Tokyo Fashion Fad Good Costume Idea

Now here’s a look you don’t see everyday…probably because we don’t live in Tokyo.

These fascinating young ladies are followers of a fashion called Yamanba, a derivative of Ganguru fashion which rose to popularity in the 1990’s, mostly among teenage girls and women in their early 20’s, generally confined to Tokyo’s trendy shopping districts.

Ganguro fashion is characterized by tanned skin combined with hair dyed in shades of orange to blonde, or a silver gray known as high bleached. Black ink is used as eyeliner and white concealer is used as lipstick and eye shadow. Features are often further embellished by false eyelashes, plastic facial gems, and pearl powder.

Platform shoes and brightly-colored outfits complete the look. Other accessories typical of Ganguro fashion include miniskirts, stickers on the face, and lots of bracelets, rings, and necklaces.

Yamanba also feature dark tans, with white lipstick, pastel eye makeup, tiny metallic or glittery adhesives below the eyes, brightly-colored contact lenses, plastic dayglo-colored clothing, 4-6 inch platform boots, micro-mini skirts and mismatched accessories. Some wear stuffed animals as decorations!

If the two styles seem very similar, near as I can tell, it’s because they are. Yamanba seems to be a term used to describe orthodox followers of the Ganguro fashion.

I don’t know…this style kind of reminds me of my wild 80’s days when I used to have really bleached hair (with a duck tail) and I wore a neon pink trench coat with lots of bright jelly bracelets (and my boyfriend used to wear a pair of red plastic shoes that my family always made fun of).

My parents thought my 80’s fashion phase was a bit over-the-top. No doubt the traditional Japanese folks think Yamanba is “out there” as well (those familiar with Tokyo’s fashion trends say that the Yamanba phase is on its way out).

But crazy fashions always make for great costume ideas. I read several blog post comments that indicated teen girls are very interested in the Yamanba fashion as party costumes.

So give credit where credit is due. While Tokyo’s Yamanba look may not be the best idea for the fashion world…it definitely makes for eye-catching costumes!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 18th, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under world, world costumes, dressed up, cosplay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.