Harajuku Shopping Guide

A lot of train stations in Tokyo look like...strip malls—utilitarian blocks crammed with dry cleaners, pharmacists and convenience stores. Not Harajuku. From when you exit the Swiss chalet-style Harajuku train station which looks like a giant cuckoo clock, you’ll know you’re in for a surreal treat in this neck of the woods. Every weekend, swarms of teens flood Takeshita-Dori, a narrow pedestrian street, to parade their personal style—from goth to preppy-clean to clownishly rainbow-fro’ed—to gawk and to be gawked at. Lining Takeshita-Dori, inexpensive stores cater to teens seeking up-to-the-millisecond hyper-trendy outfits. But Harajuku offers more than just cheap, disposable trinkets; its tree-lined main thoroughfare, Omotesando-dori, is an haute couture shopper’s paradise with Dior, Chanel and Fendi boutiques. Those seeking the middle range between dowager and teenager can trawl for treasure at the Togo Shrine which holds an antiques flea market two Sundays a month. After a hard afternoon of shopping, strollers can relax at one of the sidewalk cafes under the canopy of trees on Omotesando-dori and watch the spectacle of Tokyo streetlife unfold.

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...Aoyama/Omotesando
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device.
6-16-2 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku
To find only-in-Japan designs, head to Device. Not far from the madding crowds of Harajuku, this hidden shop is the best place to buy Tokyo designers such as Hisui and Tokyo Ripper.
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n°44
1F Bellwood Harajuku 3-20-21 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku
A pioneer in Tokyo, n°44 doesn’t offer the newest or latest anything—in fact it proudly displays the kind of clothes you reach for every Saturday when you don’t have to impress anyone except the grocery store clerk and your dog—old, comfortable favorites.
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0044 Boutique
1F 3-21-21 Jingumae,
Shibuya-ku
If sister boutique n°44 is a lazy Saturday afternoon, 0044 is like Saturday night—a little more glam, a little more refined. Like n°44, the floors here are red-painted hardwood too, but it’s not a faded barn red, it’s a deep, high-gloss crimson.
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Side by Side
La Foret Dept Store, Harajuku 2.5F, 1-11-6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku
Inside La Foret department store, Side by Side’s glossy black walls signal your entrance into fashion stylist Nicola Formichetti’s avant garde world. Greeting you at the door, an askew Disneyland-ish chandelier spotlights an alcove with a bulbous candy cane-striped sculpture.
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