Cute or Creepy? Japanese Ganguro Fashion

by faggus howard

i love the japanese, not just because you can count on them for the most extreme sex toys, but because they know how to commit. when the young women of japan take to a trend, they go 100%. take ganguro (“black face”) and kogal (“school girl”) for instance – they give those looks the geisha treatment with their attention to detail and loving devotion. from bleaching the shit out of their hair to the über tanning, you can’t escape this look simply by taking off your clothes and makeup. you are the look.

the ganguro girl’s ideal presentation is a hybrid of club-kid diana ross, circa “mahogany”, and a “legally blonde” reese witherspoon with a dash of snooki’s drunk, orange ass thrown in. kogal is essentially a bleached go-go from “kill bill”.

perhaps we should occasionally ask ourselves what trends are meant to express, because typically, necessity IS the mother of invention. the girdles and curlers of the 50s segued into the bralessness and free flowing natural hair of the 70s. the sun aversion and resistance of foreign everything meant a sallow and colorless homogeny that the japanese inevitably rebelled against and viola! ganuro. burn baby burn.

japan also happens to rival pre-WWII germany with its emphasis on purity and what better form than the “hit me baby, one more time” school girl charm of a pre-crazy britney queers? of course they went with the kogal.  if had to wear a uniform to school my whole life, i would hike up the hem till I felt a breeze, if only out of boredom. fuck, i would hate to live in japan as a kid.. sorry (no, i’m not).

anyway, with this in mind, i will try not to cringe the next time i spy a hipster in all his/her irony, a hideous ed hardy get up, or pleated jeans adorned by a fanny pack. i vow to try to let these “fashions” be what they are: a response to something deeper. it probably won’t work though. i’m a bitch.

Tags: Fashion, ganguro, gesiha, japanese, teenagers, teens, trendy