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FOLLOW THE S-GIRLS TO TOKYO'S BOUTIQUES

Some travellers go to Japan for the cherry blossoms, others for
the venerable temples, and more than a few for all the glistening
market-fresh sushi they can eat. Style insiders, however, maintain
that Tokyo is the best place to sniff out next year's trends, and
will happily endure a 14-hour plane ride for the sole purpose of
shopping.

They'll have plenty of company. Even though the Japanese
economy is still less than robust, its fashion ateliers are thronging
with customers who are spending as if the economic bubble had
never burst.

For a shortlist of the hippest Tokyo boutiques, all a fashionista
has to do is follow the "Shibuya girl." She's the one with the
multi-coloured hair who is outfitted in the look of the moment,
which these days means the pleated skirt, white-collared blouse
and slouchy sweater of her high-school uniform.

The Shibuya girl possesses an exquisitely sensitive style barometer that can gauge the instant the pendulum swings from platform shoes to high-top sneakers, from Hello Kitty fur purses to pierced-tongue punk, or from a surfer's tan to geisha-inspired pallor. The S-girl isn't hard to find. She'll probably be cruising the storefronts with her best friend, who might be attired in 15-centimetre-high platform boots with a cowboy hat planted on her platinum wig, the entire ensemble complemented by white lipstick.

She may even have corralled her boyfriend, decked out for the expedition as a stylized rapper in sharply tailored jeans slung low over his slim hips. He will probably nudge the mission closer to Harajuku, where the street scene has a harder edge with stores like Nudy Boy and DEPT., where one window display instructs passers-by to "Eat shit."

You'll want to tailgate these fashionable teens closely, as they may be suddenly detoured by street hawkers handing out passes to selective clubs, or they might duck into one of those cool boutiques that have a nearly invisible entrance.

In Japan, shopping is a passion along the entire spectrum, from the groups of provincial tourists that parade through Tokyo's new Roppongi Hills mall to sophisticated "O.L.s" -- young career women known as Office Ladies -- who stroll the designer-shop-lined Omote Sando.

But it's the hipster youth willing to fork over 9,800 yen (about $120) for a T-shirt who can make cult stars of enigmatic brands such as the oddly named A Bathing Ape. Like many other aspects of Japanese culture, Tokyo street fashion is a highly evolved art form. You might see youths promenading in costumes orchestrated to emulate a rapper or teens taking a neo-punk stance in jeans that have been ripped with all of the aesthetic precision of an Ikebana flower arrangement.

Indeed, to John Gauntner, an American who is a 15-year resident of Japan and an expert in its most traditional beverage, sake, Japan's infatuation with cutting-edge fashion may have as much to do with age-old custom as it does with modern consumerism. "Young people here dress with the elaborateness of a geisha," he says. "The way they assemble their outfits is not so different from putting on layer after layer of a kimono."

For a one-stop view of Tokyo's avant-garde trends, visit any outpost of the designer label A Bathing Ape -- if you can find one. It's not as if they're scarce. In Tokyo alone, there are eight outlets, some of which feature a caf�, a hair salon and a three-storey complex with an art gallery. Another is in the centre of an even hipper shopping quarter, Dakaiyama. Entrances are designed to be elusive. You'll probably walk past A Busy Work Shop's sub-basement several times before you stumble upon the door, or be reduced to asking cool-looking passers-by to point out the cul-de-sac where the Baby Milo Store is situated. Even the expansive Bape Gallery is difficult to locate unless you know it's right next door to the well-marked shop Miu Miu.

On the plus side, wandering those nether blocks between Bape Gallery and Bape Caf� will take you past some of the most exuberant boutiques in town. In fact, A Bathing Ape's interior design may be even more intriguing than its merchandise. It follows a retailing theory conceived by the eccentric brand's chief architect -- a designer/DJ/fight promoter known as Nigo -- which appears to involve disorienting the customer at every turn.

Dedicated to one of the line's eeriest characters, Baby Milo -- a bulbous chimp with a malevolent gaze -- the shop is a circular white space ringed by hundreds of doll-size Milo figures advancing in military procession to a ceaseless soundtrack of marching boots.

It's not an isolated phenomenon, either. At Busy Work Shop, customers tread on a transparent floor that is suspended over a maze of fake industrial conduits. Foot Soldier's black walls evoke an after-hours club on New York's Lower East Side, with the merchandise -- in this case, pricey sneakers -- floating several centimetres above a revolving assembly line. Enlightened shopkeepers such as Nigo know that patrons must spend time in their stores before they'll spend money, so they often design their shops like entertainment centres.

So, as long as Japanese retailers keep coming up with must-have items such as Hello Kitty's cat-themed microwaves or building sneakers from fabrics, or giving Disney characters enough suggestive spin to engage even a blas� adolescent, the Nikkei can plunge as low as it wants. The Shibuya girl will keep on shopping -- with North American fashion mavens following in her wake.