GEES IN JAPAN

23 Feb

This is pretty astounding. The transformation of an average woman into a gyaru.

For those who aren’t familiar:

Gyaru fashion is typically characterized by having heavily bleached or dyed hair (mostly shades from dark brown to blonde), excessively decorated nails, and dramatic makeup.

The makeup typically consists of dark eyeliner, fake eyelashes and cosmetic circle lenses so as to create the illusion of large, anime-like eyes. Extremist tend to get vivid color hair wigs, for example, neon pink or lime green. (wikipedia)

(via)

#tokyomango.com

11 Aug

Japanese artist Rio Hosokai uses balloons to create dresses which cost thousands of dollars for those bold enough to wear them.

And they are not only expensive - they also have very short shelf life as Dimitri O’Donnell reports.

(via)

#balloon dresses

26 May

Pretty self-explanatory video. This ‘Nekomimi’ cat-ear headband reads your brain waves and tries to convey your emotions through different ear movements and gestures. I think everyone should take you seriously with a pair of these.

This is what Neurowear says about their product:

We created new human’s organs that use brain wave sensor.
“necomimi”is the new communication tool
that augments human’s body and ability.

“necomimi”will be released in the end of this year.
Price, color and any other gadgets are undecided.

5 Feb

japanese mouth lights

Via the NY Times:

Method Man might have helped make gold fronts famous, but in Japan, two designers are showing him up with fashionable accessories for your teeth, created for an advertising campaign. Instead of gold, however, these “fronts” contain bright multicolored glowing LED lights.

The accessories are being used to advertise a winter sale at a Japanese clothing store, Laforet Harajuku. The designers said they had received numerous requests from people around the world who wanted to buy them. But they are not commercially available, and the designers said they had no plans to make them so at this time.

In the ad campaign, the LED smiles are affixed to the teeth of models, and glow different colors while they smile. The colors can be changed wirelessly through a computer interface. Of course they work best in the dark.

#laforet harajuku

18 Dec

This is brilliant. These Japanese girls use Google Images and project their favorite clothes onto themselves. Beats having to go to the fitting room.

12 Nov

japanese subculture #3

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted another bizarre Japanese subculture. This one is strange, no doubt. And this isn’t a joke…we saw many a Lolita strolling the streets of Japan while we were there.

Japanese Subculture #3 - Lolita

Lolita’s are very different from their gyaruo friends, whom I posted about previously and who cake on the makeup and bare as much skin as legally possible. Lolita’s, on the other hand, are a bit more modest in their approach.

These girls wear petticoats, bonnets, high-collared dresses, and carry fluffy parasols. There are all kinds of lolita’s, each with their own variation on the theme.

via Cracked.com

And these aren’t just outfits they wear to special clubs or garden parties. You can see grown women in these full Victorian doll costumes on trains, in book stores and wolfing down cheeseburgers at McDonald’s.

Why, you may ask? It has something to do with the rejection of male-created beauty standards and sexualized dress. Yes. In Japan, to express their rejection of oppressive cultural stereotypes and proclaim their independence, women dress like creepy school girls from 200 years ago. That sounds about right.