Harajuku Party

Tech can be girly too. Briony Bennett (17) took her inspiration from Gwen Stefani and got creative with PowerPoint to make a party-on-the-wall slideshow

Seventeen isn't a particularly exciting age. Sure it means seventh form and ruling the school, but no one gets very excited about their 17th. With one's sweet 16th done and dusted, it's all about the 18th birthday. But that's still a whole year off. So, what to do you do for your 17th birthday party? Well why not get creative and make it a themed, 'all out on decorations and costumes' bash?

Post-Gwen Stefani it was all about Harajuku Girls for me. With the internet at my fingertips and a stash of fashion magazines, I researched the trend. If I had the guts, and the long silky black hair, I would certainly don knee-high socks and glitter hair-clips every day. So when it came time for me to organise my 17th birthday party, in my uncle's warehouse, I already had a plan. Basically, I wanted an excuse to dress up Harajuku-style.

Obviously, it was all about the outfit for me. I wasn't particularly bothered about what the boys wanted to wear, as long as I could crank out my Asian hair wig and Hello Kitty earrings. So I sent out invitations and requested that all my girlfriends dress-up Harajuku style, too. But a themed party isn't really themed without decorations to match the super outfits.

It's pretty unlikely you'll have either the time or energy to throw a themed party and decorate like crazy after you hit university. So why not give it a go for your fickle 17th? My uncle and I set out shopping, and bought ourselves a dozen rolls of fluoro netting. Hot pink, tangerine, acid yellow, fluorescent green and cobalt blue fabric were then draped over carefully hung wires, to create a multi-coloured awning across the warehouse roof. Excess fabric was left to hang down as floaty walls.

Then there was the plastic chandelier, from the party store, which was hung up in the centre of the awning. For ambience, we hired a smoke machine, a strobe and a few coloured lights, which reflected off the chandelier. There were, of course, several speakers blaring all night, hooked up to my laptop with its music files. We played Gwen Stefani on repeat, mixed in with some techno tunes. With several beaded curtains strung across the back walls, it was all very colourful, exciting and definitely super kawaii - that means super cute in Japanese!

We took my little Harajuku heaven to the next level by taking advantage of technology � being part of the technology generation and all. Using a projector and Microsoft PowerPoint, I created a slowly rolling picture montage of Hello Kitty motifs and the like, as well as photos of all my friends, on the few remaining bare, whitewashed warehouse walls. Our faces on display made the decorations all the more personal... and OTT. Which was, of course, what I was aiming for. Keeping things themed was easy with Japanese Anime characters staring down at us. Timing and the order of the images was also important, and I needed lots of pictures as well. This was to ensure we didn't get too bored with the slideshow.

The PowerPoint slideshow definitely proved to be the icing on a very frilly Harajuku birthday cake.

So, go on, liven up that in-between year and throw an extreme themed birthday party. Take at least three hours to get dressed up and spend a little, or a lot, on decorating � or make them yourself if you're handy with the sewing machine. I'd love to try an African themed party another time.

Arigato! (That's 'thank you very much' in Japanese.)