Hanae Mori joins the Chambre Syndicale and opens her maison on the Avenue Montaigne; Harajuku’s Sunday pedestrian zone begins.
• 1978 to 1979. Boutique Takenoko opens; VAN is declared bankrupt in October 1978; Shibuya 109 opens in April 1979.
• 1980. Shawn Stussy begins making graphic T-shirts in California to promote his surfboards.
• 1981. Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto show in Paris.
• 1984. Hysteric Glamour is launched.
• 1988. Hiroshi Fujiwara co-founds the Major Force label; with Kan Takagi he releases ‘Last Orgy’ and begins the Takarajima column of that name.
• 1989 to 1991. United Arrows is founded (1989); Goodenough begins (1990); the first International Stüssy Tribe party is held in Japan (dated 1990 by one member); Evisu is launched (1991).
• 1993. A Bathing Ape and Nowhere open in Ura-Harajuku (Nowhere on 1 April); Pleats Please is launched.
• 1994. Neighborhood and AFFA date from this year; Supreme opens on Lafayette Street, New York, in April; Undercover shows for the first time, for autumn/winter.
• 1997. mastermind JAPAN is launched; Number (N)ine is founded (one account says 1996); FRUiTS begins; Kawakubo shows Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body.
• 1998. SOPH., parent of SOPHNET., is established; Supreme opens three stores in Japan, in Daikanyama, Osaka and Fukuoka.
• 1999 to 2000. Sacai is founded (1999); Takashi Murakami presents Superflat (2000); visvim begins (2000 or 2001); Nowhere closes (2000); N.HOOLYWOOD is dated 2000, 2001 or about 2002.
• 2002 to 2004. Murakami’s Louis Vuitton partnership begins (2002); Undercover shows in Paris (October 2002); Dover Street Market opens in London on 10 September 2004; Hanae Mori shows her last couture collection on 7 July 2004.
• 2005. Tokyo Girls Collection holds its first show on 7 August; WACKO MARIA’s first collection dates from this year.
• 2008 to 2010. COTE MER is launched (2008, per a 2017 interview); Comme des Garçons collaborates with H&M (13 November 2008); Yohji Yamamoto files for protection (October 2009); Ron Herman opens its first Japanese store (2009); Takahiro Miyashita leaves Number (N)ine (20 February 2010).
• 2012. Dover Street Market opens in Ginza.
• 2017. The Metropolitan Museum presents Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between (4 May to 4 September); mastermind WORLD launches.
• 2018. Louis Vuitton shows its Kansai Yamamoto cruise collection; Doublet wins the LVMH Prize.
• 2019. SOPHNET. marks twenty years of SOPH. with a temporary label, SOPH.20 (May); Apparel News reports that Sazaby League acquires Ron Herman’s operations.
• 2020 to 2022. Kenzo Takada dies (4 October 2020); NIGO is named creative director of Kenzo (15 September 2021); Issey Miyake dies (5 August 2022) and Hanae Mori dies (11 August 2022).
• 2024 to 2026. The death of Kapital founder Toshikiyo Hirata is reported (29 April 2024); Miyashita announces his return to Number (N)ine (September 2025) and a collection follows on 30 April 2026.

The Paris generation

Kenzo Takada

Born in Himeji on 27 February 1939 (the day appears in one account only), Takada reached Paris in 1965 after a sea voyage begun the year before. He opened the boutique Jungle Jap in the Galerie Vivienne in 1970 and showed his first collection that year. Menswear followed in 1983 and fragrances in 1988; he sold the house to LVMH in 1993 and left in 1999. Gilles Rosier and Roy Krejberg succeeded him, then Antonio Marras (hired 2003, sole director from 2008 to 2011), Humberto Leon and Carol Lim (2011 to 2019), Felipe Oliveira Baptista (2019 to 2021) and NIGO, announced on 15 September 2021. Takada died on 4 October 2020 of complications from COVID-19, aged 81. Essay · Collection

Issey Miyake

Born in Hiroshima on 22 April 1938, Miyake survived the bombing at the age of seven and first spoke of it publicly in a 2009 essay in the New York Times. Miyake Design Studio dates from 1970; his first overseas collection was shown in New York in 1971 and his first Paris collection for autumn/winter 1973. Pleats Please was previewed in Paris in March 1991 and launched in 1993; L’Eau d’Issey followed in 1992. A-POC, made with the textile engineer Dai Fujiwara, began in 1998 (the brand was announced in 1999). Bao Bao was a prototype in 2000 and an independent label from autumn/winter 2010; 132 5. was introduced in summer 2010. The Miyake Issey Foundation dates from 2004 and 21_21 Design Sight from 2007. The story that Miyake made Steve Jobs’s black turtlenecks rests on Jobs’s own account. Miyake died on 5 August 2022. Essay · Collection

Hanae Mori

Born in Shimane on 8 January 1926, Mori opened her Hiyoshiya atelier in Shinjuku in 1951 and designed costumes for hundreds of films, more than two hundred according to the Metropolitan Museum. Her New York debut in January 1965 was titled ‘East Meets West’. In 1977 she joined the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, widely reported as the first Asian member (accounts vary in their wording), and opened her maison on the Avenue Montaigne. The butterfly became her signature; she said it came from the image of a silver jet plane. She designed costumes for La Scala in 1985, received the Order of Culture in 1996, the first fashion designer so honoured, and the Legion of Honour (Officier) in 2002. Her company filed for civil rehabilitation on 30 May 2002; she showed her last couture collection on 7 July 2004. Mori died at home in Tokyo on 11 August 2022, aged 96. Essay · Collection

Rei Kawakubo

Born in Tokyo on 11 October 1942, Kawakubo began the Comme des Garçons label in 1969, founded the company in 1973, held her first Tokyo show in 1975 and added menswear in 1978. The Paris debut of April 1981 provoked what the V&A calls a storm of controversy. The label ‘Hiroshima chic’ is dated differently by different writers (1981 or the 1982 Destroy collection) and its coiner is unproven. Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body, spring/summer 1997, is nicknamed ‘lumps and bumps’. SHIRT began in 1988, the first fragrance in 1994 and PLAY in 2002. Dover Street Market opened in London on 10 September 2004, in Ginza in 2012 and in New York in December 2013. The H&M collection reached stores on 13 November 2008. Essay · Comme des Garçons · Rei Kawakubo

Comme des Garçons

The company is also a nursery of designers: Junya Watanabe, Noir Kei Ninomiya (label 2012, first collection for spring/summer 2013) and Tao Kurihara (own label around 2005) all emerged from it. Archive pieces are dated by season, with the AD year as prefix. Collaborations such as the Lewis Leathers rider of AD2017 are collected in their own right. Collection

Yohji Yamamoto

Born in Tokyo on 3 October 1943, Yamamoto established Y’s in 1972 according to his own company (Wikipedia gives 1973) and showed the first Y’s collection in Tokyo in 1977. He showed in Paris in 1981, beside Kawakubo, and introduced Pour Homme there in 1984. Wim Wenders’s film Notebook on Cities and Clothes, a Centre Pompidou commission, appeared in 1989. Y-3 with adidas had its first collection for spring/summer 2003, after Yamamoto was appointed creative director in 2002. The company filed for protection in the Tokyo District Court in October 2009, with debts reported above 65 million dollars, and was debt-free by November 2010. He has said of black that it is ‘modest and arrogant at the same time’. Essay · Collection

Kansai Yamamoto

The designer of basara, the flamboyant, defiant display, whose work for David Bowie and whose Louis Vuitton cruise collection of 2018 are covered in our essay. Collection

Tokyo designers

Junya Watanabe

Born in Fukushima in 1961, Watanabe joined Comme des Garçons in 1984, designed the Tricot line from 1987, launched his own label in 1992 and showed in Paris in 1993. The MAN line began around 2001 (Wikipedia says 2000, Business of Fashion 2002). A Converse collaboration dates from 2007. Essay · Collection

Sacai

Chitose Abe, born in Gifu in 1965, spent eight years at Comme des Garçons, ending on Watanabe’s team, and launched sacai in 1999 with five knitwear pieces. Her method is hybridisation. The first Nike collaboration dates from 2015; the LDWaffle was previewed on the spring/summer 2019 runway in June 2018 and released in May 2019. Essay · Collection

Undercover

Jun Takahashi was born in Kiryu, Gunma, on 21 September 1969. The founding year is disputed: the Metropolitan Museum gives 1990, Wikipedia and Business of Fashion 1993, and SSENSE reports that Takahashi himself cannot quite recall. The first show was for autumn/winter 1994. Nowhere, the shop he opened with Nigo in Ura-Harajuku in 1993, closed in 2000. The first Paris show, ‘Scab’, was for spring/summer 2003 in October 2002. Later landmarks include Arts and Crafts (autumn/winter 2005), Guruguru (2006), Anatomicouture (2013, shown at the Sorbonne), the Nike line Gyakusou (October 2010), Uniqlo UU (announced July 2011, debuted 2012) and a Valentino capsule for autumn/winter 2019. Essay · Collection

mastermind JAPAN

Founded by Masaaki Homma, who worked for more than six years in Yohji Yamamoto retail, and launched in 1997. The skull and crossbones, redrawn more than a thousand times, is described by Homma as ‘a skull with a positive meaning’. A Paris trade show in 2001 led to the orders that carried the brand abroad. The main line was retired around 2011 (accounts differ) and mastermind WORLD launched in 2017, the twentieth anniversary. Essay · Collection

visvim

Hiroki Nakamura, who spent his teens in Alaska and eight years as a Burton designer, founded visvim in 2000 or 2001 (accounts differ). Complex reports the name as two dictionary words with no intended meaning. FBT is not an acronym: it is named for Fun Boy Three, after Hiroshi Fujiwara pointed Nakamura to Terry Hall’s moccasins. F.I.L. stands for Free International Laboratory; the Kanazawa store opened on 3 November 2007. Essay · Collection

COTE MER

A 2017 HOUYHNHNM interview says Norio Sato launched COTE MER in 2008, after importing vintage clothing from 1998, and named it for Oceanside, California. Tokyo fashion week lists Sato and Seishi Naito as designers and gives the concept ‘Conversion of values’. The kimono-stitched denim belongs to Broke City Gold, which Sato co-runs. Essay · Collection

Number (N)ine and The Soloist

Takahiro Miyashita, born in Tokyo in 1973, founded Number (N)ine in 1997 (one account says 1996), showed in Tokyo from 2000 to 2004 and in Paris from 2004 to 2009, and announced his departure on 20 February 2010. The last show was A Closed Feeling for autumn/winter 2009. The Soloist was established in 2010. He announced a return to Number (N)ine in September 2025. Chapter · Number (N)ine · The Soloist

A Bathing Ape and Nigo

Nigo started A Bathing Ape in 1993 and opened Nowhere with Jun Takahashi on 1 April of that year. He went on to found Human Made and, in 2021, became creative director of Kenzo. Essay · A Bathing Ape · NIGO

Goodenough and Fragment Design

Hiroshi Fujiwara began Goodenough in 1990 (one account says the late 1980s) and Fragment Design in 2003. Chapter · Goodenough · Fragment Design

Neighborhood and WTAPS

Neighborhood dates from 1994; its founder is Shinsuke Takizawa. WTAPS, founded by Tetsu Nishiyama, dates from 1996 on the brand’s own page; Highsnobiety says 1997. Chapter · Neighborhood · WTAPS

Hysteric Glamour

Launched in 1984 by Nobuhiko Kitamura. Chapter · Collection

Mihara Yasuhiro

The label dates from 1996 or 1997, with a first shop in 1998 and a Puma collaboration in 2000. Collection

Toga

Yasuko Furuta founded Toga in 1997; the ANDAM laureates list carries it under 2007. Collection

Ura-Harajuku and the back lanes

The labels of Hiroshi Fujiwara’s circle and their neighbours, with the American names the circle read. The full account is in Ura-Harajuku: A Reader’s Guide to the Back Lanes and the Labels That Made Them.

Ura-Harajuku

The back of Harajuku: the lanes behind the famous street, shortened to Urahara. A Tokyo street-culture magazine credits Hiroshi Fujiwara, Nigo and Jun Takahashi with turning Harajuku into a hub of youth fashion. Guide

Last Orgy

In 1988 Hiroshi Fujiwara and Kan Takagi, performing as Tinnie Punx, released a song called ‘Last Orgy’ on the Major Force label and were invited to write a column of the same name for Takarajima, a magazine given over mainly to subcultures. A later column, begun in 1991 as ‘AZ’ and renamed ‘Last Orgy 2’, was written by Nigo and Jun Takahashi and ran until 1994. Chapter · Fujiwara chapter

Nowhere

A small shop in Ura-Harajuku opened in 1993 by Nigo and Jun Takahashi (1 April, according to Wikipedia’s article on A Bathing Ape) and closed in 2000. It sold vintage American clothing, deadstock sneakers and the early collections of Undercover and A Bathing Ape. How it was funded is told three ways, and the chapter does not reconcile them. Chapter

AFFA

Anarchy Forever Forever Anarchy, the first collaboration between Hiroshi Fujiwara and Jun Takahashi, ‘originally conceived in 1994’ according to a 2007 Hypebeast report. Each release is kept secret and made in extremely low quantities. Chapter · Collection

SOPHNET.

Hirofumi Kiyonaga is named as founder of the parent label SOPH., established in 1998 according to two pages; neither gives a separate year for SOPHNET. itself. The house has three lines, SOPHNET., F.C. Real Bristol and uniform experiment, the last co-led by Hiroshi Fujiwara. One article dates F.C. Real Bristol to 1999. SOPH.20, a temporary label, marked twenty years in May 2019. Chapter · Collection

N.HOOLYWOOD

Daisuke Obana, born in 1974 in Kanagawa according to a Tokyo fashion database; his shop MISTER HOLLYWOOD opened in 2000. The label’s founding year is disputed: 2000 on a Blue Owl profile, 2001 on the brand’s own page with a first show for spring/summer 2002, and roughly 2002 by implication in a January 2016 interview. Chapter · Collection

WACKO MARIA

Founded by Atsuhiko Mori and Keiji Ishizuka, both former J-League footballers; first collection in 2005, after a bar and a record shop. Hiroshi Fujiwara made a capsule with the label for MR PORTER’s The Japan Edit in 2019. Chapter · Collection

Stüssy

Shawn Stussy began making graphic T-shirts in California in 1980 to promote his surfboards. The International Stüssy Tribe, an informal circle in cities including New York, London and Tokyo, counted Hiroshi Fujiwara as its Tokyo member; its first party was held in Japan, dated 1990 by one member. By 1996, a Complex oral history says, the label had about fifteen to twenty stores in Japan. The first New York shop is dated 1990 in one account and 1991 in another. Chapter · Collection

Supreme

James Jebbia opened the first Supreme store on Lafayette Street, New York, in April 1994. Highsnobiety’s store guide lists three Japanese stores opened throughout 1998, in Daikanyama, Osaka and Fukuoka, before Los Angeles in 2004; a Harajuku shop followed in 2006. Chapter · Collection

Contemporary labels

• Limi feu. Limi Yamamoto, born in 1974 and the daughter of Yohji Yamamoto, began the label in 2000; it showed in Tokyo from 2000 to 2007 and in Paris from October 2007. Collection
• Julius. Tatsuro Horikawa; accounts differ, with the early 2000s for its first form and 2004 for its life as a clothing label. Julius Permanent, a line reissuing early pieces, followed in 2019. Collection
• Anrealage. Kunihiko Morinaga, 2003; shown in Paris from 2014. Collection
• Kolor. Junichi Abe, 2004. Collection
• Facetasm. Hiromichi Ochiai, 2007. Collection
• Mame Kurogouchi. Maiko Kurogouchi, 2010. Collection
• Comoli. Keijiro Komori, 2011 or 2012. Collection
• Doublet. Masayuki Ino; ready-to-wear since 2012; described by PEN as the first Japanese brand to win the LVMH Prize, in 2018. Collection
• Noir Kei Ninomiya. Kei Ninomiya, label of 2012, first collection spring/summer 2013, first Paris presentation 2017. Collection
• Hyke. Hideaki Yoshihara and Yukiko Ode, 2013. Collection
• Auralee. Ryota Iwai, 2015. Collection
• Goldwin. Began in 1950 as Tsuzawa Knit, incorporated in 1951 and renamed in 1963; distributor of The North Face in Japan from 1978, with the trademark rights from 1994.

Read the survey in Contemporary Japanese Designers and Brands to Watch.

European houses and labels

These houses are not Japanese, but they belong to the same collecting conversation. Dates come from company histories and reference works, and where accounts disagree the entry says so.

• Balenciaga. Cristóbal Balenciaga opened his first boutique in San Sebastián in 1917, and some accounts date the house from 1919. The Paris house opened in August 1937 on the Avenue George V and closed in 1968. The brand was revived in 1986, ready-to-wear followed in 1987, and the Gucci group, then under PPR, took a controlling stake in 2001. Demna was appointed creative director in October 2015. Collection
• Christian Dior. Christian Dior opened his house at 30 Avenue Montaigne on 16 December 1946, although the company counts 1947 as its opening year, and presented the collection known as the New Look on 12 February 1947. Dior died on 24 October 1957, and Yves Saint Laurent was named artistic director that year. Collection
• Yves Saint Laurent. Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé founded the house in 1961 or 1962; accounts differ. Rive Gauche ready-to-wear began in 1966. Hedi Slimane’s return was announced in 2012 and the house was renamed Saint Laurent. Yves Saint Laurent died in 2008. Collection
• Jil Sander. Founded by Jil Sander in Hamburg in 1968. Prada bought 75 per cent of the company in 1999, and Sander left and returned more than once, last departing in October 2013. Her +J collaboration with Uniqlo ran from 2009 to 2011 and returned in 2020, and control passed to OTB Group in 2021. Collection
• Armani. Giorgio Armani S.p.A. was founded in Milan on 24 July 1975 by Giorgio Armani and Sergio Galeotti. Emporio Armani followed in the early 1980s. Giorgio Armani died on 4 September 2025, aged 91. Collection
• Helmut Lang. Lang opened a studio in Vienna in 1977 and created the Helmut Lang label in Paris in 1986; shows moved to New York in 1998. Prada took 51 per cent in 1999 and full ownership in 2004, Lang left in January 2005, and Link Theory Holdings, a Japanese company, bought the brand in 2006. Collection
• Dolce & Gabbana. Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana began working together in Milan in 1982 and showed their first women’s collection in 1985; accounts date the house from either year. The second line, D&G, began in 1994 and was merged into the main label in 2012. Collection
• Dries Van Noten. His first menswear collection was shown in London in 1986 as one of the Antwerp Six, and his first boutique, Het Modepaleis, opened in Antwerp in 1989. Puig acquired a majority stake in 2018. Van Noten announced his retirement in March 2024. Collection
• Maison Margiela. Martin Margiela and Jenny Meirens founded the house in 1988, and the first collection, for spring/summer 1989, was shown in Paris. OTB, the group of Renzo Rosso, acquired it in 2002. Margiela left in 2009, and the house became Maison Margiela in 2015. Collection
• Marni. Consuelo Castiglioni founded the label in Milan in 1994 and left in 2016, when Francesco Risso became creative director. OTB took a majority stake in 2012 and full ownership by 2015; Meryll Rogge was announced as Risso’s successor in July 2025. Collection

Select shops and retailers

• VAN Jacket. Kensuke Ishizu (1911 to 2005) opened a shop in Osaka in 1951; it became VAN in 1954. VAN filed for reorganisation on 6 April 1978 and was declared bankrupt on 12 October. The claim that Ishizu designed the 1964 Olympic team blazers is disputed. History
• Beams. Opened in February 1976 as a small ‘American Life Shop’ in Harajuku. Accounts disagree on whether the founder was Hiroshi Shitara or his father Etsuzo. Collection
• SHIPS. The company dates from 1975, with a Ginza store in 1977; its predecessor was Miura & Sons in Shibuya.
• United Arrows. Founded in 1989 by Kamoshita, Kurino and Shigematsu; the first store opened in Shibuya in 1990. Collection
• Nepenthes. Keizo Shimizu, 1988, with a first store in 1989. Engineered Garments, by Daiki Suzuki, began around 1999. Nepenthes · Engineered Garments
• Ron Herman. A Los Angeles shop established in 1976, which opened its first Japanese store in 2009 with Sazaby League as partner; Apparel News reports that Sazaby League acquired its operations in 2019. The pages date from 2018 to 2021 and say nothing of the shops today. Chapter · Collection
• Dover Street Market. London 10 September 2004; Ginza 2012; New York December 2013.
• American houses in Japan. Ralph Lauren was licensed to Seibu from 1978; Brooks Brothers opened in Aoyama in 1979; J. Press Japan was licensed in 1974 (some say about 1972).

Denim and reproduction makers

• Evisu. Hidehiko Yamane, 1991, with test pairs from 1988. Mikiharu Tsujita and the Shiotani brothers left over Yamane’s reluctance to make more accurate reproductions. Guide · Collection
• Studio D’Artisan. Shigeharu Tagaki, 1979; DO-1 jeans 1986.
• Denime. Yoshiyuki Hayashi of Kobe, 1988; not Yamane’s.
• Fullcount. Mikiharu Tsujita; 1993, 1994 or 1995 in different accounts.
• Warehouse. Kenichi and Koji Shiotani, 1995.
• Samurai. Toru Nogami, 1997. Pure Blue Japan. Ken-ichi Iwaya, 1997. The Flat Head. Masayoshi Kobayashi, 1996. Iron Heart. Shinichi Haraki, 2003. Momotaro. 2005 or 2006.
• Toyo Enterprise. Susumu Kobayashi, 18 November 1965; Sugar Cane followed in 1975 and Buzz Rickson’s in 1993. The claim that Toyo dates from 1927 is wrong. Sugar Cane · Buzz Rickson’s
• The Real McCoy’s. Hitoshi Tsujimoto of Kobe, a vintage dealer from 1978.
• Kapital. Founded by Toshikiyo Hirata: first factory (Capital Ltd.) in Kojima, Okayama, in 1984, the brand formally in 1985. His son Kiro joined in 2002 and is creative director; he did not found it. Guide · Collection
• Big John. Maruo Hifuku of Kojima; often called the first Japanese jeans maker, although Canton (1963) and others are also named.

The ‘Osaka Five’ is a shorthand with no known coiner, and Denime is based in Kobe. See The Osaka Five and the denim directory.

Magazines and books

• Men’s Club. Launched in 1954 as Otoko no Fukushoku; Ishizu joined its editorial team; its street-snap column began in 1963.
• Heibon Punch. 28 April 1964.
• Take Ivy. 1965; the 2010 powerHouse edition brought it to a wider Western audience.
• an·an and non-no. 20 March 1970 and 1971; their readers were the Annon-zoku.
• Made in U.S.A. 1975, with a second volume in 1976.
• Popeye. 1976, first edited by Yoshihisa Kinameri.
• Hot-Dog Press. 23 May 1979 to December 2004.
• STREET. Shoichi Aoki, 1985.
• FRUiTS. June 1997 to February 2017, 233 issues; Aoki’s TUNE ran 2004 to 2015.
• Egg. 1995; paused with the July 2014 issue and returned online in 2018.
• Gothic & Lolita Bible. 2001.
• Ametora. W. David Marx, 2015.

Places that made the story

• Miyuki-dori, Ginza. The Ivy boys of 1964.
• Yokosuka and Dobuita Street. The home of the souvenir jacket. Visitor’s guide
• Kojima, Okayama. Japan’s denim capital. Guide
• Harajuku and Ura-Harajuku. Laforet opened in October 1978; the back streets of Jingumae filled with shops in the 1990s.
• Shibuya. 109 opened in April 1979, designed by Minoru Takeyama; HMV Shibuya opened in 1990.
• Ameyoko and Okachimachi, Ueno. The postwar markets where American goods first reached the public.

Notes on dates

Fashion histories repeat errors, and we have tried not to. Yohji Yamamoto’s bankruptcy was in 2009, not 2019. Kiro Hirata did not found Kapital. FBT is Fun Boy Three, not Folk Boat. Toyo Enterprise was not founded in 1927. Takahiro Miyashita of Number (N)ine is active and announced his return to the label in 2025. Several back-lane labels carry more than one founding year: Undercover (1990, 1993 or 1994), WTAPS (1996 or 1997), N.HOOLYWOOD (2000, 2001 or about 2002) and the first Stüssy shop in New York (1990 or 1991). Where two dates appear, both are in the record.

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Index terms: japanese fashion encyclopedia · japanese fashion timeline · kenzo takada · issey miyake · hanae mori · rei kawakubo · yohji yamamoto · undercover founding year · mastermind japan history · visvim history · kapital founder · van jacket · beams history · united arrows · osaka five denim · christian dior · saint laurent · balenciaga · armani · dolce and gabbana · maison margiela · martin margiela · ura-harajuku history · nowhere shop · last orgy column · affa · sophnet · n.hoolywood · wacko maria · stussy · supreme japan · ron herman · jil sander · helmut lang · dries van noten · marni · julius · limi feu