PHOTO BY MUKURO
BOOK CLUB: JAPANESE GOTH
Tokyo street style, transported to your bookshelf.
It’s been a week since my boyfriend moved to Tokyo, and while he hasn’t said a peep about the food or the nightlife, he can’t stop talking about the street style.
Which might explain why Tiffany Godoy is authoring her second tome on the country’s fashion, following Style Deficit Order. Japanese Goth (Rizzoli), which she wrote along with Ivan Vartanian, covers all the Edwardian ruffles, Rococo lace, and heavy metal colors that have infiltrated youth culture. We might know it as “Gothic Lolita”, but the term covers a broad array of looks—something that the book does a good job of showing.
From the cute to the macabre, the ironic to the dead-serious, the design in Japanese Goth runs the gamut. Best of all, the book doesn’t focus on one genre; you see the spectrum of looks reflected not just in clothing, but in art, performance pieces, and design as well. Yoh’s mod-meets-the Munsters drawings are as chic as they are eerie, Hiroshi Nonami’s beautiful photos will send chills down your spine, and Kokushoku Sumire’s staged interactions are playful.
Which doesn’t mean we’re ready to pull these looks off here in New York—but it gives us another reason to finally plan that trip to Tokyo…
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS
$27.59 at powells.com
Which might explain why Tiffany Godoy is authoring her second tome on the country’s fashion, following Style Deficit Order. Japanese Goth (Rizzoli), which she wrote along with Ivan Vartanian, covers all the Edwardian ruffles, Rococo lace, and heavy metal colors that have infiltrated youth culture. We might know it as “Gothic Lolita”, but the term covers a broad array of looks—something that the book does a good job of showing.
From the cute to the macabre, the ironic to the dead-serious, the design in Japanese Goth runs the gamut. Best of all, the book doesn’t focus on one genre; you see the spectrum of looks reflected not just in clothing, but in art, performance pieces, and design as well. Yoh’s mod-meets-the Munsters drawings are as chic as they are eerie, Hiroshi Nonami’s beautiful photos will send chills down your spine, and Kokushoku Sumire’s staged interactions are playful.
Which doesn’t mean we’re ready to pull these looks off here in New York—but it gives us another reason to finally plan that trip to Tokyo…
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS
$27.59 at powells.com
This story was published on April 7, 2009.
CONTENT RATING:
( 2 )
( 2 )
sharon
05/23/2009
most of those stuff are Gosu Loli. Or Gothic Lolita...or even shiroi lolita...
but close enough. And there's a wide variety, not just "Goth"
there's visual kei, oshare-kei, ganguro, hime-gyaru...
not cool to generalize things =/
sharon
05/23/2009
The Gothic Lolita Bible is nice :P
available at borders/barnes and nobles/etc
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