#maybe he wears historical fashion things he diys

[queer-chnospinci]

Okay hot take: martin k blackwood magnusarchives was (or is) into some subculture/ alternative clothing style

[caveartfair]

How Women Artists Survive the Challenges of Mid-Career Stagnation

Each year, London-based collector Valeria Napoleone sets an acquisition budget for herself, and considers what works she might add to her roughly 400-work-strong collection of art by women, built over more than two decades. In the past five years, she noticed a strange, recurring phenomenon: Works by young artists, often barely out of grad school, commanded similar or higher prices than pieces by accomplished mid-career artists, some of whom she herself had been buying since the late 1990s.

“You have someone in her fifties, with a long story of exhibitions, and the price is the same as an artist who’s just had one or two solo shows in a gallery, so what’s happening here?” said Napoleone. “I’m confronted with this more and more every day.”

Any artist’s mid-career period—which, for this story, is loosely defined as an artist who has been working continuously for at least a decade—can be fraught. But it is especially challenging for female artists, who face deeply ingrained stereotypes and biases, whose work is less easily received by a male-dominated art market, and who may be less inclined to advocate for themselves than their male peers. Interviews with more than a dozen artists, dealers, and arts professionals show how women navigate this tricky terrain—with sheer perseverance, conscious reinvention, and the help and support of friends.

“It is definitely a sensitive time for male and female artists,” said Mary Sabbatino, who, as vice president and partner of Galerie Lelong, has worked with or represented the estates of artists such as Nancy Spero, Etel Adnan, and Ana Mendieta. Collectors will take a chance on younger artists, especially at a lower price point; artists with established museum track records are considered a surer bet. Curators, meanwhile, would prefer to be credited with the discovery of a new voice.

At middle-age, women no longer comfortably conform to the “wild child” image the world expects of an artist.

“In mid-career, artists are kind of in the middle. They’re neither completely vetted, nor are they new,” said Sabbatino.

This is regrettable, said Kathleen Gilrain, executive director of Brooklyn exhibition space Smack Mellon, because at mid-career, an artist is often maturing into a richer, more nuanced phased of their work. Smack Mellon, of which Gilrain is also chief curator, offers exhibition opportunities specifically to mid-career artists without gallery representation, with a focus on women.

“An artist might make a big splash when they’re younger and then they get into this mid-career phase when they’re not the name any more, and then they kind of disappear,” said Gilrain. “Well, they don’t disappear! They’re still making work, and they’re making a lot better work, maybe, than when they made that big splash.”

“The work gets better, artists get better when they keep making art,” she continued. But unfortunately, she added, “there’s a serious ageism problem in the art world, and I see it a lot.”

This problem can be compounded by the lack of clear professional stepping stones in the art world, said Mark Smith, executive director of Axisweb, a nonprofit supporting artists in the U.K.

“In other career paths, you can clearly see, ‘Okay, that’s where I go next,’ and as an artist, that’s not there,” he said. “If you consider an artist’s career, it’s very up and down. One of the problems many artists face when it’s 10 or 15 years in, is they’re no longer the new thing.”

The new generation of artists’ ease with social media and comfort with self-promotion and creating their own opportunities puts older artists at an even greater disadvantage, Smith said.

“They’re not so digitally savvy as younger artists, and don’t have that DIY approach to doing things,” Smith said. “Artists who’ve been doing it for 10 or 15 years, maybe they’re worn down by the process. Younger artists are more switched on to that DIY way of doing things.”

Lynn Hershman Leeson, 77, has worked for most of her life in San Francisco, holding as many as five adjunct teaching jobs at once to support herself and her daughter while pursuing her art career. “It was really scary and grueling, and I was like one step ahead of the law in getting evicted and raising a kid,” she said. “I was almost 50 when I got my first job.…Things like a postage stamp, you had to think twice about whether you’re going to buy that.”

Leeson was finally “discovered,” as it were, in 2014 by Gavin Brown’s Enterprise’s then-staffer Bridget Donahue, who took the time to pore through a binder of materials and DVDs covering Leeson’s lifetime of work. In 2015, Donahue opened her eponymous gallery with a mini-retrospective of five decades of Leeson’s work, helping jump-start her career in the United States.

Nina Katchadourian, 50, said her career has been marked by female “gate-openers” such as her San Francisco dealer Catherine Clark, as well as curators she has worked with very closely, often on multiple occasions.

“The people who have been the most supportive of my career in the past 10 years have been women,” Katchadourian said. “My closest professional relationships have been actually with women…with the ones who have really put their full weight and trust and faith behind what I’m doing. There have been some amazing men, too, but it does sort of strike me now that it’s mostly women, actually.”

The artist Marilyn Minter, now 70, attributes the divergence between women and men’s career paths in part to the power wielded by male collectors, who were unreceptive to the feminist work she and her female colleagues were making as they came of age. This was especially true of collectors of her generation, whose buying power also grew as they approached middle age.

Portrait of Marilyn Minter and Laurie Simmons by Laurel Golio for Artsy.

“I’m not a sociologist or anthropologist, but until recently, the collector base was all men of the same age as that of the women artist…and they never saw a powerful woman. If their mother had a job at all they were nurses, or teachers, or librarians, or housewives,” Minter said. “They can’t wrap their head around someone being an innovator and being female.”

Minter watched as talented men in her cohort of artists were lionized by male collectors and the press, while equally talented women had careers that never quite reached the same peaks, especially in market terms.

“The male collectors, they go after the identified ‘art heroes,’ the so-called Picassos of the time, the ones that generate all the press,” she said, acknowledging that some (she cited Jeff Koons, Christopher Wool, and Richard Prince) “are very good,” while others, who are “just terrible,” nonetheless get the backing of dealers and auction houses.

“Why isn’t Kara Walker selling for as much as Jeff Koons? Why isn’t Cindy Sherman? They changed art history as much as Jeff Koons did,” Minter said.

Why, indeed. Artists offered a wide array of explanations of how the mid-career experience can challenge women, from the asymmetric social expectations or parenting obligations that hobble many women’s careers, to art-world specific factors such as the myth of the heroic male genius.

“The whole structure of the art world is built on getting a certain kind of commercial and institutional support that has been denied to women,” said Joan Semmel, 86. “In the beginning of a career, one can fight against it and get by on just the sheer novelty of them having a woman, that has, quote, ‘talent’ and ability…and but the problem is, how do you get the institutions to support that career?”

The historic worship of male creative genius, Semmel said, paves the way for collectors and museums to buy into men’s work.

“There’s the kind of mythology of the heroic male genius who comes on the scene and pisses in the fireplace,” she said. “It’s a little hard for us to piss on the fireplace. We don’t function quite the same way.”

“People are more comfortable after a certain age with the profile of the woman artist as a crazy old lady.”

Creative genius in women, in the art world’s stereotype, often wears a different frame, Semmel said. In women, genius often takes “the form of the beautiful fabulous woman who’s the lover of whoever and has made these wonderful paintings, or else the madness—it’s wonderful to have the madness in there somehow, that in some way accounts for the genius that this poor woman has.”

That latter aura is most readily ascribed to women in their reckless youth, or in old age; Laurie Simmons, 69, believes that “people are more comfortable after a certain age with the profile of the woman artist as a crazy old lady.” But at middle-age, women no longer comfortably conform to the “wild child” image the world expects of an artist.

Mary Kelly explored this in-between period in a work tellingly titled Interim Part I: Corpus (1984–85), a series of texts on aging, narrated through scenes of female camaraderie, discussions of fashion, a day at the beach preceded by the agony of bikini shopping. At the 40th birthday party of a friend, Kelly wrote, “Sarah interrupts to tell me the leather jacket is lovely but she distinctly remembers that I said I’d never wear one. I confess I finally gave in for professional reasons, that there’s so much to think about now besides what to wear, that the older you are the harder it seems to be to get it right and that the uniform makes it a little easier.”

Installation view of Mary Kelly, Interim Part I: Corpus, 1984–85 in Pippy Houldsworth Gallery’s booth at Frieze London, 2018. Courtesy of Pippy Houldsworth Gallery.

Speaking alongside the Corpus installation, which was shown at Frieze London in October, Kelly described how approaching one’s mid-career phase, especially as a woman, makes it harder to conform to the “marketable identity of the artist as younger, dissident” type who “has a drug habit,” which is part of the myth of the artist as a creative Other. “We’re part of the entertainment industry,” Kelly said.

The sexism women face is pernicious and grinding. “It’s very hard to even talk about it, because it’s like a thousand blows,” Semmel said. “It happens in increments, in small shots, over and over and over again, in different ways, and a lot of people get discouraged.”

Judith Bernstein—represented by Kasmin gallery in New York, The Box in Los Angeles, and Karma International in Zurich—said the biggest obstacle facing women in the art world is self-doubt. She cites the writings of Louise Bourgeois, another artist famously ignored for most of her career, as inspiration.

“She never stopped making work,” Bernstein said. “That is the way to overcome self-doubt, to continue on.”

Philadelphia Civic Center Censorship Petition, 197 Courtesy of Judith Bernstein.

For nearly a quarter-century, from her early forties until her mid-sixties, Bernstein, 76, did not have a solo show. Her radical critiques of male sexuality, as seen in her famous “Screw Drawings,” didn’t earn her many admirers among the male establishment.

“Being a woman, feminist, and making sexual work that critiqued men had its many disadvantages,” Bernstein said. “There were so many mid-career women who were also dead in the water. We did what we had to do to sustain ourselves and our studios. I taught,” she added, though she believes the censorship also affected her academic career. “I never made tenure and was always given adjunct positions.”

The perceptual barriers women face in their mid-career years are often compounded by the demands care burden that comes with parenthood, which, in every country and culture, still falls disproportionately on women. While many female artists describe parenthood as an experience that enriches their lives and deepens their artistic practices, it unquestionably demands time that previously might have gone to the self-promotion and networking that is often critical to career advancement in the relationship-driven art industry. In a 2011 Axisweb survey of 138 artists, half of the respondents said childcare responsibilities had hindered their career; according to Smith, the majority of artists who said that were women.

“It definitely becomes harder, once you have a family and you’re raising kids, to find the time to not only spend time in the studio making your work, but to promote and…[go] out there and [meet] people, the curators and writers that can promote your work,” said Gabriel de Guzman, Smack Mellon’s curator and director of exhibitions.

Men, Semmel said, “could hide [children] more easily. They were able to handle that kind of double life more easily than a woman could, because she was charged with most of the childrearing.” Regardless of how much childrearing a female artist did, the decision to become a parent often changed people’s perceptions.

“I have a list of things male artists said to me that are just so insulting,” said Simmons, whose mid-career period coincided with the birth of her elder child, the director and writer Lena Dunham. “‘Well, maybe you should find a gallery that’s sympathetic to women with children,’” one man told her. “What gallery exactly would that be? The ‘Women With Children Gallery’?” Simmons laughed. She recalled another critic and curator who was known to tell people, “Oh, Laurie’s work was much better before she had children.”

“There was a time when you couldn’t admit you had a child because that would immediately make you ‘not a serious artist,’” remembered Semmel. “Not men of course, but just women. So you hid your children when people came to look at work.”

Natalia Nakazawa, a New York–based artist and the assistant director of EFA Studios at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, agreed that when an artist’s mid-career period coincides with the raising of small children, it can be challenging.

“It’s the highest point of activity,” said Nakazawa, 36. “The amount of stuff that has to be completed—you have to be at ultimate functionality.”

“There was a time when you couldn’t admit you had a child because that would immediately make you ‘not a serious artist.’”

But in her experience, it pushed her and other mothers she knows to greater heights of creativity, ingenuity, and collaboration, both in life and in art.

“I actually think it’s a very dynamic period, and I think it’s one that…the art world has had the wrong attitude about,” Nakazawa said. “It’s like, ‘Oh, poor you, you have a child, that must suck for you.’”

Nakazawa and her friend Wanda Gala, a performance artist, are both parents. To save on childcare and support each other’s careers, they trade babysitting duties when they need to go out at night and network. Gala drops off her son with Nakazawa if she has to work all night on an installation, or she’ll watch Nakazawa’s three-year-old son while she goes to an opening.

“Let’s face it, the whole art world is based on evening events,” she said, which normally ties up parents or forces them to pay for expensive babysitters. “It clicked on so many levels, and our kids love each other. It was one of those things where it makes sense, if we rely on each other.”

When Abigail Reynolds, a Cornwall-based artist in her forties known for her intricate collages, won 2016’s BMW Art Journey award, she saw a marked contrast between her deep ambivalence around leaving her children, then seven and eight, and the reactions of men she spoke to about her upcoming journey, which took her along Silk Road trade routes, photographing and documenting lost libraries.

“They’d be like, ‘Ah great, you can just not have the children with you, you can have all that time on your own!’” she said. “But it doesn’t feel like that for me. It’s not just, ‘Yay, off I go, yippee.’ It’s actually bittersweet, and I’m torn.…I noted how many men said that to me, because I actually thought about taking the children with me along the Silk Road, which would have been nuts.”

“Women tend not to leave their children for extended periods over that time,” Reynolds continued. “It’s very hard to do so, because your partner basically has to pick everything up, that’s a big negotiation, that’s a big ask. And partly because you just miss them and you feel like you should be there.”

Reynolds avoids identifying herself as a “middle-aged woman,” the same way she wears vaguely androgynous clothes; biographical details or labels are “a constraint as much as they are useful,” she finds. Middle age, in particular, comes with a set of assumptions wholly at odds with her outlook and personal values.

“I prize flexibility, suppleness, openness, and simple direct enjoyment,” Reynolds said. “None of these qualities do we socially attribute to middle age.”

What sustains men in the rocky mid-career period? The explanations often mirror the experience of their female peers. Instead of exclusion and discrimination, boys’ clubs; instead of childrearing obligations, a partner who will do the lion’s share of the work; instead of self-doubt and discouragement, entitlement and ambition.

“Men were, and still are, much more aggressive,” said Bernstein. “They dominate conversations, and their entitlements and expectations are far greater. This is changing, but it is so entrenched and still present in the art world.”

Leeson has noticed it, too.

“Men have a different kind of entitlement and confidence than I did, and even when I went out and tried, I think I made it worse. I’m not a great schmoozer,” she said. “In fact, once someone was interested in buying something, and then they met me and changed their mind,” she added, an experience that further diminished her appetite for schmoozing. “When you are rejected like that, it just does not build your confidence.”

Plus, men had many more colleagues and peers in the art world, Leeson said: “They had groups, so they met, and they helped each other.” Women weren’t necessarily showing or selling enough to exercise leverage on each other’s behalf.

“Men have a different kind of entitlement and confidence than I did, and even when I went out and tried, I think I made it worse.”

Sculptor Judy Fox, 61, said the schmoozing came naturally to her when she was younger; she rather enjoyed the openings and parties. The problem arises later, when women approach what comedian Amy Schumer delicately termed their “last fuckable day.”

“Being an artist now is…almost 50 percent celebrity-ness and charm, and in order to get past that, you have to have really strong work,” said Fox. “Men’s charm, aka sexiness, lasts up until they’re 55, whereas women aren’t sexy after 40, 45, and there’s a huge flirtation thing that goes on in the art world that has to do with charming curators.”

Men, Fox added, are also socialized to value professional success more, giving them “a lot more motivation,” in her observation. (Over the years, studies have shown that people in general are uncomfortable with ambitious women, who often face backlash for self-promotion).

Katchadourian was still grappling with these questions in her thirties. Now, coming off of a traveling mid-career retrospective at age 50, she is no longer ambivalent.

“It took me a while to become comfortable with the idea of being ambitious and wanting success and having success when it happens,” she said. “It feels like a different thing if you’ve been working really hard at something for 25 or 30 years.”

“The art world loves young bad boys and old ladies,” Marilyn Minter loves to say.

In recent years, women in their seventies, eighties, nineties, and even hundreds, as well as long-deceased female artists, have been championed by dealers in need of new material to offer collectors and museums belatedly assessing their male-heavy collections.

The attention lavished on the post-menopausal set has not gone unnoticed by women in their mid-career stage.

“As a woman, maybe what I should expect is to be pretty much ignored, and if I’m lucky enough to get to my seventies, ‘Oh, look, this woman’s been making this interesting work for 70 years,’” Reynolds said, gently mocking the “discovery” of women who have been hiding in plain sight.

“Why do we have to play such a long game?” she continued. “And what if you die when you’re 50? You’re fucked because you never got through the bad bit?”

There are signs that the landscape is beginning to shift. Female storytellers, journalists, and politicians are reshaping popular culture and political and public discourse. In the art world, Frieze London has, for the past two years, featured special sections devoted to female artists. Female artists are even making their way into evening auctions, long the dominion of men. When Sotheby’s held an auction in November 2017 featuring nine lots by women out of 72, the auction house billed it as the most women to appear at one of its contemporary evening sales in its history. Most recently, the sale of Jenny Saville’s Propped (1992) for $12.4 million made her the most expensive living female artist.

“And what if you die when you’re 50? You’re fucked because you never got through the bad bit?”

Institutions are actively seeking artists from demographic groups they have ignored in the past. The female Surrealists have been dusted off and given museum shows. London’s National Gallery finally acquired its first work by Artemisia Gentileschi in July, bringing to 20 the number of works by female artists in its collection of over 2,300 items. In 2017, the Uffizi Gallery announced that it would be showing more work by female artists. In 2016, 197 years after its founding, the Museo del Prado held its first show by a female artist, Clara Peeters, and will open another female-focused show in 2019, with the work of 16th-century painters Sofonisba Anguissola and Lavinia Fontana. These developments establish women and other previously marginalized groups as part of the canon, creating more opportunities for today’s artists.

There are also several prizes dedicated to supporting women in their mid-career period. Smack Mellon offers shows to mid-career female artists. The three-year-old Freelands Award gives £100,000 to a regional arts organization to present an exhibition (including new work) by a mid-career female artist; £25,000 of that is paid directly to the artist. Melanie Cassoff, managing director of the Freelands Foundation, came from a corporate background before heading up the arts organization. She had expected female artists to face similar challenges as women in other parts of the workforce, especially around parenting obligations and access to childcare, but hadn’t realized the art world presented its own unique challenges.

“I had no idea that the concept of mid-career was a very different thing for artists, male and female,” Cassoff said. “It had to be explained to me—that even though you can emerge and make your name, unless you are constantly reinventing yourself, you fall by the wayside.”

In bestowing the inaugural award—to Scottish artist Jacqueline Donachie and Scotland’s Fruitmarket Gallery—the founder of Freelands, Elisabeth Murdoch, noted that despite Donachie’s prominence in Glasgow’s booming art scene, she had never in 25 years of work had a comprehensive exhibition spanning new and old work. In its second year, the award went to Lis Rhodes, who is in her seventies and has been making films since the 1970s, and Nottingham Contemporary.

“The art world loves young bad boys and old ladies.”

This past year, Susan Unterberg, the philanthropist behind the longstanding prize Anonymous Was a Woman—which gives 10 $25,000 grants annually to women over 40—revealed her identity for the first time. Unterberg, 77, who began her career as a photographer in her thirties after marrying and raising two daughters, said she had not been encouraged by those around her to pursue her practice.

“The way I grew up, I wasn’t supposed to have a career, I wasn’t supposed to be an artist, I wasn’t supposed to sell work, which I’m sure was true of a lot of people of my generation, living on the Upper East Side,” she said, referring to the New York neighborhood that includes some of the wealthiest zip codes in the country.

The recipient of a large inheritance, Unterberg was able to work on her art without worrying about finances. But she said winners of the prize have also said the award for them was “not as much about the monetary need as the personal need for recognition.” By coming forward, she hopes to be a more vocal advocate for women supporting one another.

And a younger generation of female artists are finding their mid-career period to be as fruitful as any other. Amy Sherald was in her mid-forties when she painted Michelle Obama’s portrait for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Demand soared for her work, and Sherald was subsequently picked up by global mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth. Katchadourian says her mid-career period has brought peace with her own ambitions, and intimacy with the questions that ground her work.

“I am finding 50 much more comfortable and pleasant than 30,” she said.

For Yamini Nayar, 43, a New York–based artist working in different media, the mid-career period has been one of risk and growth. She left her part-time job at a conservation studio when she became pregnant, and turned to making art full-time. While well-meaning colleagues warned her about becoming a parent, she, like Reynolds, found that parenthood has enriched her work, leading her to new ways of looking, feeling, and seeing.

“I can see the shift toward the body and thinking more bodily,” Nayar said. “I deal a lot with architecture and faith and buildings, but the figure and the body [have] become such a strong part of my thought process now.…It’s really about experiencing it as the body moving through space, and being more in touch with that aspect of myself.”

In fact, Nayar said that until she was reached for this story, she was wholly unaware that mid-career anxieties were common.

“I don’t feel like I’m slowing down,” she said. “I don’t have that sense at all.”

from Artsy News

[kadobeclothing]

12 Cool Hairstyles For Men That Have Stood The Test Of Time

A man’s hair has always been an important identifier of success; historically, it would denote class, wealth and masculinity. Now? Well, not much has changed. And despite some tweaks to length and texture, nor have the styles.What looked good on Roman emperors still has the potential to flatter a modern mug. So take a lesson from these entries into the follicular hall of fame – the cuts that have somehow managed to transcend time and stay looking great – and maybe one day they’ll carve your ‘do in marble.Alexander The Great’s Shaggy But StylishIt’s not easy being in charge of the entire Macedonian empire. When you’re considering which Aegean territory to take over next, you don’t want to worry about whether it’s got styling mousse. For that reason, Mr The Great opted for a tousled, shaggy look that’s a particularly easy option for men with curly hair.“This hairstyle is best worn pushed just off the face, and tucked behind the ears,” says Murdock master barber Alex Glover. This allows the natural direction of the hair’s growth to frame the face.There are far more styling products on the market today than there were in 320BC, so if you have time, enhance the cut’s natural texture, by scrunching in a sea salt spray when drying – and then use a matte clay or putty for control.If your battle uniform is a bespoke suit, your superior officer might confuse ‘texture’ for ‘mess’. So only copy this style if your workplace tends more towards neatly cut raw denim. Wear without a beard or any facial hair, like Alexander himself (he was famous for having the ancient world’s only clean-shaven army), or the overall look will appear untamed.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsBrad Pitt’s Buzz CutThe noughties were a particularly regrettable decade in terms of men’s hair trends. We had big slicked fringes, frosted tips and that unsettling noodle thing on Justin Timberlake’s head. Unlike the others on this list, we’re not about to suggest those looks make a comeback.Instead, Joe Mills, owner of Soho barbers Joe & Co, points to the current trend for military haircuts – worn best by hair god of the time, Brad Pitt, in around 2005 – as a modern alternative.“The buzz cut has been seen on the catwalks for the last few seasons and has gradually filtered down as guys got bored of the short back and sides look.”Named after the sound made by hair clippers, it’s a look than can be achieved at home if you’re after a uniform length, but for guys looking to camouflage scars or a protruding occipital bone, leave it to the professionals.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsJFK’s Ivy LeagueForget your gravity-defying pompadour and bushy sideburns – the real star hairstyle of the 1950s was the Ivy League. Also known as the Harvard Clip or Princeton, this classic preppy style is a slightly longer version of the military crew cut.Popularised by style-god-in-chief, JFK, the extra length allows the wearer more scope for styling on top – traditionally into a side parting. Think Daniel Craig or Ryan Gosling’s shorter styles.“In the 1950s and early 1960s, Ivy League universities had policies on how students should wear their hair,” explains Joe Pomper, a senior barber at Murdock in Covent Garden. “This style spread throughout the US in popularity and became a standard offering on barber’s boards.”To recreate the look today, Pomper suggests asking the barber to use a grade five on the back and sides, blending downwards to a three and eventually a two at the nape of the neck. On top, have any excess length trimmed with scissors to keep everything neat, and style using a medium hold and shine product.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsDavid Beckham’s Textured Falling QuiffArguably David Beckham’s best hairstyle, the textured falling quiff makes it onto this list for its contemporary classicism. Or classic contemporaneity. Basically, it will stand the test of time.An ordinary footballer fade this ain’t. “Clippers shouldn’t be used here,” says Tucker. “The back and sides must be scissored for extra texture and less noticeable contrast.” When styling, take a paste and a pomade and rub them together in your hands.Apply the products into towel dried hair with your hands, perhaps with a bit of salt spray for extra texture. “Then rake backwards, scrunching, to achieve that falling strand.”It’s quite a floppy style, so works well with medium-to-thick hair with a slight natural wave. And wear it standing on the sidelines, rather than running about for 90 minutes or that volume will quickly collapse into a sweaty mess.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsRiver Phoenix’s Long Textured HairAside from bell-bottoms (shudder) and the rise of disco, the 1970s are known for being the decade in which men stopped being ‘men’ – by adopting long hairstyles for the first time in centuries.And far more than a follicular flash in the pan, the trend stuck around well into the 1980s, when young stars of the screen like River Phoenix kept the look.“This is a great era to take inspiration from at the moment, as it’s hitting the fashion world everywhere,” says Mikey Pearson, director of Manifesto barbershop in London’s Clerkenwell. “We mostly have Gucci to thank for that.”To recreate this style, you need to ask the barber to cut in layers, which are great for adding softness and adapting the cut to different face shapes. “Always remember this rule: long hair must have long layers. It’s all about a visual balance, so you don’t end up with two haircuts in one,” adds Pearson.A strengthening shampoo and conditioner will keep your trailing tresses in good condition, while a surf spray or texturising cream will add volume and definition.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsJean-Michel Basquiat’s Short DreadsJean-Michel Basquiat had a professional career that spanned just nine years, but the brilliance of his barnet is something that has lasted for decades.The artist’s iconic short dreads continue to inspire afro haircuts to this day, reappearing on heads such as The Weeknd, but it’s not a look you can curate between Friday and Monday.“Dreading hair takes time and work,” says Mills. “You have to twist and lock the hair. Ideally this is best done by someone who knows what they are doing – it’s not a DIY thing.”Fortunately the upkeep of this up-do is something that can be done at home. “You need to keep twisting them and rinse your hair as opposed to shampooing,” adds Mills. Using a wax or moisturising gel will also help maintain the style and tame any rogue hairs.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsJulius Caesar’s Face-Framing CropCaesar’s textured crop is as flattering as it is recognisable, not least because it’s a style that has returned to rule in recent years.“The look is defined by the hair being trimmed to the same length all over,” says Glover. “This gives a gentle appearance to a man’s face.” Not to mention some imperial cheekbones. “To replicate the look, the edges should be naturally textured and not too neat.” So make sure your local barber doesn’t come over all Brutus with the scissors.As a cut, it’s suited to those with thinner hair who want to give the illusion of thicker growth. To further this effect when styling, allow the hair to dry naturally after showering, then apply a soft finish hair product such as a styling cream, gum or wax.Just don’t pair with a toga, no matter how classic your style.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsCillian Murphy’s Disconnected UndercutA good haircut can define a man, but a great haircut can define an entire decade. Sure, a bad haircut can too, but we’re not here to talk about mullets or man buns.Since swaggering onto screen in 2013, Cillian Murphy’s turn as Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders has made men get all misty-eyed about the 1910s in a way that hasn’t been achieved about age-old style since Mad Men. And one of the primary reasons is the show’s grooming.“Men have moved from salons back to barbershops and as a result, traditional styles have become the go-to look,” explains says Liam Campbell, a senior barber at Nomad in Shoreditch.More recently, hair trends have leaned towards slicked back styles with disconnected sides. But for a blinder of a barnet, Campbell suggests opting for a disconnected undercut. “Ask the barber to leave length on top, but take the sides in tight, preferably skin faded to add definition with a raw edge.”Flat cap optional.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsElvis Presley’s Textured PompadourA little less slick-back action, a little more texture, please. Having been a trend for over a decade, it’s well-known that there are few grooming moves more stylish than the pompadour. But as Jones points out, it’s important to go for a modern version of The King’s iconic look to avoid getting stuck in a time warp.“This look is not for everyone, as it’s a longer, more natural style,” he says. “It’s better for someone with thick hair and a natural wave.”As an update, go for a short taper on the neckline and softer scissored texture on top, then apply a base product, like a cream, while damp before coiffuring your quiff. “Rough dry the hair with your fingers to get it into place and finish with a fibre – but you only need to apply a little bit.”The style can fall out of place easily, so fix with a strong hold hairspray if you find your pomp falls flat before lunch.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsWill Smith’s High-Top FadeIt’s difficult to imagine a time when hip-hop and rap music didn’t rule the charts, but in the 1980s it was just getting started. The the high-top fade symbolised hip-hop’s golden age and was worn proudly by many of the scene’s key players like Big Daddy Kane, Kid ‘n Play, and the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith.To get it for yourself, you’re going to need someone who knows their craft. “It’s become an art form that barbers try to perfect, and customers love the precision,” says afro specialist Richard Tucker from Ruffians Barbers. “It’s a great way to control thick, curly hair, but you’ll need to visit your barber every couple of weeks for top-ups to keep it looking its best.”To style, use a bristle brush to keep any fly-away hairs in check, and then scrunch in a pomade to achieve a healthy-looking finish. If you’ve gone for a full-on high-top (rather than a low-top), use a hairspray and afro comb to properly shape and pat to keep in place.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsLiam Gallagher’s Brit Pop MopThink of the 1990s, and your mind probably conjures up images of raves, ecstasy tablets, Brit Pop and Nicholas Cage action movies. What a time to be alive.While curtains and bowl cuts were both immeasurably and inexplicably the haircuts du jour, Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher’s messy textured mop is what stands out as the ultimate style.“Gallagher was arguably the coolest man of nineties Britain,” says Nomad’s Campbell. “His hair reflected his youthful rock ‘n’ roll attitude perfectly.”Campbell adds that using photos for reference is key to helping a stylist or barber recreate this cut. “This is because the fringe and sideburns will sit differently on different hair types, but an experienced barber will know what to do.”From there on in, some texturising products and a little IDGAF attitude is all you need to keep it looking good day-to-day.Modern ExamplesKey ProductsGeorge V’s Slick Side-PartingIn the current decade, the biggest men’s hair trends aren’t limited to what’s on top of the head. Since around 2010, every man and his dog has been growing a beard like a badge of honour, but few do it as well as George V.“The King had a well-groomed style that would not look out of place in any decade,” says Alan Jones, from the eponymous grooming parlour.It’s versatile, too. “The side-parting can be worn at different lengths, so is great in between cuts,” adds Jones, who also suggests tapering the back and sides for a more modern take.To style, separate the parting using a comb and apply a wax or pomade with a slick look, or matte paste or clay for a natural finish. If your hair is particularly unruly, use a hairspray to set the parting in place.To achieve facial hair fit for a king, run a beard oil through your facial forestry to condition, then use a moustache wax to bring definition to your upper lip.Modern ExamplesKey Products Source link

source https://www.kadobeclothing.store/12-cool-hairstyles-for-men-that-have-stood-the-test-of-time/

[fashiontrendin-blog]

The 12 Most Iconic Men’s Hairstyles Of All Time

http://fashion-trendin.com/the-12-most-iconic-mens-hairstyles-of-all-time/

The 12 Most Iconic Men’s Hairstyles Of All Time

A man’s hair has always been an important identifier of success; historically, it would denote class, wealth and masculinity. Now? Well, not much has changed. And despite some tweaks to length and texture, nor have the styles.

What looked good on Roman emperors still has the potential to flatter a modern mug. So take a lesson from these entries into the follicular hall of fame – the cuts that have somehow managed to transcend time and stay looking great – and maybe one day they’ll carve your ‘do in marble.

Alexander The Great’s Shaggy But Stylish

It’s not easy being in charge of the entire Macedonian empire. When you’re considering which Aegean territory to take over next, you don’t want to worry about whether it’s got styling mousse. For that reason, Mr The Great opted for a tousled, shaggy look that’s a particularly easy option for men with curly hair.

“This hairstyle is best worn pushed just off the face, and tucked behind the ears,” says Murdock master barber Alex Glover. This allows the natural direction of the hair’s growth to frame the face.

There are far more styling products on the market today than there were in 320BC, so if you have time, enhance the cut’s natural texture, by scrunching in a sea salt spray when drying – and then use a matte clay or putty for control.

If your battle uniform is a bespoke suit, your superior officer might confuse ‘texture’ for ‘mess’. So only copy this style if your workplace tends more towards neatly cut raw denim. Wear without a beard or any facial hair, like Alexander himself (he was famous for having the ancient world’s only clean-shaven army), or the overall look will appear untamed.

Modern Examples

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Brad Pitt’s Buzz Cut

The noughties were a particularly regrettable decade in terms of men’s hair trends. We had big slicked fringes, frosted tips and that unsettling noodle thing on Justin Timberlake’s head. Unlike the others on this list, we’re not about to suggest those looks make a comeback.

Instead, Joe Mills, owner of Soho barbers Joe & Co, points to the current trend for military haircuts – worn best by hair god of the time, Brad Pitt, in around 2005 – as a modern alternative.

“The buzz cut has been seen on the catwalks for the last few seasons and has gradually filtered down as guys got bored of the short back and sides look.”

Named after the sound made by hair clippers, it’s a look than can be achieved at home if you’re after a uniform length, but for guys looking to camouflage scars or a protruding occipital bone, leave it to the professionals.

Modern Examples

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JFK’s Ivy League

Forget your gravity-defying pompadour and bushy sideburns – the real star hairstyle of the 1950s was the Ivy League. Also known as the Harvard Clip or Princeton, this classic preppy style is a slightly longer version of the military crew cut.

Popularised by style-god-in-chief, JFK, the extra length allows the wearer more scope for styling on top – traditionally into a side parting. Think Daniel Craig or Ryan Gosling’s shorter styles.

“In the 1950s and early 1960s, Ivy League universities had policies on how students should wear their hair,” explains Joe Pomper, a senior barber at Murdock in Covent Garden. “This style spread throughout the US in popularity and became a standard offering on barber’s boards.”

To recreate the look today, Pomper suggests asking the barber to use a grade five on the back and sides, blending downwards to a three and eventually a two at the nape of the neck. On top, have any excess length trimmed with scissors to keep everything neat, and style using a medium hold and shine product.

Modern Examples

Key Products

David Beckham’s Textured Falling Quiff

Arguably David Beckham’s best hairstyle, the textured falling quiff makes it onto this list for its contemporary classicism. Or classic contemporaneity. Basically, it will stand the test of time.

An ordinary footballer fade this ain’t. “Clippers shouldn’t be used here,” says Tucker. “The back and sides must be scissored for extra texture and less noticeable contrast.” When styling, take a paste and a pomade and rub them together in your hands.

Apply the products into towel dried hair with your hands, perhaps with a bit of salt spray for extra texture. “Then rake backwards, scrunching, to achieve that falling strand.”

It’s quite a floppy style, so works well with medium-to-thick hair with a slight natural wave. And wear it standing on the sidelines, rather than running about for 90 minutes or that volume will quickly collapse into a sweaty mess.

Modern Examples

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River Phoenix’s Long Textured Hair

Aside from bell-bottoms (shudder) and the rise of disco, the 1970s are known for being the decade in which men stopped being ‘men’ – by adopting long hairstyles for the first time in centuries.

And far more than a follicular flash in the pan, the trend stuck around well into the 1980s, when young stars of the screen like River Phoenix kept the look.

“This is a great era to take inspiration from at the moment, as it’s hitting the fashion world everywhere,” says Mikey Pearson, director of Manifesto barbershop in London’s Clerkenwell. “We mostly have Gucci to thank for that.”

To recreate this style, you need to ask the barber to cut in layers, which are great for adding softness and adapting the cut to different face shapes. “Always remember this rule: long hair must have long layers. It’s all about a visual balance, so you don’t end up with two haircuts in one,” adds Pearson.

A strengthening shampoo and conditioner will keep your trailing tresses in good condition, while a surf spray or texturising cream will add volume and definition.

Modern Examples

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Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Short Dreads

Jean-Michel Basquiat had a professional career that spanned just nine years, but the brilliance of his barnet is something that has lasted for decades.

The artist’s iconic short dreads continue to inspire afro haircuts to this day, reappearing on heads such as The Weeknd, but it’s not a look you can curate between Friday and Monday.

“Dreading hair takes time and work,” says Mills. “You have to twist and lock the hair. Ideally this is best done by someone who knows what they are doing – it’s not a DIY thing.”

Fortunately the upkeep of this up-do is something that can be done at home. “You need to keep twisting them and rinse your hair as opposed to shampooing,” adds Mills. Using a wax or moisturising gel will also help maintain the style at tame any rogue hairs.

Modern Examples

Key Products

Julius Caesar’s Face-Framing Crop

Caesar’s textured crop is as flattering as it is recognisable, not least because it’s a style that has returned to rule in recent years.

“The look is defined by the hair being trimmed to the same length all over,” says Glover. “This gives a gentle appearance to a man’s face.” Not to mention some imperial cheekbones. “To replicate the look, the edges should be naturally textured and not too neat.” So make sure your local barber doesn’t come over all Brutus with the scissors.

As a cut, it’s suited to those with thinner hair who want to give the illusion of thicker growth. To further this effect when styling, allow the hair to dry naturally after showering, then apply a soft finish hair product such as a styling cream, gum or wax.

Just don’t pair with a toga, no matter how classic your style.

Modern Examples

Key Products

Cillian Murphy’s Disconnected Undercut

A good haircut can define a man, but a great haircut can define an entire decade. Sure, a bad haircut can too, but we’re not here to talk about mullets or man buns.

Since swaggering onto screen in 2013, Cillian Murphy’s turn as Thomas Shelby in Peaky Blinders has made men get all misty-eyed about the 1910s in a way that hasn’t been achieved about age-old style since Mad Men. And one of the primary reasons is the show’s grooming.

“Men have moved from salons back to barbershops and as a result, traditional styles have become the go-to look,” explains says Liam Campbell, a senior barber at Nomad in Shoreditch.

More recently, hair trends have leaned towards slicked back styles with disconnected sides. But for a blinder of a barnet, Campbell suggests opting for a disconnected undercut. “Ask the barber to leave length on top, but take the sides in tight, preferably skin faded to add definition with a raw edge.”

Flat cap optional.

Modern Examples

Key Products

Elvis Presley’s Textured Pompadour

A little less slick-back action, a little more texture, please. Having been a trend for over a decade, it’s well-known that there are few grooming moves more stylish than the pompadour. But as Jones points out, it’s important to go for a modern version of The King’s iconic look to avoid getting stuck in a time warp.

“This look is not for everyone, as it’s a longer, more natural style,” he says. “It’s better for someone with thick hair and a natural wave.”

As an update, go for a short taper on the neckline and softer scissored texture on top, then apply a base product, like a cream, while damp before coiffuring your quiff. “Rough dry the hair with your fingers to get it into place and finish with a fibre – but you only need to apply a little bit.”

The style can fall out of place easily, so fix with a strong hold hairspray if you find your pomp falls flat before lunch.

Modern Examples

Key Products

Will Smith’s High-Top Fade

It’s difficult to imagine a time when hip-hop and rap music didn’t rule the charts, but in the 1980s it was just getting started. The the high-top fade symbolised hip-hop’s golden age and was worn proudly by many of the scene’s key players like Big Daddy Kane, Kid ‘n Play, and the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith.

To get it for yourself, you’re going to need someone who knows their craft. “It’s become an art form that barbers try to perfect, and customers love the precision,” says afro specialist Richard Tucker from Ruffians Barbers. “It’s a great way to control thick, curly hair, but you’ll need to visit your barber every couple of weeks for top-ups to keep it looking its best.”

To style, use a bristle brush to keep any fly-away hairs in check, and then scrunch in a pomade to achieve a healthy-looking finish. If you’ve gone for a full-on high-top (rather than a low-top), use a hairspray and afro comb to properly shape and pat to keep in place.

Modern Examples

Key Products

Liam Gallagher’s Brit Pop Mop

Think of the 1990s, and your mind probably conjures up images of raves, ecstasy tablets, Brit Pop and Nicholas Cage action movies. What a time to be alive.

While curtains and bowl cuts were both immeasurably and inexplicably the haircuts du jour, Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher’s messy textured mop is what stands out as the ultimate style.

“Gallagher was arguably the coolest man of nineties Britain,” says Nomad’s Campbell. “His hair reflected his youthful rock ‘n’ roll attitude perfectly.”

Campbell adds that using photos for reference is key to helping a stylist or barber recreate this cut. “This is because the fringe and sideburns will sit differently on different hair types, but an experienced barber will know what to do.”

From there on in, some texturising products and a little IDGAF attitude is all you need to keep it looking good day-to-day.

Modern Examples

Key Products

George V’s Slick Side-Parting

In the current decade, the biggest men’s hair trends aren’t limited to what’s on top of the head. Since around 2010, every man and his dog has been growing a beard like a badge of honour, but few do it as well as George V.

“The King had a well-groomed style that would not look out of place in any decade,” says Alan Jones, from the eponymous grooming parlour.

It’s versatile, too. “The side-parting can be worn at different lengths, so is great in between cuts,” adds Jones, who also suggests tapering the back and sides for a more modern take.

To style, separate the parting using a comb and apply a wax or pomade with a slick look, or matte paste or clay for a natural finish. If your hair is particularly unruly, use a hairspray to set the parting in place.

To achieve facial hair fit for a king, run a beard oil through your facial forestry to condition, then use a moustache wax to bring definition to your upper lip.

Modern Examples

Key Products

[nefferlemort-blog1]

Japan’s wild, creative Harajuku street style is dead. Long live Uniqlo

To hear photographer Shoichi Aoki describe it, what killed Tokyo’s famous Harajuku style was basically what happens when a glut of factories set up shop at the head of a river that feeds vital waterways.

“In Tokyo there is a kind of flow of energy when it comes to fashion,” Aoki explains. “Harajuku is the source of this flow. If you picture it as the source of a river, then recently there have been factories erected on its banks, and businesses have appeared, but they have stressed the limits of this little fountainhead.”

For 20 years, Aoki’s magazine FRUiTS was known for street-style photography documenting the wild creativity of the fashionable kids in and around Harajuku, a Tokyo neighborhood of about a square mile that has wielded an outsize influence on fashion in Japan and beyond.

In the 1990s, the area was the epicenter of a new look that came to symbolize the uninhibited essence of Japan’s fashion-forward youth culture. An eclectic, unruly overload of influences, sometimes colorful as a pinwheel, exaggerated and accessorized to cartoonish effect, Harajuku style has come to represent Japanese fashion—and indeed Japan—to much of the rest of the globe.

But Harajuku has changed. That frenetic signature image has been co-opted and commercialized by corporations, celebrities, and attention-seekers, and ultimately replaced by one more conservative and less unique among Tokyo’s style-conscious kids. These days, they’re more likely to wear mass-market clothing from Uniqlo and other international clothing chains.

Aoki says there are no longer enough fashionable people who fit the look to put out a magazine every month, and so he’s shuttering FRUiTS, marking the end of an era. Depending how you define it, that era may have actually ended some time ago.

The rise of Harajuku style

Aoki started shooting street fashion in London in the 1980s, and ran a separate magazine called Street. He created FRUiTS in 1997. Harajuku, his neighborhood at the time, had long been a fashion hub in Tokyo, and was witness to a shifting array of styles. From the beginning of the 1980s, there was retro rock ‘n roll, the reign of designer fashion by labels such as Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons, and preppy Shibuya Casual, for example.

In the mid-1990s, the less-commercial Ura-Harajuku section of the area—ura meaning “back”—blew up. From this base, the pioneering Japanese streetwear labels Undercover and A Bathing Ape launched their globally popular style, known locally as Ura-Harajuku-kei.

Ura-Harajuku is one of three zones that effectively make up the neighborhood. There’s also Takeshita Street, a strip now crowded with cheap fashion for children and teens, and Omotesandō, the area’s popular main thoroughfare. Until 1998, a long stretch on Omotesandō, called the Hokosha Tengoku, or “pedestrian paradise,” would close to cars on Sundays. It served as an important gathering spot for kids to see and be seen, and was where Aoki photographed many of his subjects in the early days of FRUiTS.

In 1997, at the same time that streetwear was gaining mass popularity, another look was spreading around Ura-Harajuku and Omotesandō. What prompted Aoki to start the magazine were three girls he spotted, who to him represented something new. For years, Tokyo’s stylish art and fashion school kids had opted for the cerebral, mostly black look of Comme des Garçons and Yamamoto. Vivienne Westwood and London street style also exerted their influence.

“But these girls had made a style that was completely theirs,” Aoki says, describing how they mixed Japanese styles and motifs with Western clothes, to create an image that wasn’t dictated by any brands. “This kind of adventurousness was unheard of,” he recalled. “I had never seen yellow hair before. These completely new girls appeared and seemed to have the potential to make a new style that had never existed previously in Japan. What’s more, this new style was coming from the street, and I had a feeling that this was the first time for this to happen in Japanese fashion history.”

Quickly, a variety of style subcultures emerged—each with its own rules and hangouts. These included kawaii, meaning “cute”; wamono, which mixed elements of Western and traditional Japanese dress; loligoth, an amalgam of Lolita and gothic; futuristic cyberpunk; hyper-colorful decora; and others. Plenty of dressed-up kids also defied definition.

These style tribes, affiliated by geography, eclecticism, and sensory overload, loosely hung together to form a striking new DIY fashion.

W. David Marx, who traced the history of Japanese menswear appropriating American style in his book Ametora, says when he first traveled to Tokyo in 1998, the kids Aoki was capturing were all over Harajuku. Their style gained attention in wider Japan through figures such as entertainer Tomoe Shinohara, and commercial magazines including CUTiE, Zipper, and Kera. But FRUiTS had arguably been there first, and became an authoritative chronicle of the look.

And its decline

By the time US singer Gwen Stefani’s song “Harajuku Girls”—and her veritable minstrel show of some of the girls themselves—appeared in the US in 2004, the subculture was already disappearing in Tokyo, at least among those who’d created it.

The exact reasons for the decline of Harajuku’s unique style aren’t entirely clear. Aoki describes the 1998 closure of his subjects’ Sunday gathering spot, the Hokosha Tengoku “pedestrian paradise,” as a punch to the chest. After that, the area lost some of its magnetism, and international fashion chains had started moving in. “This small fountainhead was overwhelmed with callous businesses,” he says.

It’s possible, too, that as is often the case when a trend becomes cool, those who were on its vanguard moved on as it became too popular, and it began to collapse.

Whatever the exact causes, when Daphne Mohajer, an Iranian-Canadian fashion designer and PhD student based in Tokyo, started working with Aoki and shooting for FRUiTS in 2010, the look was verging on extinction.

“It was hard to find people who could be shot, who were doing new things that were playing with categories or materials in an original way and looked good,” she says. “Maybe 1 in 100 or even less people.”

The style has continued to limp along, and gone through some revivals in recent years, largely because of celebrities who have adopted it, notably Japanese pop star Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Mohajer describes her as the unofficial brand ambassador of Harajuku, specifically Takeshita Street and Ura-Harajuku. The set of her 2011 hit “PonPonPon” was the handiwork of Sebastian Masuda, the designer behind Ura-Harajuku-based shop 6%Dokidoki. The store became a cornerstone of unrelentingly cutesy kawaii style after it opened in 1995.

“I’d say that once she teamed up with Sebastian Masuda they really pushed her and made her into Harajuku’s darling, propelling it into a new wave of popularity overseas,” Mohajer says.

Masuda has gone on to design several buildings that embody the look that has come to represent Harajuku, such as the Kawaii Monster Cafe, which attracts tourists eager for a glimpse of the Harajuku stereotype. Kawaii seems to be the style that has most come to represent Harajuku abroad.

When the cafe opened in 2015, Tokyofashion.com wrote that it “aims to capture the spirit that made Harajuku the most famous street fashion neighborhood in all of Asia.” Travel + Leisure said it’s at the top of tourists’ must-see lists. Asian tourists, especially Chinese, looking to shop the Harajuku stereotype are what have kept the area’s retail businesses alive—though as Mohajer points out, the trend has long since passed.

Harajuku’s present—and future

Today you may occasionally find kids dressed up in rainbow doll’s clothes in Harajuku, but they tend to be emulating YouTube stars and celebrities in an attempt to get noticed. Most people prefer a more subdued look.

Some blame Uniqlo—Japan’s internationally expanding basics chain—as one cause for the shift. Marx says the company, with its muted colors and simple styles, has clearly had an impact on Japanese wardrobes, but he frames its growing influence in terms of economics.

“You can’t detach Uniqlo’s rise from that fact that consumer incomes have been dropping since 1998,” he explains. Japanese shoppers have historically had to pay much higher prices for clothing than shoppers in other countries, and have mostly been willing to. But wages have fallen, and spending on apparel declined 19% (pdf) from 2000 to 2009. As Marx describes it, “Uniqlo came in and said, ‘Hey, how about you just have nice clothing at about the same price as other people pay for clothing.'”

Cheap global chains, including H&M and Forever 21, also drew large crowds when they opened in Harajuku.

That’s not to say that Tokyo, and Harajuku specifically, has lost its sense of style. Creative fashion is still more part of the culture in Japan than, say, in the US, and there are plenty of well-dressed people on the streets of Harajuku to photograph. But fewer of them are dressing in an artistic way that pushes boundaries, and fewer still in the very specific mode FRUiTS started capturing 20 years ago.

“People wear a lot less vintage, there is less of a sense of eclecticism and much more mainstream fast fashion,” Mohajer says. “They look good, but they look familiar.”

Aoki says he has seen a shift in priorities among young consumers. Fashion, he says, is less of a priority these days than smart phones. But he’s still optimistic that the spark of creativity he first saw decades ago lives on.

“With Harajuku’s existing power, and the talent of the young people still going strong,” he says, “I think something good will happen.”