Nico, age 18, is the founder of Neo-Decora Kai, an event dedicated to decora fashion (from the English word “decoration”), a subculture born in the late 1990s that takes Japanese notions of ...

aka Hard Decora. With a feed full of brightly colored outfits and a bio that described her style as “aggressively cute,” I decided I needed to reach out to her immediately and hear more.

In this series, we will be exploring all the fashion subcultures that have made Japan the fashion powerhouse it is today. Decora fashion symbolizes everything Harajuku is known and loved for. The term ...