Ganguro

by fatinlokman

What will you do if you happen to sit inside the train next to a person that wear something similar to this?

Well I’ve experienced this while I was in Tokyo back then. I know that the Japanese consider it is rude to look someone directly in the eye but I just can’t help it! It is so cute and obviously something that I wont get to see in my every day life. Why are the Japanese always so unique and creative? Why oh why!

If you are interested in Japanese popular culture, you may know which fashion styles do they represent. This fashion style is call ‘Ganguro’. Ganguro literally ‘black-face’ is a Japanese fashion trend among many Japanese girls which peaked in popularity from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. The Shibuya and Ikebukuro districts of Tokyo are the centre of where most of the Ganguro girls hanging out.

The basic look consists of bleached hair, a deep tan, both black and white eye-liners, false eyelashes, platform shoes which usually sandals or boots and brightly coloured outfits. Also typical of the ‘Ganguro Girl’ look are cell phones covered with purikura stickers, tie-dyed sarongs, mini skirts, hibiscus flower hairpins and lots of neon colour bracelets, rings and necklaces.

It leaves me wondering though how does this such style ever created? Where they came from is actually a mystery, no one really knows but there is some speculation that back in those days, in among the Japanese the terms of an ideal beauty were so stereotyping. A woman can only be called beautiful only if she looks neat and orderly as having skin as white as snow and long, silky and shiny black hair. This is the part where some of the girls having a rebellious thought about that stereotype appearance and have driven them to create a new fashion genre.

While some were also saying that they were girls who were infatuated or fascinated with Janet Jackson or black American musicians or perhaps Naomi Campbell, the supermodel but it’s still a mystery what their origins were.