I’m going to try and focus on the fashion magazines and books that are common in Japan for the next few posts. This information may not be complete and accurate, because my Japanese is poor and a lot of the information I’m finiding is quite old. If there’s anything that I’ve said incorrectly or something that you want to add, please feel free to add to it in the comments.

While I was still in Japan, my housemate purchased the highly appropriately named Gothic & Lolita Bible. This thing was a tome. It was huge. And fairly hugely priced at a bit under 2000 yen. The Bible has many articles, interviews with Visual-kei artists that goth-lolis so often idolise, catalogues, photos, manga and even outfit designs for budding cosplayers and gothloli heads. In theory, it’s published quarterly but don’t bet on that. It seems to be pretty erratic.

The Bible is a huge success in Japan (and around the world as Gothic Lolita and EGL became popular outside of Japan) and has spawned some spin-off magazines. The Gothic & Lolita Extra Volume seems to be just a collection of things that couldn’t fit into previous volumes. It looks like there is only one of these, but more may appear in the future. The Gothic & Lolita Hair Make Bible focusses obviously on the hair and make-up techniques and trends followed by gothlolis and finally the Gothic Lolita & Punk Brand Book is basically just a catalogue of fashions available. It has photos of all the typical fashions you can find for sale along Takeshita-dori and Harajuku.

I’ve seen it available for sale in quite a few places, but you probably won’t find it at your local 7-Eleven store. Akihabara has stockists given that a few of the maids in the maid cafes also follow Goth Loli fashions. Our sponsors at JList will sell you subscriptions, no matter where in the world you live.

Ok, this is really just eye candy for you gaijin perverts. And given that this is from one of the hundreds of variety shows on Japanese television, don’t count on the accuracy of how popular these bras really are. It’s basically an infomercial.

But it does show you what kind of lingerie Japanese women wear and why. Japanese women are on the whole very thin and fairly flat-chested. Therefore the focus is on bras that can puff up cleavage, either artificially or by visual tricks. It for much the same reason that you’ll find most clothes for young women are on the puffed, shapeless and highly frilly side. It gives the impression that the lady lumps are bigger than they really are.

If you’re a foreigner shopping in Japan, you may as well give up before you even try with lingerie. Shopping for shoes is bad enough. Instead, have a gander at this video: The Top 10 Lingerie Fashions in Japan.

There’s so many terms used in Japanese fashion. I’m going to have to construct a glossary here one day.

Gyaru (ギャル) is the Japanese transliteration of the English slang word “gal”. Basically, think out-there female, conscious about fashion, her looks, boys and sex. In Japan this seems to mean a minimum of tanning slightly and dyeing hair blonder, a blinged-up keitai (mobile phone) plus plenty of make-up. Ganguro and yamamba are sub-sects of gyaru fashion. men have

Now that you’ve got an image of that in your mind - twist it a bit more and think of gyaru men. Ehhhhhh?!

Well, they do exist. I’ve seen them in Shibuya, although obviously not in as large numbers as the girls. They go by the name of gyaruo or gyaru-oh (the ‘o’ sound is one kanji sound for ‘man’) They probably attract more stares than the women, because it’s such an unusual look on a man. People already know that women will go to outrageous lengths for their looks :)

The gyaruo have now been given their own little shopping haven in - where else? - Shibuya. Shibuya 109 is the place to shop for female gyaru fashion. Now, one of the joint buildings Shibuya 109-(2), has set aside 2 levels dedicated to men’s gyaru fashion. There are 23 outlets over the 2 levels. There have been reported monthly sales totals of 100 million yen since it was trialled in March. Wow!

Looks like gyaru is here to stay for a little bit longer.

Links:
Mainichi News
Wikipedia’s article on gyaruo

In Harajuku, the two most famous streets are arguably Omotesando and Takeshita-dori (Takeshita Street). But what’s the difference exactly? What do you see in each street? First I’ll write about Omotesando.

Omotesando is a huge traffic thoroughfare, with three lanes in either direction and 100,000 cars travelling down it daily. It joins Omotesando subway station with Meiji Shrine next to Harajuku station. It also has wide footpaths with trees lining the length of the street.

Yes, it is on Omotesando where you’ll find that famous bridge where young people meet and hang out on Sundays, dressed up in their crazy finest. That’s at the end of the street just before the gates to Meiji Jingu. Most people interested in seeing these Harajuku kids will want to come to this bridge on Omotesando.

But the rest of Omotesando is quite different to what you’d find on this bridge. Surprisingly, it’s quite upmarket. The uber-expensive brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada all have stores there. So do many international brands like The Body Shop and Zara. There are many so-trendy-that-it-hurts coffee shops and cafes dotted along the street. As a result, it’s sometimes known as “Tokyo’s Champs-Élysées”.

The street is also famous for being home to many design studios and galleries. All this culminates in the newly opened Omotesando Hills complex that I wrote about earlier.

There is affordable shopping on Omotesando, but you’d be better off darting down the side streets and lanes looking for little boutiques and shops where the locals go. The main Omotesando drag (particularly Omotesando Hills) is for those with plenty of cash to throw around. Still, if you want to see all elements of Harajuku, Omotesando can’t be avoided. The question now is, do I wear the strappy heels when I dress like I want to be seen, or do I wear the sneakers that won’t leave my feet bleeding at the end of the day?

Next entry: Takeshita-dori

One slightly annoying thing about Japan - if you don’t read or speak any Japanese - is that shops, bars, restaurants, even schools are pretty difficult to find. This is because they tend to be tucked into the millions of office buiidings and skyrises throughout the country. The only hint that there might be a really funky discount clothing shop in this building is a tiny, flourescent lit sign hanging off the side of the building. But it’s all written in katakana, so most gaijin would miss it straight away.

While wandering around Harajuku, I’ve taken to just exploring every nook I can find, walking downs stairs into basements, pressing random buttons in elevtaors…just to see if I can find some interesting clothes shops.

This has been successful on a few occassions, such as the time we found a ¥390 shop. Everything was ¥390 (I *think* that was the price) - including shirts, hats, shoes, bags, endless amounts of jewellery and so on. My housemate and I decided that we would choose a colour and make a Harajuku outfit based on it from items in that store. Twas great fun.

If you’re not brave enough to just randomly walk into buildings and look around, then there’s a few websites you can look at for decent maps:

superfuture has shopping maps for cities around the world, including 10 just for Tokyo. Each shop listed has a short description to it. The downside to the maps is that you can’t seem to filter out only the shops you want (eg: clothing), so the maps look quite cluttered with dots for clothing, design, bars and restaurants, etc.

One website of interest to GothLoli fans is Sumire’s Tokyo Gothic & Lolita Shopping Guide. Here you’ll find some custom drawn maps and shop descriptions for clothing shops, all of which sell Elegant or Gothic Lolita merchandise in some form. Be warned though, the webpage was last updated in 2004, and while most shops are still there, a few may have moved or closed.

If you know of any other fashion shopping guides in Tokyo or elsewhere in Japan, comment it in here.

There are many shops along Takeshita Street in Harajuku that offers pre-assembled outfits to fit in with the cool kids on Omotesando. They can be relatively cheap. Most of the are in the Lolita/Gothic Lolita vein but there are a few punk style clothes too.

It’s somehow disappointing. I got into Harajuku fashion because of what those kids could concoct themselves, not because of what they could buy from a shop.

Oooh the drama.

Omotesando, for those of you who don’t know, is the main street that passes through Harajuku, from Omotesando station. It is known for boutique shopping and galleries, fashionable young things and down near Meiji Shrine, the bridge where all the cosplayers and street fashion creators show off and hang out.

This week, a new complex called Omotesando Hills opened. It’s causing a lot of fuss. Mark Devlin from CrissCross News hates it with a passion, other bloggers and design fans have criticised it too, for not “fitting in” with the rest of Omotesando’s architecture.

But that’s not in the realm of this blog. What will interest you fashionistas is the fashion! There are over 93 shops inside this new mall, and while there are some of the upper end stores, it’s not overloaded with the big names like Prada, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. There’s just a few.

Mainly, Omotesando Hills has small cute boutiques that you can easily spend your salary on. But it’s always free to look.

Links:
Omotesando Hills (Japanese)

Samantha Thavasa’s bags are everywhere in Japan. If you can’t afford the must have Louis Vuitton handbags, then Samantha Thavasa is your next choice. The stores are covered in photos of Beyonce, Paris Hilton, Posh Spice and other celebrities-by-definition holding her bags or wearing her jewellery.

So, naturally, I thought it was an American or English brand name.

Not so. Samantha Thavasa, despite the name, is a brand born in Japan. And an expensive brand too. You may as well go for Louis Vuitton for the amount that you pay.

While not in my style personally, it’s Japanese fashion that I’m supposed to write about, and Samantha Thavasa is definitely one of the big-name brands here. The label will be opening a store soon in New York too. When the posters of Beyonce and Paris Hilton get circulated around there, it’s sure to be a success. Buy now from Japan while the prices are only moderately extortionate!

Links:
Samantha Thavasa (only in Japanese)
Web Japan article

As well as being a shoe fetishist, I am a hat freak. I have several in my collection, mainly strange ones that I just had to own but never wear. But I do also love the cool range of hats that you can find throughout Retail Japan.

This shop is perhaps my favourite. It’s called Shazbot and specialises in hats for young men and women. Their website is mainly in English, but unfortunately you can’t purchase online. It’s also just a funky and nicely designed website. Plenty of eye candy millinery for you to peruse.

Oh, and yes, the shop does have a points card.

Link:
Shazbot

I made a trip to Harajuku on Saturday to show some tourist friends around, hoping we’d catch some of the kids in crazy fashions that you’d normally see in droves on Sundays. While they weren’t there in high numbers, they were still quite a few. Mind you, even without them, there’s still plenty to see in Harajuku.