Dress the Harajuku way! Bizarre Styles in Tokyo, Japan!

Written by Shivani Naik, Source

Have you ever treated the street you're walking on as your very own glamorous ramp? I bet you haven't! But the people on the Harajuku street of Tokyo, Japan audaciously do so by donning on some rather crazy eye-popping designs and fashion concepts! Here are some of the top 10 bizarre styles worn by the Japanese on a day-to-day basis - 

 1] Sweet Lolita : 

Sweet Lolitas also known as Ama-loli is a style highly influenced by Rococo styles as well as Victorian and Edwardian clothing. Japanese girls dressed as Sweet Lolitas wear "kawaii" (cute) make-up and dresses mainly consisting of peachy pink and light pastel shades. Their dresses might consist of adorable themes such as fruits, cuddly soft-toys and desserts too at times!

The jewellery and accessories comprise of pearls, ribbons and many a times some soft toys!

2] Gothic Lolita :

It is exactly the opposite of the 'Sweet Lolita' Style. Instead of being covered with pastel and light shaded clothing, the gothic lolita clothing consists of dark frills, laces and accessories! The main color is black but the dressing may contain other shades of colors which are basically dark!

3] Gyaru :

The word 'gyaru' is literally the english slang word Gal for Girl written in japanese. This style can be further categorized into 3 main categories, namely - Ganguro , Kogal (or Kogyaru) and Manba -

1) Kogal fashion is characterized by wearing loose socks, tan/dark foundation all over the body and light dyed hair.

2) Ganguro is a bizarre fashion trend distinguished by a dark tan and contrasting make-up, the word ganguro literally translates to darkface and means drastically sunburnt! It was a fashion trend rampant in the early 90's in japan mainly characterized by a deep tan combined with hair dyed in shades of orange to blonde, or a silver grey known as "high bleached".

False eye-lashes and fake facial gems are worn on the face along with white concealer used on the lips and around the eyes. 

The clothing consists of summer time skimpy apparel  which is usually dip-dyed and comprises of many bright and vibrant colors giving a person an extremely shocking appearance!

3) Manba features dark tans and white lipstick, pastel eye make-up, tiny metallic or glittery adhesives below the eyes, brightly coloured circle lenses, plastic dayglo-coloured clothing, and incongruous accessories, such as Hawaiian leis. Girls dressing up in manba fashion usually have neon colors dyed on their hair and have a few dreadlocks!

4] Fairy Kei : 

People sporting this fashion mostly use bright pastel colors like lavender, baby blue, light pink, mint green, pale yellow and cute accessories and dye their hair in pastel shades!

Even men dress up in this style!

5] Visual Kei :

People styling themselves in the visual kei theme wear striking makeup, unusual and elaborate hair styles and flamboyant costumes.

6] Cosplay :

Quite a few people amble around the street dressed up as popular characters from various mangas or animes (japanese comics and animation)

7] Dark Harajuku Street Fashion :

This fashion concept mainly comprises of wearing dark themes (usually black and dark shades) in their clothing or even in their accessories.
The clothing may include black leather jackets, studded or spiked leather jackets, dark frills and ribbons etc, the make-up is usually in dark shades!

8] Shironuri :

It literally means ' painted in white', It is so called because people who dress in the shironuri style wear white makeup! 

Famous shironuri style portrayer Minoru is frequently spotted flaunting her brilliant fashion on harajuku!

 9] Decora :

This style is mainly characterized by wearing numerous clips on one's multi-dyed hair, wearing frilly skirts and having various piercings all over their face, cute accessories and Stockings, legwarmers, armwarmers, and knee socks are also worn atop each other in different layers! The main colors used here in this style are super bright and dynamic!

10] Hime Gyaru :

Literally translates to 'Princess Gal'

Girls donning this style on wear huge wigs of hazel dye (basically light colors), and wear adorable baby pink or light beige dresses with pearly accessories, large ribbons and adorable lacy head bows!!

The make-up applied in hime-gyaru style is usually of peach pink and orange shades! They use large fake eye-lashes rather frequently to make their eyes look bigger and mesmerizing!