Japanese fashion

Japan began to emulate Western fashion during the middle of the 19th century. By the beginning of the 21st century it had altered into what is known today as Street Fashion.
The term 'Street Fashion' is used to describe fashion where the wearer personally customizes the outfits by adopting a mixture of current and traditional trends. Such clothes are generally home-made with the use of material bought from the stores.
At present there are many styles of dress in Japan, created from a mix of both local and foreign labels. Some of these styles are extreme and avant-garde, similar to the haute couture seen on European catwalks. The rise and fall of many of these trends has been chronicled by Sochi Aoki since 1997 in the fashion magazine, which is a notable magazine for the promotion of street fashion in Japan.
More recently, Japanese hip-hop, which has always been present among underground Tokyo's club scene, has sky-rocketed in the mainstream fashion industry. The popularity of the music is so influential that Tokyo's youth are imitating their favorite hip hop stars from the way they dress with over-sized clothes to darkening their skin with ultraviolet rays, usually done by tanning.
Many Japanese youth believe that tanning or being darker is a freedom of expression they are unable to experience in their circumscribed social role as 'Japanese'. The idea of darkening one's skin to more closely resemble an American hip-hop star or ethnic group may seem like a fad but this subculture, the black facers, do not particularly set themselves apart from many other sub cultures that have emerged as a result of hip hop.
Tokyo is highly diverse city with a large portion of Africans and American military bases.