Much has been made of the recent closure of the monthly print edition of Shoichi Aoki's seminal Fruits street-style magazine, with many ready to cry that it sounds the death knell for Harajuku fashion, rather than seeing it as a simple casualty of the rise of new media. Japanese high fashion, meanwhile, has been looking to the past with avant-garde maestro Rei Kawakubo's Comme des Garcons' New York Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition — a profound achievement for Japanese fashion that ultimately centers on the brand's history as the designer's legacy continues.
The question is, what comes next? With the end of Fruits but a clear indication that the world still has an appetite for Japanese style, where should we be looking?