Tokyo subcultural street styles: Japanese subcultural street style as a uniform

Japanese subcultural groups create safe and inventive spaces for youth to explore new identities, styles and globalization that are not available to them in other areas of their dominant culture. Japanese youth often join subcultures in the process of rejecting their parents’ generational values and the workforce uniforms commonly associated with adulthood and socio-economic failures of past generations. Accordingly, the Japanese subcultural street styles visually communicate a desire for prolonged childhood and deferred responsibilities of adulthood, while drawing significantly from global stimuli. Using ethnographic methods, it is revealed how many of the elements from Japanese subcultural dress are culturally authenticated from western styles and aesthetics, and their public display communicating the subculture member’s understanding of conspicuous consumption of perceived global ideals − wealth, diversity, authenticity and individuality. While these subcultural street styles function as alternatives to the standard Japanese uniforms (e.g., the business suit or occupational uniform), this dress style also communicates a new and modern identity for Japanese youth. Japanese subcultural street styles are so prescribed that they are, in fact, uniforms.