Life, Friendship & Gentrification: Kabuki-cho

Monday morning I met with a friend at Alta in Kabukicho for coffee. It’s been seven years since I last had lunch with Lisa* — so much of our lives, and Kabukicho, have changed.

As a lass, I’d pass the time in Alta to buy circle contact lens from Hotel Lovers and bargain prices for booty shorts or insanely tall platform heels. Sometimes Lisa and I would get lunch in the Hoshino cafe that we met in on Monday.

We talked about husbands, boyfriends, her daughter, my blog and the old times. The first floor of Alta was once a haven for wayward girls. There’s an argument that Shibuya 109 serves the same purpose yet it had the cleanliness and brand recognition that Alta didn’t have. Shibuya109 is dubbed as a mecca of alternative girl Japanese pop culture whereas Alta actually was the belly of it.
Many, young sex workers who took dates in the nearby Kabukicho would prowl Alta’s halls for outfits or makeup for work. Most of the store staffs were older gyaru that opened up their own boutiques which was a juxtaposition to 109’s famed model staff.

I was disappointed that the first floor of Alta now looks like an Ikea. Boring. It was gnarly before with peeling wall paint and an interior that wasn’t updated since the 1980s, but it had a lot of charm. The shoppers are now yuppies and the type of women married to the men we dated.

A lot changes in seven years. Lisa is now a mother and married to a Japanese man. I’ve left the night industry years ago and our adventures in Kabukicho seem like a faint memory.

“The worst of all is, all the young people wear now is grandma clothes.”

We laughed — but I later went to try on some of these Grandma clothes.

Outside of niche subcultures like gyaru or Lolita, Japanese fashion has always been conservative actually. Yet much the clothing now is far more trad than it was when I was a teenager. Clothing has always changed but the life and excitement that drew both Lisa and I to Japanese alternative clothing seems to be lacking.

Lisa and I talked about loneliness. She was sad when I left Japan she said, she figured I was a lifer. This reached me pretty deeply — I never imagined anyone outside of my mother loving or caring about me enough to miss me. I packed up and left hastily just as I had done in Michigan prior. Life moved on.

I’ve actually never been super fond Kabukicho, it’s an assault on all of my senses as a human being. Yet, like a time capsule, I have so many beautiful memories as a young adult here.