Harajuku in Los Angeles - Fashion Walk (2018-2019)

Harajuku (原宿), a Tokyo neighborhood, is known internationally as a center of Japanese youth culture and fashion. In 2015, an international Harajuku Fashion Walk made its way to Los Angeles. It inspired the formation of "Harajuku Day," a monthly Los Angeles-based Japanese Fashion meetup held in the city's Little Tokyo neighborhood, a historical center of Japanese American culture. 

Harajuku fashionistas, the name comes from the Japanese neighborhood where this urban fashion originates, strike poses, often gesture, and use accessories or props, embracing the substyles of J-street fashion. Harajuku is not one particular style but a trove of many styles. My work with the community also expands upon traditional notions of beauty, self-exploration, and social norms. 

Harajuku in Los Angeles captures the self-expression and individualistic styles adopted by the Harajuku-inspired persons living in Southern California. Harajuku in Los Angeles - Fashion Walk is the first of three photographic portrait projects.