Apart from technical advancement, fashion in Japan is considered an outlandish and stimulating experience. Japan street fashion has come a long way from being just about Kimonos and other traditional clothing since Japanese youth have created a unique blend of fashion by adopting a mixture of current and traditional trends with overseas and local labels. You will get an assortment of trends and styles in Japanese street fashion because youths in this country are more intricate in their dressing patterns as well as make-up.
Here is a list of top and cute Japanese street fashion styles. Yes, they are still popular in 2024!
Lolita Fashion
Lolita fashion is considered one of the most recognized styles in Japanese street fashion that includes many different styles and themes within its boundaries. The most famous styles within Lolita fashion are Punk Lolita, Gothic Lolita, and Sweet Lolita. These clothing styles are recognized globally.
Lolita is a style with many subcultures, such as Punk Lolita, where chains, beads, lace and wristbands are popular accessories along with pink and peach color prints. Gothic focuses on styles emerging from the Victorian age such as dark colors, black make-up, heavy brooches, and ribbons.
Sweet lolita outfit is a fashion substyle that you hardly ever see in Tokyo nowadays. You need to be dressed up in a perfect combination of pink and white, cute ruffle umbrella is necessary too!
Gothic Lolita Fashion
Popular on Japanese television and computer games, the mass-marketed Gothic Lolita style is most prevalent on the streets of Tokyo and Osaka. Drawing influence from Rococo, Victorian, and Edwardian fashions, teenage girls take to the streets dressed like porcelain dolls.
By combining the aesthetics of gothic fashion with the innocence of Lolita fashion the Gothic Lolita is born. A Gothic and Lolita Bible can be purchased in many Japanese books and comic stores to ensure perfection in creating this look.
Frilly knee-length skirts trimmed with lace and ribbons, ruffled blouses, over-the-knee socks, and Mary Janes help to achieve this demure style. Completed with curled hair beneath miniature top hats and parasols, handbags or backpacks shaped like coffins or crucifixes, and stuffed animals or teddy bears donned in black leather or attire to match their owners. Top it off with pale skin, a smile, and polite mannerisms and you’ve got a Gothic Lolita.
Ganguro Fashion
This dressing style similar to the youths of North America is very much popular in Japanese street fashion by trying to imitate tanned and fair-haired celebrities as well as models. The look consists of bleached or dyed hair, light or dark tanned bodies, summer dresses, and many more.
Bleach blonde hair, fake eyelashes, brightly-colored mini skirts, and copious amounts of bracelets, rings, and necklaces. No, we aren’t in Hollywood, we’re in Japan, and it’s the Ganguro fashion.
Peaking in popularity in Tokyo in 2000, young girls in their teens and 20’s attempt to escape the constraint of Japanese society with heavy black eyeliner, white lipstick, facial gems, and platform shoes.
In attempts to achieve individuality and self-expression young girls sport deep tans to contradict the traditional ideal of feminine beauty.
The Ganguro art of dressing is similar to North American youth trying to replicate tanned and blonde celebrities and models. The look consists of light or dark tanned bodies, bleached or dyed hair, summer dresses, and platforms. Their exaggerated looks and outfits are their attempt at westernizing themselves dramatically.
Yamanba Style
Often seen strolling down the center street, extremists in this fashion trend deck their delicate frames out with darker tans, metallic and glittery adhesives around the eyes, brightly colored contacts and plastic-dayglo clothing, and decorative stuffed animals. These practitioners are called Yamanbas or Manbas, which means ‘mountain hag’ in Japanese. Men who follow this trend are called Center Guys.
Kegadoru Bandage Fashion
They look as if they are seriously injured, but they’re not. These women aren’t seeking medical attention, they are dressed in this way to attract men with this fetish style known as Kegadoru, which translates to ‘Injured Idols’. Young Japanese girls seductively cover their bodies in bandages, with head-wraps and eye patches on the streets of Akihabara where they regularly receive compliments from men about how cute they look. White bandages represent virginity and chastity while black bandages represent wickedness.
Kogal Style
The Kogal style is where young Japanese women display their wealth through various tastes in music and fashion. Wealthy parents often support young girls who are into this style. They keep themselves up-to-date with Japan’s ever-growing mobile technology. They adorn themselves with big boots, skirts pinned very high, dramatic make-up, and the latest in American fashion brands. Many see the growth of Gothic to be a reaction to the materialism desire that emerges with the Kogal trend.
While considered by many as daring, outlandish, and provocative, Japanese fashion has come a long way from being just about kimonos and school uniforms. Their eye-popping and flamboyant outfits have largely been influenced by Japan’s huge underground club scene. Tokyo and Osaka are where Japanese Street Fashion is at its best. By adopting a mixture of current and traditional trends along with foreign and local labels, Japanese youth have created their own unique blend of fashion.
Japanese street fashion has a variety of trends and styles. Youth were more elaborate in their dressing patterns and make-up. Bright coolers, eccentric patterns, hand-made garments, heavy jewelers, mixing and matching jeans and tank tops with traditional wear like kimonos, are their way of making statements about their cultural influences and way of life. Lolita, Kogal, Cosplay, Ganguro are some of the most sought-after styles that Japanese youth display on the streets.
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