Radical Fashion We Love at Dog by Amelia Groom
Guest Contributor | February 19th, 2008
Gas masks. Ex-American Army clothes. Life jackets. Tutus. Helmets. Victorian corsetry and bonnets. Dominatrix gear. All this and more can be found at Dog in Harajuku, and they encourage wearing it all together.
Harajuku remains the favourite playground for cool kids in Tokyo. Everyone there is about seeing and being seen and this culture of voyeurism transforms all into their fantasy identities.
The most eccentric and brave fashion of all comes out of an easily-overlooked doorway between two shops, which leads down a narrow stairwell to a tiny, smoky and dim cave of treasure. This unsigned shop is the height of fantasy where anything is possible and escape from the mundane is guaranteed.
Dog is full of new and used sculptural avant-garde creations and people travel from all around to see not only the clothes but the motley crew of staff, who are mostly graduates or students from Tokyo’s legendary fashion school, Vatan Design Institute.
Skirts are made out of vintage parachutes, shoes are customised with paint or affixing crystals and little toys, and candle wax is used to sculpt skulls and skeletal structures into cotton shirts and dresses.
Other experimental specialties include sneakers made into sandals with pieces cut out, and boarboro (‘messed up’) knitwear, involving skillful unraveling and re-arranging of old sweaters.
Besides customised and re-made second-hand and antique clothes, they also sell used fashion from the staff’s favourite avant-garde designers, such as Martin Margiela, Bernhard Willhelm, Ann Demeulemeester, Vivienne Westwood and Dries Van Noten.
The styles at Dog epitomise Harajuku’s signature DIY sensibility and combining of high with low, old with new, east with west. Clothes are their own objets d’art, a way to explore new possibilities and embody optimism and escape in an intensely conformist culture.
On the mezzanine level are beautiful antique shoes in immaculate condition – but watch out for the pipes coming out of the too-low ceiling. Some nights the basement space is turned into a nightclub or live music venue, with Kai Satake, the owner, occasionally performing with his band. The sounds are cutting-edge, raw, loud, and occasionally offensive, just like the clothes.
Dog , 1F, Trinity Bldg, 2-23-3 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku. + 03-3746-8110
Amelia Groom
Amelia Groom is a writer and editor based in Sydney, Australia. Her favourite places include Mexico, Madrid, New Orleans, Paris, Stockholm, Rome, Seville and Las Vegas. She’s also a Japanophile and enjoys making clothes, random acts of kindness, having crushes, ticking off lists, stories, surprises and yelling. She’s less keen on awkward conversation, bad theatre, being caught, the way Mexican food is so uninspiring in Australia, and the way people on public transport here don’t talk to each other. She thinks traveling alone is ace, and other people can be terribly disappointing. That’s something she has to work on.
