JAPANESE STREETS: Japanese street fashion, street culture and catwalk fashion. Follow the fashion trends of Japan's trendy youths

Kjeld Duits: Next to the main buildings of the market are rows of shows and restaurants. Many of them are sushi restaurants, but there are also other types.

Kjeld Duits: @NeuNeu: Thank you for your kind words about JAPANESE STREETS. Although Lolita is inspired by Victorian clothes, as you also mention, it is not the same thing. Just look at how high skirts are cut, often above the knee; the patterns; prints; colors; accessories such as rings that look like sweets. No Victorian lady could have even imagined such a look. The same is true for other Japanese styles. They have acquired a very specific Japanese esthetic in the way that items, colors, textures and accessories are used and combined that differs sufficiently to be considered different or new. This esthetic also expresses itself in aspects such as design, cut, layering. Often, almost every single item that many of the Japanese people I photograph wear was originally made abroad and bought in used clothing stores in Japan, yet the way they have been styled is thoroughly Japanese and clearly recognizable as such. Additionally, some of the styles on these two pages are Western interpretations of Japanese fashion styles, so they once again acquire a Western esthetic layered on the Japanese one. Tais Mallouk’s look is an example of this. Most Japanese women would have covered those bare shoulders with a blouse, sweater, cardigan or T-shirt. There are over 40,000 photos on JAPANESE STREETS, but there is not a single one displaying that much of the upper body. A good metaphor would be Japanese food. Ramen, Japanese Curry and Okonomiyaki are considered Japanese, yet each one was originally inspired by a foreign dish. That however, doesn’t make them any less Japanese. Another example would be blue jeans. Neither the material nor pants themselves originated in the US. Even the words jeans and denim originate from Europe. Yet the garment as we know it today obviously embodies American esthetics and culture, and was popularized by American cultural icons such as James Dean in the 1950s.