Historic Hysteric

Hysteric Glamour [hystericglamour.jp] is a clothing brand from Tokyo (natch). Hysteric was born in the mid 80s after a lable known as ‘Ozone Community’ [ozonerocks.com] asked one of it’s young inhouse designers, Nobu Kitamura… to create a new streetwear brand for them. It didn’t take long for Hysteric’s star to rise, flooding the streets of Tokyo with Nobu’s pop-rock prints and unique brand of edgy Americana.

During the 90s the Hysteric brand flirted with diffused versions of itself, setting up a little known store in New York and the Hysteric Glamour UK label in conjunction with Gimme 5 [the-glade.com/gimme5]. Although neither overseas ventures turned out as successfully as they could have been, the brand continued to go from strength to strength back home in Japan, adapting to outrun the bootlegs that started spilling out from Hong Kong in the late 90s.

It’s been over 20 years now since Hysteric Glamour barged it’s way into the spotlight. They have since, deliberately scaled back their operations, although not the amount of splinter brands they produce. There’s Thee Hysteric XXX and HG for guys, Hysterics and Hysteric Glamour for girls and Joey Hysteric for kids. They do a nice side line in accessories and have become prolific publishers through the Hysteric Glamour Art & Books imprint [buenobooks.com/hyst]. Oh, and if you’re wondering what the man who started it all looks like, pay careful attention to the party scene in Lost in Translation [IMDb].