In January, in Paris, I got a pair of black leather lace-up shoes from a second-hand store that weighs your choices and charges by the kilo. The left shoe was sprinkled lightly with mould and the right’s sole was peeling slightly away, but in the shop mirror they looked sleek and well-sculpted, and outside, on…
When countries outside of Japan started to realise that Lolita fashion was a thing, I was still a kid, busy tottering around the house in the shoes I called my Ruby Slippers - my mother's red pumps.
I wasn't supposed to wear those shoes. And certainly not over the wooden floorboards -- something about leaving…
I was in the Tokyo suburb of Shibuya when I first laid eyes on one. Nothing about my bright and hectic surroundings felt familiar to me, until I recognised the spiky-haired cartoon hellraiser printed on a stranger’s T-shirt. But there was something not quite right about the Bart Simpson I was seeing. This Bart was…