Harajuku in Los Angeles: Garage Studio Portraits (2022–ongoing)

My work is rooted in an affection for culture and place. These interests converged when I first encountered Harajuku fashion. In 2015, I met Angeleno J-fashion dressers at an international fashion walk in Downtown Los Angeles. Their boundary-pushing streetwear captivated me, blending Japanese street fashion with kawaii, the quality of being cute. What drew me in most was the community's openness and embrace of individuality.

That encounter led to Harajuku in Los Angeles, an ongoing portrait project centered on Harajuku-inspired individuals, self-expression, and J-fashion communities in Southern California. I approach this work with reverence, shaped in part by my own experience of not fitting in and wishing I had felt the freedom to be rebellious through fashion.

For Harajuku in Los Angeles: Garage Studio Portraits, I invite J-fashion enthusiasts into a makeshift portrait studio—a car garage reflective of Los Angeles car culture—set alongside monthly Harajuku Day LA meetups in Little Tokyo. Harajuku Day brings together a diverse local J-fashion community. Presented as diptychs, these portraits highlight the performative side of Harajuku fashion, showing individuals and friends representing subculture styles including decora, fairy-kei, Lolita, party-kei, and more, as they construct identity through dress, pose, and gesture.

Series Background: Across the project, I have photographed more than 100 members of Los Angeles's Harajuku community and interviewed numerous individuals, forming many friendships along the way. Harajuku (原宿), a Tokyo neighborhood, is a center of Japanese youth culture and fashion. Inspired by the spirit of FRUiTS Magazine (1997–2017), the influential street-style publication closely tied to Harajuku youth culture, Harajuku in Los Angeles is a three-part project chronicling the city's J-fashion community and the ways its members express individuality, creativity, and belonging through fashion.

Thank you to the Los Angeles Harajuku community and Harajuku Day LA for their generosity and support.