Chris Tordoff, a Manga editor and FRUiTS enthusiast, founded FRUiTS Magazine Archive in 2019. It’s an extensive Instagram account dedicated to posting thousands of the magazine’s hyper-coloured backlog of images for its many fans (116k, to be exact). Its followership is now just a fraction shy of the magazine’s official account, testament to Tordoff’s relentless, careful curation. One such follower is our new cover star Beabadoobee, shot by Aoki, a hero of hers.

Since her explosion in 2020, the musician’s style has been lauded as much as her music – a Gen Z‑friendly mash-up of subcultures past and present, chopping up grunge from the ​’90s, emo of the early-’00s, today’s swap-happy styles of Depop and the striking subversion of FRUiTS.

​“I’ve been following FRUiTs for years,” Bea tells THE FACE via email. ​“It’s always been a bit of a go-to for me and it’s definitely influenced my style from a far. To work with Shoichi Aoki was a dream, a real ​‘pinch me’ moment. I respect what he’s done so much and having him shoot me for the cover of THE FACE was amazing. I love his photography and he was so fun to work with! He hadn’t been to London for 25 years so having him over for this was so cool. I’m going to take him out for dinner when I’m in Tokyo later in the year!”

But while the magazine has found a new audience, Tordoff agrees with Aoki by the time it folded, the wave of cool kids that inspired FRUiTs had long gone: ​“It was harsh, but true. Having spent a lot of time in Harajuku in recent years, it was clear that the roots of Harajuku’s iconic subcultures had been forgotten and replaced by a kind of fairground parody of itself.

“I discovered FRUiTS not long after its launch in 1997,” he…