Little Book of Tokyo Style: The Fashion History of the Iconic City

by Emmanuelle Dirix

'If you go to Tokyo, I think it becomes very obvious that there's this almost seamless mixture of popular culture and Japanese traditional culture.' – Kazuo Ishiguro From the youthful maximalism of Harajuku to the luxurious sophistication of Ginza, Tokyo is the city of a thousand styles. With diverse and unique subcultures like the kitsch Sweet Lolitas, the dark and dramatic goths and punks, the retro rockabilly's and the elegant and traditional Wa Lolitas, Tokyo is home to an explosion of fashion like no other. This instalment of the beautiful Little Books of City Style series will look at the style evolution of this incredible capital, providing an exquisitely illustrated guide to dressing like a true Tokyoite.

Genres: Fashion, Japan, Nonfiction, Japanese Literature, Travel

160 pages, Hardcover

Published July 25, 2023

Reviews

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

80 procent av boken handlar om japanska designers i väst. Typ inget om tokyos mode historia. Hade den haft samma struktur som den om London hade den vart mer intressant.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such hope for this.
I know it says 'Little Book' but the writing is too much and too small.
Because of this, it looses it's magic.

[li · Rating 5 out of 5]

miam miam

[Bleid Zidiculous · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who's interested in japanese street fashion the book immediately picked my interest. It mostly discusses high fashion which I am not at all familiar with but it was still a very interesting and informative read that also included a section covering some of the more popular street styles like lolita and gyaru. The plethora of good quality images is also something I heavily appreciate- especially the inclusion of some FRUiTS magazine covers. However I find the text and image layout (the pagination) of the book to be quite jarring. More often than not, at the end of a page, the sentences continue onto the next page, which while not the end of the world still felt bad to read. What's worse is that there are times when the text, instead of continuing onto the next page, is cut off by 2 pages of images (Pages 51 to 54 and 89 to 92) and then continues on the page after, which was very annoying given that it meant reading the image descriptions and then giving the cut-off sentence a second read from the start for the sake of continuing the line of thought. The former is more of a personal nitpick but the latter was quite bizarre and noteworthy.

That being said, given that this is my only complain and is in no way related to the quality of the content nor the book's construction, I feel comfortable recommending it to those who are interested in fashion and potentially those interested in modern aspects of japanese culture.

[Brašna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lately, I've been scouring this particular bookshop and I am never disappointed by their range of Japanese literature or Japan-related books. To take a small break from novels, I strolled into the non-fiction section, where I discovered this little overview of Japanese fashion. It is a fine summary of the basics of Japanese high fashion as it develops hand in hand with street fashion. Tiktok introduced me to some of the names but it was a welcoming change to read a bit about historic developments, influences and highlights of Japanese fashion.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yowzers, That Tokyo Fashion

Having now been in Tokyo, I found that I have never seen such a high per-capita populace of a city as well dressed as Tokyo (and also Kyoto).

I was wearing collared shirts most days on the trip, and I felt deeply underdressed.

Obviously, it is unthinkable to me to wear three-piece suits in upper-twenty-degree weather, but that is what I saw throughout Japan.

This book did a great job at uncovering the unique and downright fascinating style of the people of Tokyo. It was truly something to see in person.

Check it out!

4.1/5

[LivThebooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[A Canadian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of pictures! I wish the last chapter had been expanded.

[Aaliya · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 ⭐

so informative and interesting!