These iconic magazines have thousands of street style photographs from the 80’s and 90’s to dive into
Shoichi Aoki is an extraordinary Japanese street fashion photographer. He recently has made both of his most influential and avant-garde creatures STREET and FRUiTS available online.
He began his work in the mid 80’s documenting the evolution of street style of young Tokyo boys. Instead of following American and European trends and magazines, he customized the classic items of Japanese tradition such as kimonos, obi sashes and geta sandals and combined them with handmade, vintage and designer fashion in a new approach focused on customization.
STREET magazine was founded by Aoki in 1985. The publication gathered the best candid fashion footage from around the globe. From the cobbled streets of Paris and the sidewalks of New York City, to Antwerp, Tokyo, Berlin, and beyond.
Finally, after many years the magazine’s first 100 issues are now available entirely online. 3,600 digitised pages of fashion, that fans can chart to see the evolution of style across two decades or use them as a source of inspiration when it comes to their own style.
Also, available to view and download is Aoki’s other legendary publication, FRUiTS. The publication documented the wild style of Harajuku. Beginning in 1997 all the way to 2017. FRUiTS captured the ever-changing Harajuku style.
Aoki explained in an interview that new life had been breathed into the area’s streets. Which he says we have the likes of Demna Gvasalia and Virgil Abloh to thank for. In fact, he’s so inspired by a new generation of stylish kids, he’s thinking about resurrecting FRUiTS in the not-too-distant future.
Both magazines are not only available to read and download online here. But you can also plunge into STREET’s archive here and into FRUiTS’ archive here.
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