Last year, Shoichi Aoki decided to relaunch his streetwear magazine FRUiTS after its discontinuation in 2017. First landing in 1997, the monthly title published images of the coolest people from around the world, and brought Harajuku style to the forefront of fashion.

Now, the Japanese fashion photographer is following it up by moving the entire archive of his menswear magazine TUNE into the digital realm, with 128 streetwear-filled issues to enjoy throughout lockdown. 

Running from 2004 to 2015, the publication reported on the critical evolution in men’s Harajuku fashion, as it moved away from the Urahara-kei  – a trend coming from the backstreets of Harajuku, Tokyo in the late 90s featuring logo tees and thick denim inspired by hip-hop, reggae, and skaters – and towards a hyper-creative new style.

Flick through the mag’s now-digital pages and you’ll find photos of bright patchwork patterned jackets layered over kitschy graphic tees, exaggerated zip-up hoodies with oversized blue jeans, and a loosened red necktie layered over a ‘repairman’-style knit jumper.  

“In my opinion, Cannabis, a select shop on Cat Street, was the thing that kickstarted this quickly emerging fashion,” explains Aoki. “Then that fashion scene faded out and in 2015 TUNE stopped publishing. It’s been almost five years since then, and still no new fashion has emerged.”

With Aoki previously claiming there were “no more fashionable kids to photograph” when FRUiTS folded in 2017, he was convinced to revive it as a new streetwear chapter fuelled by Virgil Abloh and Demna Gvasalia picked up pace. So although there’s no plans to pick up where TUNE left off right now, if the fashion weathervane blows in another direction and the photographer finds he’s feeling inspired again, who knows what might happen? 

For the time being, there’s ten years of TUNE and its vast archive of streetwear shots to dive into, with 10,700 pages of references up for grabs for $35, or the entire back catalogue available for $450. Just the kind of fashion escapism we need right now.

Shop the TUNE archive online here.