Japanese Street Fashion Genres & Subgenres and How to Mimic Japanese Style

In recent years, the youth of Japan has become pretty well-known around the world for its crazy street fashion genres and sub-genres. It is kind of funny to me that the Japanese are so enthralled with America and American fashion that they try to mimic our fashion sense, but truly, in the end, they have made their own fashion styles that Americans are trying to mimic. The total opposite effect has taken place. With their whacky choices of layered clothing and eccentric accessories, it's no wonder that American girls are now trying to emulate the Japanese girls' style. Let's talk about some of the most popular genres and subgenres of Japanese Street Fashion and find some ideas on how to get these styles.

One of the most popular, and my personal favorite, is the Lolita style Japanese Street fashion. What is the Lolita style? It is basically a style in which the women dress up in frilly dresses, aprons, bonnets, and mary janes and tend to look exactly like a baby doll. Within the Lolita style, there are other subgenres that branch off of the Lolita look, including PunkLoli, GothicLoli, and SweetLoli. The PunkLolis (or punk lolitas) tend to wear a lot of plaid in their dresses and accessories, like the girl pictured to the right. This Lolita style is a little tougher, if you will, than the gothic or sweet Lolita look.

There are many stores in Japan that sell the Lolita dresses and accessories now, including Milk and Baby The Stars Shine Bright. You can get this look by buying these items online or making your own. Don't forget to look for vintage dresses from the 1950s online or in stores, as sometimes you will find that the 1950's looks can seem very Lolita indeed. I have a baby blue gingham dress with puffed sleeves and a full circle skirt that is a vintage 1950's dress; however, when I put a white apron over the top and a teddy bear in my hand, it is the quintessential SweetLoli look!

Gothic Lolita is a subgenre of the Lolita look, as previously mentioned, but is on the darker side of the rainbow. The girls wear black lacey, frilly dresses with black bonnets, black tights, and black shoes in order to look like a gothic baby doll of sorts. Many times you will see them carrying a parasol or umbrella along with their other gothic accessories. This look has really been modeled after a very popular pop-rock star in Japan known as Mana. Mana actually has his own clothing line, which many of the gothic Lolita clothing stores have emulated. That store is called Moi-même-Moitié.

In order to acquire the Gothic Lolita look, again you can buy online, or perhaps scour the thrift store racks in order to find pieces to put together as Gothic Lolita. I once found a black and white plaid dress with a peter pan collar (rounded collar), large red buttons up the front, and red piping around the waist in a thrift store. I added a homemade white apron to the look and it was an instant gothic lolita outfit! Accessories for that look included ripped up and layered fishnet stockings, black lace-up boots, and skull hairbands around my pigtails.

The Harajuku style is actually not a style in and of itself, it is a district in Japan in which many of the teenagers and youth dress up in Japanese Street Fashion and go gallivanting around their neighborhoods or downtown areas. Gwen Stefani used some "Harajuku Girls" in one of her albums and would have Japanese girls in Lolita-imitated dresses get on stage with her. When we refer to a style as Harajuku, what we are really referring to is the Decora fashion style. Take a look at the picture to the right, these girls have layered pieces and a plethora of crazy accessories to boot. The Decora style is very easy to achieve in the US, simply find anything and everything that is brightly colored, with cartoon characters, or Paul Frank brand accessories and slap them on yourself along with layers of brightly colored and cute clothing.

Two other Japanese Street Fashion genres are Punk and Heavy Metal. These styles are very blatantly mimicking American punk and rocker style; however, they are completely their own in many rights. The Japanese youth that wear punk or heavy metal style street fashion are generally seen with a lot of leather, corseting, flame and leopard-print patterns, chains, and spiky hair. Much of this emulates the American punk and heavy metal styles, but as you can see, the Japanese make it all their own!

To mimic the Japanese Punk or Heavy Metal Style, use pictures on the web and find key pieces at places such as Hot Topic and even etsy.com.