Japanese fashion ~ street styles ~

I talked before about Harajuku girls in a previous posting on February 12th. Since this posting is one of the most clicked on of all my postings I decided to dig a bit deeper into this subject and guess what. I found some other Japanese street styles.

Gunguro and Yamanba girls...I can hear you saying what kind of girls?? Well, let me explain a bit and show you some pictures, very colorful and interesting how these Japanese girls want to distinguish themselves from the rest. The West and the US seems to be a kind of boring when you see this ;-)

Gunguro appeared as a new fashion style in Japan in the early 1990s and is prevalent mostly among young women and women in their early 20s to this date. Gunguro began as a emulation of what Japanese girls interpreted to be a Southern California look.
In ganguro fashion, a deep tan is combined with hair dyed in shades of orange to blond, or a silver gray known as "high bleached". Black ink is used as eyeliner and white concealer is used as lipstick and eyeshadow. False eyelashes, plastic facial gems, and pearl powder are often added to this. Platform shoes and brightly-colored outfits complete the ganguro look. Also typical of ganguro fashion are tie-dyed sarongs, miniskirts, stickers on the face, and lots of bracelets, rings, and necklaces.

Yamanba (ヤマンバ), is a newer term often used to describe extreme practitioners of gunguro fashion. Yamanba feature darker tans and add white lipstick, pastel eye makeup, tiny metallic or glittery adhesives below the eyes, brightly-colored contact lenses, plastic dayglo-colored clothing, and incongruous accessories to the gunguro look. Some yamanba wear stuffed animals as decorations.

I am not sure I get this form of expressing yourself, and the older generation in Japan is also not too happy about it. They think that the rest of the world thinks every Japanese looks like that. But since we are all very educated people we don't think that and know that it is only a certain group among teens who dress like this!

Maybe a new look for HALLOWEEN??
I'll ask JJ and Jezz if they like to dress up like this, I'll bet they will look cute in this crazy Japanese street style ;-)

By the way: I wouldn't mind going to Japan for a posting after SA, it seems there is a lot to see and it is a very interesting culture. Talking about broadening your horizons... hmm definitely an option for me! Who knows ;-)

Have a good one!
Mireille