The View From Tokyo: why Laforet Harajuku is an epicentre for the city’s alternative creative ideas

The View From... is a column on It’s Nice That written by a team of international correspondents in major creative cities around the world. Every two weeks we report on the design scene in these cities, exploring the topics that are making an impact on the local creative community there. This week, Ray Masaki is reporting from Tokyo.

If Harajuku is a mecca for Japanese fashion, Laforet is its holy site: a department store in central Tokyo known for popularising various fashion subcultures like goth-loli, jirai-kei, forest girl, and decora style, among many others. Situated between the serene Meiji Jingu shrine area, the youthful and boisterous Takeshita street, and the luxury brand-laden Omotesando Hills, Laforet is both a physical and symbolic midpoint in a gradation of old and new, trendy and classic, culture and subculture. Now, as one of the central symbols of Harajuku and a bastion of Tokyo’s youth culture, Laforet continues to push daring design and art direction as much as it does fashion.

History of Harajuku

Before Harajuku became the global fashion hub it is today, the area underwent several transitions. After the Second World War, the Harajuku area, known then as Washington Heights, was kept as American military housing and mostly blocked off from Japanese locals. As Japan tried to regain its reputation on the global stage through the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, post-occupation military housing was transformed into lodging for the Olympic athletes. Led by Yusaku Kamekura, Japan used and reinterpreted Western modernist elements in the design and branding of the Tokyo Olympics as a strategy for telegraphing global reintegration.

Following the Olympics, young local artists and fashion designers took over the vacated apartments in search of a good deal. Many settled in the Harajuku Central Apartments across from what would later become Laforet. They used their dwellings as hybrid studio and retail spaces and were dubbed Mansion Makers (with “mansion” being the Japanese equivalent of apartment/flat). Brands like Men’s Bigi, Comme Ca Du Mode, Milk and Ba-Tsu, would start in the Central Apartments before having a retail presence in Laforet.

In the decades following the war, Japan was still in a state of recovery and far from the technologically advanced and mature capitalist society it’s known as today. In the post-war mentality, Western aesthetics were treated as modern and desirable, whereas Japanese aesthetics were traditional and outmoded. This resulted in brands at the time, much like Kamekura’s designs for the Olympics, incorporating Western themes but adapted for Japanese tastes. As most Japanese people didn’t have the means to go overseas, the fashion that arose was studied reinterpretations (as well as exoticisation) of Western styles, creating unexpected and hybridised results. Goth-loli fashion, for example, appropriates ornate French Renaissance-style dresses with contemporary anime-like makeup and hairstyles.

Harajuku began to draw customers away from more popular shopping districts like Shibuya and Shinjuku by appealing to the evolving youth tastes with the establishment of Laforet in 1978, which championed these modern brands. The department store was one of the first to place local designers’ clothing that couldn’t be purchased anywhere else at the forefront, with pop-up spaces and curated “select shops” scattered among its floors. The intentionally cluttered layout is quintessential to efficient Tokyo architecture and the treasure-hunting predisposition of Japanese customers, providing a valuable third place for young people to meander its many floors and hang out with friends.

With Laforet playing a significant role in shifting the youth identity through fashion, they needed to be accompanied by forward-thinking advertising campaigns. Laforet tapped on the shoulders of the next generation of designers and art directors who were also remixing and updating the aesthetic expectations of Japanese design.

Advertisements that reject advertising

I rarely find advertising refreshing, but Laforet’s advertisements do not use typical fashion imagery or sales tactics. While there is a trendy sensibility, I don’t feel like I’m being pulled or prodded to purchase something – perhaps more being sold an attitude. The featured campaigns below, while stylish, are not necessarily product-driven, nor do they even promote a particular lifestyle; instead, they create emotional associations with the Laforet brand.

The most famous of Laforet’s ad campaigns include Takuya Onuki’s The Giant Bra ad in 2001. Onuki wanted to challenge the pre-existing conceptions of fashion advertising by creating, in his words, “advertisements that reject advertising”: quirky and surprising images that are more memorable than informative. For The Giant Bra, as the name suggests, his team built a realistic giant brassiere several stories tall and had it strewn across building tops on a set in Los Angeles, creating a viral scene pre-social media. How Onuki received the budget and go-ahead to do this stunt, in America no less, is a mystery to me, but perhaps indicative of the freedom towards creativity that Laforet was encouraging. In an interview, he says, “The battle against budget is always the biggest challenge for creatives,” sharing that he spent almost his entire budget producing the bra and saved money by forgoing film and doing a basic video shoot.

My former boss, Rikako Nagashima, gained recognition in 2011 for her “be noisy. Laforet” campaign. Unlike Onuki’s in-your-face concepts, Nagashima’s approach was understated and subversive. Critical of mass production and consumption, she wanted to “create a message that opposed the homogenisation of objects and information exemplified by the rise of fast fashion, thereby questioning consumers, manufacturers, and Laforet itself”. In the promotional video, as a woman dressed in a dark shirt inaudibly speaks, plants, flowers, and fruits extend out of her mouth before receding. Although I find her concept beautiful, Nagashima felt guilty about this project. She created it while working at an advertising agency and felt the message lacked conviction and accountability because she could hide behind her company. Still, I find her efforts admirable; her work is minimal without being simple, and poetically conveys her message.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, artist and designer GucciMaze took over Laforet for its 2022 Grand Bazar event. Using the maximalist graffiti and rave-inspired elements that GucciMaze has become known for, he created an assortment of sticker-like graphics that covered all areas of the building, which was a full-circle moment for him. Growing up in neighbouring Kanagawa prefecture, GucciMaze would save money from part-time jobs to go into the city and shop at Laforet in Tokyo, hoping to see his own art on the building one day. When I asked him about the process of working with Laforet, he mentioned that they were open to his ideas, which enabled his personal vision and taste to shine through. Even the promo video incorporates music by Cyberhacksystem, a drum-and-bass DJ part of the Rave Racers collective, of which GucciMaze is also affiliated.

Since its conception, Laforet has become more than just a store; it’s a cultural cornerstone. It has nurtured Harajuku’s unique identity and continues to inspire generations of fashion lovers and creatives. However, with a decades-long stagnant economy, Japanese companies are no longer in any rush to send teams overseas to build giant novelty bras. In recent years, competitors like Parco, with a similarly impressive pedigree of advertisement designs, have been test-piloting campaigns that are entirely generated in AI with minimal intervention. I hope this isn’t part of a larger trend of removing young creatives from these visible venues. Of course, AI can be used as a creative tool like anything else – Laforet also recently created a campaign incorporating AI-generated chrysalises by contemporary artist Yuma Kishi – but these tools aren’t a replacement for human creativity. The Laforet look may be difficult to define, but what is certain is that it has always promoted a culture of personal expression and exploration. It is critical for stores like Laforet to continue to champion the next generation’s bold visions as they have in the past to ensure their place in the future of Japanese culture.

Closer Look

Ray shares some local tips for Tokyo and creatives affiliated with the Laforet legacy.

• Visit Laforet in Harajuku! As a guy in his 30s, the store makes me feel really old, but if you’re young and interested in fashion, you’ll love it. Check out the museum on the top floor too!
  
  
• Kohei Kawatani, a photographer who’s worked on a Laforet campaign and someone I interviewed for this article is exhibiting at Art Squiggle Yokohama. The event runs until 1 September.
  
  
• Suzuki Kenta, who is currently doing the creative direction for Laforet ads, always features great up-and-coming musicians in the campaigns. Lil Soft Tennis, featured in the most recent Grand Bazar campaign, is performing at O-East in Shibuya this month.

• Rikako Nagashima recently published her first book and is having a gallery exhibition at Post. Her book is at the intersection of design, parenting, being a female in the industry, among many other important topics.