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Paper short abstract

Focusing on the “Takenoko” tribes in Harajuku around 1980, this paper clarifies how they were influenced by other subcultural tribes, unintentionally invented a defiant subculture of handmade fashion, and eventually chipped away the spatial structure of fashionable shopping street.

Paper long abstract

Previous studies on Japanese youth subcultures have centered on their inner system of values against the mainstream society and the structural background preconditioning their styles. Especially the chronicle genealogy and transition of the postwar subcultural “tribes (zoku)” have been discussed (Mabuchi 1989; Namba 2007). While not a few tribes had their own territory to gather in the urban space, their influences toward other tribes sharing the same space or on the city itself have not been sufficiently clarified. Focusing on the “bamboo shoots tribe (Takenoko-zoku)” in Harajuku around 1980, this presentation examines how they co-mingled with other subcultural tribes based in the same street and transformed the pedestrianized area of fashion district.

With its trendy boutiques and cafes, Harajuku had become famous for the weekend temporal pedestrianization in the late 1970, which the police and shop owners implemented ostensibly for the shoppers’ convenience, implicitly aiming to evict the motorcycle gangs from the street. The developers designed the area as a theater stage for the fashionables to show off their clothes and compete with each other for their “elegance.” Harajuku gained the high-class and sophisticated atmosphere and excluded the economically disadvantaged teenagers from the area.

Some skateboarders, with imported outfits and equipment, were the first to dance on the street of Harajuku to show off their techniques to the passersby and called “the board tribe.” Then other teenage groups called “rock’n’roll tribes” followed the idea of dancing, but they utilized their parents’ old clothes to achieve the trendiness for free. Emulating these tribes, the “Takenoko” tribe made their gaudy yet unique costumes from cheap materials and quotidian items.

As a result, the initial frequenters of Harajuku grieved that the shopping street had become “lame” because of the “corny” low-income teenagers. A part of the pedestrianized area in Harajuku, however, was transformed into a mecca of unstylish performances where people gathered regardless of whether they could afford a product in the boutiques. Through mutually influencing each other, the tribes unintentionally invented the defiant subculture of handmade fashion and chipped away the spatial structure of fashionable shopping street.