Japanese Hairstyle

Kim Jae Joong hairstyle

Kim brings in edgy sophistication to his face with the razored shag cut. With tapered down crop and short bangs on the forehead, the crop cut gives him a suave, urban and daring look. However, what makes him the 'cute' guy is his signature mushroom cut with extensions. The layered shoulder length cut with rigid edges offers him a preppy look gives him a polished and chic appearance.

JaeJoong with razored crop hairdo

Kim Jae Joong's layered shoulder length hairstyle

Kim Bum Asian hairstyle

Kim Bum (Kim Sang Bum), born July 7, 1989, is a South Korean actor and singer. He has starred in several television series and movies. He is probably best known for his role as So Yi Jung in the Korean drama, Boys over Flowers. This program is popular throughout most of Asia and the Philippines.

Kim Bum straight shag hairstyle

For his role in Boys over Flowers, Kim wears his hair in a medium length straight shag. This style is easy to achieve with a small amount of gel to hold the bangs to one side so that vision is not obscured. It looks clean cut enough to be acceptable in most settings while looking messy enough to show off a person's individuality.

Bi Rain

His hairstyles are known to be quite popular with men. For those who aren't aware, Bi Rain (Jeong Ji-hoon) is a leading Korean singer cum actor. He is known for this layered hairstyle, which gives him that extra edge over the other cute heroes. He has become a brand name in the advertising world for his edgy hairstyles and perfect attitude. These hairstyles can be spotted in the ads by Nature Republic, the famous cosmetic brand with which he signed a two year contract worth 1.2 million US dollars.

The Bi Rain hairstyle can be easily achieved by going for a razor cut. This hairstyle can either be worn short or long according to your tastes and preferences. For those with a good body build can wear this hairstyle long to go with both casual or formal wear. And for those who have a quite petite frame can wear it short so as not to highlight their height.

If you want to try out the Bi Rain hairstyles at home, you may ask your hair stylist to apply a small amount of wax and then flip the ends. This will easily help you acquire the light and airy look, which forms the main feature of this hairstyle. In order to complete the look, you may as well apply a soft hold hairspray. This will help you keep the wispy look in an appropriate condition.

These hairstyles particularly look good in the summer season. In the festive season, you may try out the hairstyle in an altogether different way. You can apply a small amount of gel and then back-brush your hair.

This hairstyle is known to be one amongst the trendy haircut ideas for boys. Such is the growing popularity of this childish looking actor, it's not far away when you may actually find the girls sporting Bi Rain hairstyles.

Japenese Rockbilly Hair

These are typical rockabilly hairstyle worn by Japanese rockabilly guys. Japanese rockabilly guys usually dance at Yoyogi Park on Sunday. Yoyogi Park is a large city park located adjacent to Harajuku Station, in Tokyo.

Traditional Japenese Footwear

Waraji Tatami sandals

This kind of footwear could be easily made using nothing more than woven and twisted reeds, the woven reeds providing a sole, the twisted reed providing the string for the hanao or to simply tie the sole onto the foot. While wafuku (traditional Japanese clothing) can be very complicated and time consuming to put on, the fastening of it is done with just simple ties, although the different and very specific knots used for each tie can be somewhat complex. This simplicity meant almost anyone could make themselves simple footwear. The traditional footwear worn with kimonos is, for women, geta or zori. The spelling of zori varies a lot, you may see it as zouri or zoori.

GETA

Plain wood geta

Lacquered wood geta

Antique geta

Ama geta, with removable toe covers, for rainwear

Men's geta

Geta are wooden soled shoes, with solid platforms or with little stilts, called teeth, on the bottom of the soles; they can be found with one, two or three teeth, the most usual being two. Paulownia wood is popular for geta. They are still worn nowadays and tend not to be too terribly high now, though, in the past their height was often much greater. The wooden bases are sometimes ornately decorated. The images below show you a very plain vintage pair, a vintage pair of lacquered wood geta, an antique pair and a pair of ama geta, with toe covers, to keep the toes dry in rain
ZORI

Brocade covered zori, with matching clutch bag

Rainwear zori

Beaded zori

Zori are thong toed, usually wedge soled, though sometimes flat shoes.Most women wear zori with kimono. The thong toe on Japanese footwear is always attached at the front centre of the sole and worn with the big toe to one side and the rest of the toes to the other. Western world flip-flops usually have the thong toe offset to one side, to allow the sole of the foot to lie centrally on the shoe sole but not so with Japanese ones. Because the thong is central, the outer side of the foot often overhangs the side of the sole a little, as can be seen in the photos with maiko okobo, above, and the pair of black zori at the top of this blog entry. The heel often overhangs the back of the sole a little too

Setta sandals

With all this footwear, one wears tabi socks, designed to be worn with thong toes. The exception is the waraji sandals, often worn without tabi, especially by workers in rural areas. The older style is non-stretch, with kohaze fasteners, the more contemporary style is stretchy without fasteners. Shoes are removed when entering a Japanese home; one walks on their scrupulously clean floors in one’s tabi socks or a pair of indoor tatami sandals. You can see tabi being worn in the photo at the top of this footwear blog post, with the black zori.

Tabi socks

Tabi toed footwear, worn as ninja boots, worn in some martial arts or just worn casually with Western world style clothing. The example below is a pair of canvas, rubber soled tabi boots, with kohaze fasteners. Nike also recently produced a range of tabi toed trainer shoes and boots, called Nike Rifts, to introduce the acupressure effects of tabi toes to the sports trainer.

Fashion Show

A taste of Japan in New York

Japan Fashion Week’s Spring 2009 collection was showcased in New York on Sept 1.

The designers that were featured are Ato, Mikio, Sakabe, Somarta, Ylang-Ylang, G.V.G.V., Mercibeaucoup and Ne-Net.

The fashion show was held at Aloha Rag.

The designs on view offered a distinct sampling of the range of styles that will be present at Japan Fashion Week.

Tokyo latest fashion 2008 (Spring and Summer)

Excellent fashion show in 9 parts on the latest Spring and Summer fashion in Japan. The clothes are designed for women for daily wear.

Japenese Accessories

Korean Woven Fabric Fedora Hat Purple Hot Lips Sunglasses

Polka Dot Bag Scarft

Plaid Plushy Earmuffs


Pink Pyramid Studded Thin Belt

TOP Japanese Fashion Designers

There are many Japanese fashion designers, but these two designers are among TOP fashion designers.

YOHJI YAMAMOTO

• Born in Japan in 1943
• Graduate of the prestigious Keio University and Bunka Fashion College (Bunkafukuso Gakuin)
• In 1970, he began designing women's clothing
• Achieved greater recognition after showing his spring/summer collection in Paris in 1983.
• Use of a simple palette - black, navy and white - with occasional splashes of color
• ONLY ONE - Japanese fashion designer awarded the French Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettre
• WINNER of the Mainichi Fashion Grand Prize in 1986.

Example of his COLLECTIONS that have Japanese elements in his design

JUNYA WATANABE

• A graduate of Bunka Fashion College
• e debuted as an independent designer in 1994 and has his first show in Paris three years later.
• He uses more obviously Oriental motifs and "introduces the essence of the kimono" into his designs
• like to increase the popularity of the kimono among young Japanese
• his designs are available in the US and Europe as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan.

JAPANESE STREET FASHION

• Gothic Lolita
• Cosplay
• Maid Cafe
• Kogal
• Ganguro
• Dekora @Fruit Fashion

GOTHIC LOLITA

Gothic Lolita - Gothic Lolita is a distinctive Japanese fashion style. Gothic Lolita is often seen in places like Harajuku.

Gothic Lolita or "GothLoli" (ゴスロリ, gosurori; sometimes alternatively "Loli-Goth") is a youth fashion among Japanese teenagers and young women.

It emphasizes Victorian-style girl's clothing and often aims to imitate the look of Victorian porcelain dolls. Gothloli's name and origin is a combination of lolita fashion—appearing deliberately cute to the point of looking childish—and certain styles found within gothic fashion.

The style started as a youth subculture sometime around 1997-98 and became a well-established genre available in various boutiques and some major department stores by aro und 2001. Some observers consider it a reaction to the "Kogal" aesthetic.Gothic

Lolita is one of the subcategories of the Lolita look. Other categories include "Classic Lolita" (more traditional, light-coloured, also more mature-looking) and "Sweet Lolita" (childish pastel-coloured clothes, lots of lace and ribbons).

COSPLAY

Cosplay (コスプレ, kosupure) is the Japanese word for dressing up like a Japanese character. Cosplay is popular in places like Tokyo's Harajuku district.
The word Cosplay from the joining of two English words "costume" and "play". Typically Japanese will dress as their favourite character from manga, anime, video games, J Rock or pop band or movie.Cosplay involves dressing in very elaborate costumes, normally made by themselves, with other people who like to do the same thing.
While the cosplay is normally done for themselves, it has become a public spectacle in places like

Harajuku, where interested members of public,
mainly western tourist, come to take pictures. At times there can be more photographers than there are cosplayers.

MAID CAFE

Maid Cafe - Sometimes referred to as Meido cafe or Cosplay restaurants. Article includes Maid Cafe pictures and locations.Since around 2000, cafes called "maid cafe" have opened in Akihabara and more recently a few in Shinjuku plus others in major Japanese cities like Osaka and some others around the world.

In maid cafes, typical manga-style maids serve tea and cakes. In Japanese these are referred to as "Maido" or "Meido" cafe. When a customer enters the café, the maids typically give a flattering greeting such as "Welcome home, Master in order to play the role of a house servant.

Unlike "ordinary" cafés, maids serve customers as if they were their masters. For example, staff sometimes kneel on the ground to mix sugar or milk in teas or other drinks. The purpose of the maid cafés and their service is to make customers feel at home and relaxed. Although exemplary customer service is typical of Japan, maid cafés take special care to pamper their patrons.

KOGAL

Kogals (コギャル kogyaru, lit. "small/child girl") are a subculture of girls and young women in urban Japan, one of several types of so-called gals. They are characterized by conspicuously displaying their disposable incomes through unique tastes in fashion, music, and social activity. In general, the kogal "look" roughly approximates a sun-tanned California Valley girl, and indeed, the similarities between the two extend to the linguistic, for both subcultures have derived entire sets of slang terms (コギャル語 "ko-gyaru-go").

Kogals are not to be confused with the ganguro subculture, although they are similar.

Kogals are known for wearing platform boots, a miniskirt, copious amounts of makeup, hair coloring (usually blond), artificial suntans, and designer accessories. If in school uniform, the look typically includes skirts pinned very high and loose socks (large baggy socks that go up to the knee).

GANGURO
Ganguro (ガングロ), literally "black-face", is a Japanese fashion trend among many Japanese girls which peaked in popularity from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, an outgrowth of chapatsu hair dyeing. The Shibuya and Ikebukuro districts of Tokyo are the centre of ganguro fashion.The basic look consists of bleached hair, a deep tan, both black and white eyeliners, false eyelashes, platform shoes (usually sandals or boots), and brightly colored outfits. Also typical of the "Ganguro Gal" look are cell phones covered with purikura stickers, tie-dyed sarongs, mini-skirts, hibiscus flower hairpins, and lots of bracelets, rings and necklaces.

DEKORA @FRUIT FASHION

KIMONO HISTORY

Traditional clothing of the Edo period, (1600-1868), included the kimono and obi as we know them today. The obi did not, however, become a prominent part of a woman’s ensemble until the mid Edo period. It was then that designers, weavers and dyers all focused their talent on creating a longer, wider and more elaborate obi. Obi measurement was then standardised to 360cm long by 30cm wide.Edo fashion was influenced by the design and style that courtesans and entertainers wear.

Women of the samurai class continued to wear the simpler kosode kimono, tied together with an obi made of braided cords. Outside the samurai class, women experimented with a more elaborate kimono - the furisode, which is often seen on the Kabuki stage. Characterised by long, flowing sleeves, the furisode kimono was accented by a large, loosely tied obi.For many years, the obi bow was tied either at the front or on the side. By the mid-Edo period, the obi bow was tied in the back position. It was said that this style started in the mid-1700s when a Kabuki actor, imitating a young girl, came on stage with his obi tied in the back. Another reason that the back position became more acceptable was that the sheer bulk of the wider obi became too cumbersome to be positioned in the front of the kimono.The Meiji era, (1868-1912) witnessed a revolution in the textile industry with the advent of electric weaving looms and chemical dying techniques from the West. During this time, a woman's kimono ceased to be worn in the free-flowing style of the earlier days. The new fashion was to tuck the kimono at the waist to adjust the length of the kimono to the woman's height. These tucks and folds were visible and became part of the art of tying the obi.