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Recently I was browsing the Tv (as ever) when i came across a show called 'style me famous' wher eyou basically copied a celebrity's style. This one was Hilary duff. The main bit of advice they gave was "instead of cramming a load of accessories together to be 'kooky', pick one and style simply around it."

These guys were obviously ignorent of the wonder that is 'Fruits' fashion.

Find one of these thick books and open the page at random, and immediately you are greeted by a blinding amount of colours and creativity. Clashing, crazy brillinat style!
Have you ever tried to style rainbow dreadlocks with a hello kitty bag, smiley afce purse, knitted trousers, baby doll skirt and a big a** yellow flower on yoru head? No? Sounds wierd? well of course it is: this is Fruits. But it's great biggrin

Fruits came about from a photography project by Shoichi Aoki where he went out nto the one maddeningly cretaive streets of Harajuku to take picture sof the wierd and spiffy fashions the japanese teenagers came up with to show off to each other. The exciting thing wa sthat, rather than the storebought H&M clad fashion we're used to today, these kids made much of theris clothes, or customised them form second hand.
Grannyish gifts, children's toys, historical pieces were all customised and added together to make a great outfit.

It's hard to describe, but onc eyou open this book your hea dwill be spinning with teh cretaivitya nd vitality fo tehse outfits smile

Though it's hard to describe the 'trends' in the books, a few pop up in differnt forms:
*gothic lolita
*maddly colourful
*toy customisation
*punk
*cyber
*Vintage/traditional customisation
--and just plain wacky.

any follower/lover of fashion should adore these books smile

And (to mak ethings even better) each person on the photo is accompanied by a little detail box that tell you their name, age, where they got differnt items of clothing from, the point of their fashion and their current obsession. thes elittle snippets alone give you lots of entertainment,a nd are often quite enlightening and funny smile

in many ways thes eboks are an important part of culture. esp teen culture; even more so now teh west is becoming increaisngly interested with the East.

As Shoichi Aoki says:
"(japanese Harajuku teenagers') do-it-yourself sensibility to fashion reveals the way in which the clothes we wear have the power to change not only our personal conceptin of ourselves but also the way in which we interact with the world around us."

I challenge any one of you not to feel more cretaive after seeing these books. A must read smile