Final Project

Four months have passed since I came to America.  In the Collegeville area, it’s mostly sunny, but sometimes it’s cloudy, rainy, and snowy.  It also has seasons, for example in April the cherry blossoms bloom and it gets warm like in Japan.  The climate itself is similar to Japan, but I noticed that people wear clothes differently.  Some people’s fashions are completely different from my country.  For instance, if you only wear leggings on your bottom, every Japanese will look at you and stare at you.  Simply, Japanese would not wear like that.  On the other hand, my friend told me that I dress differently from Americans, and it is easy to guess that I am from Japan.  I was surprised by that and considered how Japanese college students dress.  Then I became interested in it.  It goes without saying that all Japanese people do not dress the same, but I realized that there are some specific types. 

            Before I started analyzing the pictures, I would like to explain how Japanese college students are aware of fashion.  In Japan, most of the junior and high school students have a school uniform, meaning that they cannot wear what they want to school.  Many people think it’s less troublesome, but others find it stressful.  After graduating high school and entering college, people have to choose what to wear every day.  It is true that during their life as a student, it’s the second time that they are able to wear their own clothes, because in elementary school, we have six years, and most of the public schools do not require a school uniform.  However, it is too young for them to choose their clothes and buy whatever they want.  In most of houses, parents decide what they will wear for that day.  Therefore, for many people it’s their first chance to decide what they want to wear. 

            I think the Japanese are really aware of what they wear.  When I go to college, go shopping, go to libraries, and go travelling, I feel like many people are keeping up with the latest fashion.  In bookstores, there are more than thirty monthly fashion magazines targeting readers in their early twenties. People can buy those magazines at about 550 yen (about 6 dollars), and some people stand and read in the bookstore.  Others go on the Internet and just browse it or find a clothing shop they like and look at their latest styling.

According to the survey in Hiroshima City University, to the question “Why do you keep up with the latest fashion?” people answered “Many people are aware of the fashion”, “There are a lot of trendy clothes in the shops”, and “I don’t want to look weird and out of fashion by my friends”.  By this survey, it became clear that Japanese students look at their friends, classmates, and fashion magazines and search for what kind of fashion they will fit the best.  I thought this expresses well the Japanese characteristics of caring what others think of you and making the effort not to look out of place.

            As I examine many pictures, I found out that there are four types of fashion styles.  The first one is “Gyaru”.  In the class, we read about Ganguro.  Today, Ganguro is not so popular compared to 1999 to 2001.  However, Ganguro style was an extreme of the Gyaru style.  In those days, Gyaru style and Ganguro style had many similarities:  for example the way they put on makeup, tanned their skin, and dressed.  After many people stoped dressing in the Ganguro way, the Gyaru style began to change.

Before going too far, I will start with this picture.  She has her hair dyed to a shade lighter than her skin.  She is wearing a pleather jacket and damaged shorts.  Her black boots are cool, and the heel is high, which makes her legs look long and slender.  It is hard to say from this picture, but her make-up is heavy.  This fashion gives me a more aggressive impression because many people try to hide their legs, but the Gyaru won’t.  The damaged designed shorts give a cool and a grown up image.  Many Gyaru believe that a tanned skin color looks healthy, thin, smart, and cool. 

However, today not all of the Gyaru’s skins are tanned anymore.  Many people started to realize that white is socially accepted and regarded as beautiful in Japan.  Therefore, some Gyaru decided not to tan their skin anymore.  This picture is one of the white Gyaru.  She has her hair dyed and wears a hat as an accessary.  The black sweater and the socks contrast with her white skin.  Her shorts are leopard print. A leopard is a carnivorous and dangerous animal. Girls say that wearing a leopard print makes them feel aggressive and motivated.  In addition, according to them, wearing just a little bit is enough, and it requires fashion sense. Therefore, many Gyaru try to wear those animal prints.  

Gyaru also wear special makeup. This woman’s name is Tubasa and she is one of the famous Gyaru models.  Many girls follow her fashion and her makeup.  As you can see in the picture, Gyaru makeup is very thick, especially on the eyes.  When I first saw this image, I thought she looked like a doll.  There are no particular rules for the Gyaru makeup, but many people say make it heavy.  Gyaru makeup can make everyone like a doll even if you have tiny eyes.  In this picture, Tubasa is wearing false eyelashes, thick eye liner, and shiny eye shadow. She also has double eyelids.  Her skin is covered with foundation and it looks very smooth. Her lipstick is a very light, shiny shade of pink.  It looks like most of the effort is focused on her eyes.  It is natural for the Gyaru to spend more than an hour for the makeup.

Analyzing Gyaru, I feel that they are trying to be distinct from other people and portray confidence by showing off their makeup skills and their body parts (mostly their legs).  The reason why most of them color their hair is to be different from others and to be seen as a fashionable person.  From my experience, I think many Gyaru have outgoing personalities.  It is true that when you once started talking with them it is easy to get along, but from their showy appearances sometimes people are afraid to talk to them.

The next category is girly (kawaii) and casual fashion. In some ways these two are similar. I will start with this picture.  She is wearing a typical girly fashion.  She has her hair colored, which matches her clothes perfectly.  Her hair accessory is big and makes her face look small.  On top, she is wearing a white knit sweater, and underneath she is wearing a patterned shirt.  Wearing such a shirt gives her a fashionable image.  Layering clothes allows for her to show off a greater variety of styles.  Although wearing many shirts is hot in summer, many Japanese college students tend to dress in layers.  The girly fashion often has flower patterns.  In this picture, she is also wearing a flower patterned skirt.  This skirt has the most impact upon her fashion. Also, wearing a belt makes her legs look long and skinny.  Her gray knee socks give both a sexy and a cute impression.  Pink pumps fit her fashion well and remind me that she is a girl.  Her pose makes me feel like she is a princess.  Therefore, like this picture presents, girly fashion is fluffy, cute, and soft. Many times, these girls tend to wear white, pink, and other pastel colors. They rarely wear dark colors.  In addition, they like their clothes to have ribbon and lace. 

Another item essential for the Girly fashion is socks.  Recently, these socks are catching many girls’ attentions, especially those who are interested in girly, cute fashions. The socks just have lace on them, but they have become a trend in Japan.  I saw many girls wearing these during the summer.  Like this picture, just wearing these lace socks changes the impression of the shoes and makes them cute.

            This picture to the left is a typical casual fashion.  She is dressed in blue jeans, which seem comfortable and easy to move in compared to skirts. Her blue striped shirt is simple, and her hair is worn down and unstyled. She is wearing sandals, which are perfect when you want to walk around. To me, it seems that she has only what she needs and has made no extreme effort to make herself look good. Analyzing this picture, I think the definition of the casual style is natural, relaxed, and comfortable. 

            Above I wrote that these girly and casual fashions are sometimes similar and hard to distinguish.  The two pictures I just analyzed were slightly extreme examples.  Often, those two are combined into one fashion like this picture.  She is wearing blue jeans, which adds a casual sense to this fashion; but at the same time, the white one-piece and other things that she’s wearing gives her a soft and fluffy image, which relates to girly fashion. 

When I was looking at many fashion magazines that college girls will read, I found out that about ten of the books were about girly, natural, and casual fashion. Compared to the other fashions, these simple clothes are cheaper, and many college girls are interested in these styles for this reason.

            Recently, a new fashion trend is becoming popular in Japan. It is called “mori girl”. Mori means forest in Japanese. This style concept is “a girl who looks like she is living in the forest”.  The word “mori girl” has its origins in Japan’s enormous social networking site called “Mixi”.  When taking about forests, they are not referring to traditional forests in Japan. They are talking about old European fairy-tales that have trees, little houses, rabbits, and bears. 

Mori girls look like fairy-tale forest wanders in their loose clothes.  They like floaty a-line dresses, lace, puff sleeves, retro prints, and natural materials. They also prefer warm, earthy tones and deep traditional colors like navy, wine red, and forest green. Most of the time, they use layering technique like this picture.  A lot of times, their hair style is airy, wavy, straight, or put up, and keeping it natural is important. In addition, some people use lace and flower hair accessories.  Leather accessories, fur stoles, tights, round-toed shoes, and handmade jewelry are necessary to be a mori girl.  They do not have special makeup but prefer earthy colors and rosy cheeks, and some of them do not wear any makeup at all.   It is said that mori girls have particular life styles.  They enjoy having a slow life: they take in the world through their hands by drinking tea, travel by walking or riding a bicycle, and take lots of pictures.  A mori girl enjoys nature and a relaxed life. 

According to some magazine publishers, these mori girls might be a new subculture in Japan.  Many magazines started paying attention to these fashions and developing the mori girl as a new trend.  However, the mori girl is different from the Ganguro subculture, and it is still unknown what it’s going to become.  

The last one is the pretty style. I named it as such because in Japanese we call it “onei-kei,” which means “older sister style.”  This fashion gives a neat and clean impression rather than a cute and girly fashion.  It is different from casual fashion because they wear shiny shoes like in this picture.  People who dress in “onei-kei” give an adult and simple feeling.  She is wearing a tailored jacket, a cute simple dress with a short skirt that comes above the knees, and pale pink stockings.

When I was analyzing and looking for pictures for all of these styles, I noticed that many of the Japanese girls dye their hair.  On magazines, TV, and the Internet, most of the girls’ hair were brown.  It is said this started in 1997.  Amuro Namie was popular among the young generation in Japan, and many girls started to follow her.  Therefore, girls started to dye their hair.  However, at this time, many adults thought people with brown hair were Furyou (juvenile delinquents).  Today, the demand for dyed hair is increasing, and people can dye their hair easily.  Additionally, in the fashion world people think that dark black hair does not match the western clothes that Japanese people wear every day. Although brown colored hair is popular in Japan, most of the elementary, junior high, and high schools do not allow students to dye their hair.  Thus when they graduate high school, some people immediately dye their hair.  According to the company called Hoyu, more than 60 percent of college students color their hair.  However, in the junior year everyone who has job hunting returns their hair to its original black.  Compared to a few decades ago, people are generous about dying hair, and they think it is part of the fashion.

All in all, when people wear clothes they consider how they want the world to see them.  If they are dressing in Gyaru style, they give off an aggressive, sometimes scary, or optimistic impression.  If they are dressing in a girly style, they want to be seen as cute rather than cool.  Casual style is often natural, so they do not want to bedizen their selves.  Often times, it is hard to say that this person’s fashion style is that and this, but most of the times it’s a mixture of different styles.  When they decide upon their fashion, most of the times they look at their friends, family, and mass media to choose what to wear.  Also they really consider how it looks on them and how the others will see them, because fashion style contributes to a first impression.

            In this blog, I did not include what American people wear and what the differences are between the two, but I believe fashion really reflects a person’s culture.  From my impression, I think Americans do not mind showing off their bodies compared to the Japanese. This topic might be interesting to do research on next time.  However, looking at my country’s fashion and its different personalities was a good chance for me to explore Japanese characteristics.