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How to Dress Harajuku Style?

Harajuku style is a street fashion that is the most exciting and interesting ranging from pastel hues to monochrome flashy rainbow shades. Harajuku is Tokyo’s bizarre and wild street style. This style was started in 1996 in Harajuku, the Tokyo quarter in Japan. It was a street style fashion rising in Japan from Kawaii to Gothic. Although fashion changed over time, the street style is still very popular in Tokyo.

The Harajuku style started to signify the Japanese style and it is a colorful style, like fruits or toys, blown up by the impact of different trends and completed by cartoon prints. Nowadays, Harajuku fashion is becoming famous among the youth across the world. Affordable clothes are available for those who don’t know where to find free streetwear fashion that matches their personality. Get the trendy and best quality Harajuku streetwear at Harajuku Streetwear.

Moreover, the Japanese street style has entered a famous pop culture. An American singer, Gwen Stefani called her Harajuku Fans concert tour. Avril Lavigne also demonstrated his unique style with his hit "Hello Kitty". Harajuku is a fashion that is impossible to ignore, particularly when you visit Tokyo and somewhere in this versatile country. It is the fashion of several generations of youth who created and grow this fashion, re-developed and refined it over and over again. Harajuku style is still transforming and adapting in startling and inspirational ways.

How does Harajuku Fashion look like?

Harajuku style is divided into various styles and substyles with modern fashion and clothing genre been developed each weekend when young kids gather in weekly Sunday outing on Harajuku bridge, right at the entrance of Meiji-Jingo Shrine next to Harajuku Station exit. Harajuku street style fashion is often very colorful and contains body piercing, body paint, hair die, and fake tattoos, lots of accessories, and extreme body and face makeup.

The Harajuku kids as well as adults who love this fashion are simply shining with flashy hues and accessories to appear unique. Every individual that you will encounter in Harajuku Street has been perhaps working for hours on their makeup, accessories, and outfit with thorough details before leaving the house and reaching the scene. You will see they are very happy to display their creations and will be very social with each other.

Now you know what it is Harajuku style and how Harajuku fashion evolve. Now let's talk about how to dress Harajuku style or how to look like a Harajuku girl.

How to look like a Harajuku girl?

The main rule is to match and different styles. You don’t have to be afraid of anything. What is famous today as Harajuku fashion began when young girls in the district started to incorporate Japanese traditional outfit into their wardrobe. They generated a new fashion by mixing modern with traditional before it was influenced by the west. An easy to understand example is when Harajuku girls add Goth or punk with designer clothes or schoolgirl uniform.

Tips for your look:

Here are the tips to follow to look like a Harajuku girl.

Mix patterns and colors

Mix different patterns and colors and create a look that describes your personality and taste. You can mix anything you want without the fear of looking weird. You can do anything you like until it is fine as per your own fashion point of view.

Dress in layers

Try layering in your outfit as it is one of the symbols of Harajuku fashion. You can choose anything you like. For instance, you can choose vests under t-shirts, and jackets under vests, and leggings, warmers, and skirts. Dressing in layers will enable you to match and mix a broad range of styles and give your attire a diverse dimension.

Customize your outfit

In Harajuku style clothes handcraft styles and secondhand clothing is well-known ingredients.

Accessorize yourself

To dress up yourself in Harajuku style, you are required to wear lots of accessories. Simply add any accessories you have like earrings, belts, and jewelry, handbags, and hair clips. Keep in mind that accessories can be loud and colorful. Accessories also don’t have to match your outfit.

Go wild with your makeup and hair

Harajuku fashion is not limited to clothes and accessories only. Cute hairstyles like pigtails and others are especially very famous. Dying hairs in crazy and flashy colors are also popular.

Wear anything that suits you

With Harajuku Style, you are free to choose whatever looks good on you. You don’t have to think about what others think about you. It has been said that Harajuku fashion is a protest against typical fashion.

Different Harajuku Style

Harajuku style is not a single style. The choices are many for you to choose from. Here are the most famous Harajuku styles:

Gothic Lolita

Gothic Lolita is all about wearing elegant, feminine, and gothic clothes that give you the look of a living Victorian doll.

Japanese punks

Japanese punk style is stimulated by the punk movement that started in the 70s in London, boosting revolution with exaggerated clothes, makeup, piercings, and accessories.

Kawaii Lolita

In Harajuku, the Kawaii Lolita substyle or Gota Pastel is the fashion of the doll. The doll is the princess who selects pastel colors particularly pink or others like pale blue, lavender, light pink, pale yellow, mint green, etc. The outfit mainly is a skirt below the knees and more closed dresses.

Sweet Lolita

This style mainly focuses on childlike features and makes use of light colors and childlike fictional themes. Alice in Wonderland, classic fairytales like Little Red Riding Hood, sweets, and fruits, are recurring themes in Sweet Lolita style.

Decora style

Vivid colors with a variety of accessories from head to toe. In this style, you decorate yourself with jewelry and plastic toys. It emphasizes on child-like playful anime characters, toys, pastel colors, ruffles, and more.

Nowadays, Harajuku style is a mix of Western and Japanese styles, sometimes conservative, soft Aesthetic and Grunge are incorporated, but free and highlighting bright and loud colors of fruits and rainbow.

Kawaii means cute in English. So, in spirit, Kawaii is about cute fashion. However, there is a lot more than just looking cute and lovable. If you want to know about Kawaii, its history and culture in Japanese society and around the world, continue reading our article.

What is Kawaii?

If you know about Japanese culture, then it is obvious that you are familiar with the term Kawaii. This word makes people usually think of Hello Kitty, anime, pastel colors, frilly outfits, and certainly Japan. The term Kawaii is created from a slogan that belongs to blushing but over time the word’s meaning has transformed and now it is interpreted as “cute.” Kawai is not just about cute but it is a big component of Japanese culture and can be seen in fashion, anime, lifestyle, music, art, and many more.

Kawaii Fashion: A treat for the Eyes

There is no doubt that the Kawaii style is a feast for the eyes, draping the wearer in a colorful world of beauty, cuteness, and hue. However, owing to its extreme fame that spread out in the Western realm, Kawaii fashion is becoming a fast global movement.

As we mentioned, the word Kawaii has a solid connection with the word cuteness but its actual roots are a bit more expressive than just cuteness. The effects of the kawaii subculture move farther than colorful Lolita-style outfits and cute cartoon accessories.

The founder of Tokyo Fashion Diaries, Misha Janette explains the meaning of Kawaii and says that “Kawaii means a subtle cuteness like a small, weak sort of thing. It is also a manifestation and expression of all that is positive and happy.”

The words positive and happiness sound out loud from this statement and that is the reason behind the spread of Kawaii fashion beyond Japan and today this style is celebrated across the globe.

The history of kawaii culture

It is believed that Kawaii culture originated in the 70s and if we look at Japanese fashion and art at that time, we can see many prints with animals or inanimate objects with human characteristics.

The addition of a simple face to any everyday object makes it appear more thriving and people feel more love and fondness towards it. Similarly, providing a face or human body to animals makes them look cute like you see today in anime that are super popular.

Partially the Kawaii fashion initiated with a movement in writing where young girls started using mechanical pencils and adorn their handwriting with various symbols such as stars, hearts, and more called Marui-Ji.

At that time, this caused much controversy and was forbidden in many institutes. This handwriting help promote today’s famous emoji and kaomoji. Hello Kitty is another Japanese fashion that was born in 1974. It is the most popular character of Sanrio that supported Kawaii culture in Japan as well as through the world for several decades and eventually become the symbol of Kawaii culture in Japan. Kawaii has been seen printed on T-shirts, bags, and household things like spoons, toasters, toilet seats.

But why only in Japan?

If you have a question in mind that other nations too have some mascots and characters that could be termed Kawaii like power-puff girls cartoon, sports mascots, and Disney but the Kawaii is a lot bigger in Japan. In western countries, cuteness is typically linked with childishness. Although this thinking has changed to some extent with the popularity of Hello Kitty still it is believed to be offensive to like cuteness in the western world. This trend is more adopted in Japan and if people don’t accept it, still, they only judge silently and do not call out loud. Kawaii is a technique for people in Japan to escape the extreme stress and pressure from school and work as well as to express their unique personality in lifestyle, fashion, and art.

Kawaii culture keeps evolving

Nowadays, in addition to the classical pastel color Hello Kitty, there are lots of other types of Kawaii in Japan and beyond. Gothic and dark are also believed to be Kawaii. Kuromi, the character of Sanrio is punky but very cute.

Yami-kawaii integrates depressive, sick, and desperate components for persons who deal with such kind of things to show themselves. Kimo Kawaii is another character that is either gross cut rot creepy cute.

Kawaii in Japanese Society Today

Currently, Kawaii fashion has completely occupied the Japanese fashion and culture. Once the idea of Kawaii was restricted to stationary and students, but today it has a significant place in all kinds of industries. Today, Japanese companies frequently add cuteness and colors to items with the help of symbols like rainbows, flowers, and stars. You can find Kawaii elements all over Japan, ranging from local shops to big companies as well as in the national offices. You will be surprised to know that even train stations and police departments in Japan use lovable symbols.

Kawaii in the World

Gradually the Kawaii fashion has moved from a trivial Japanese subculture to a significant component of modern Japanese culture as a whole. Currently, there are too many things inspired by Kawaii themes, not just in Japan but throughout the world. Japanese mascots such as Hello Kitty, Doraemon, Sailor Moon, and Pikachu has received popularity across the borders and become a common name in several nations other than Japan.

Kawaii-inspired items are not only gaining fame in the West but also in other countries in Asia particularly among manga and anime fans and those who are affected by Japanese culture. Cute products are mainly well-known in some parts of East Asia including South Korea, Hong Kong, and China.

If you are inspired by cute Kawaii fashion and looking for stylish and modern Kawaii outfits that are affordable and high-quality, go no other than Harajuku Streetwear. Find the latest and high-quality Kawaii style clothing at Harajuku Streetwear. Our Kawaii style collection includes new design hoodies, tees, shirts, accessories, and more. Explore our collection, be an easy icon, and experience the true street style fashion.

Streetwear style is characterized by a comfortable, modest, and relaxed atmosphere. Though streetwear fashion began in the United States, the trend strikes the international market during the 1990s and found its home in the Asian market, particularly in Japan.

Cheerful industry

Today, Japanese streetwear fashion is a booming industry, initiating from being an only attention-grabbing clothing movement that hovers social customs. This Japanese Fashion continues to evolve in prominence, influence, and wealth, not only in Japan but across the globe.

Beginning of streetwear

The evolution of streetwear fashion is inevitable in Japan especially in the Harajuku zone of Tokyo, where a huge number of people have rebellious affinities and a wish to look unique and distinctive. During the 1990s, the youth of currently residing Japanese in Harajuku uncover the apparel trend that they were looking for, due to the countercultural spirit of streetwear.

Preview of history

When the streetwear fashion reached Japan from the United States, it was widely accepted, starting with the youth of Harajuku who actively followed this trend in clothes. The streetwear fashion trend starts to grow because of the novelty and competition inherent in imported goods. Companies manufacturing Japanese streetwear have also connected with designers and celebrities to create unique and limited-edition apparel that affect the desires of people.

The demand for Japanese streetwear

Nowadays the efforts made by Japanese streetwear businesses to vend this fashion still bear fruit for the industry. According to a study, 32% of local users pay an extra $500 on a separate streetwear item, particularly in contrast to just $100-300 per non-Japanese customer spending on each component. Japanese Streetwear Guide has formerly documented its global dominance, mostly because of its high-quality, and cutting-edge models. The Land of the Rising Sun, Japan has long been known for manufacturing personalized experiences that cannot be found anywhere else.

Dedication for new ideas

The dedication of the Japanese towards innovation ranges from electronics to popular fashion like streetwear. Besides using high quality and the best fabric, Japanese streetwear brands mostly focus on making many unique styles adapted to the style of each customer. In Japan, casual wear is used to be more comfortable and friendly as compared to other Asian street fashion. Japanese Streetwear Guide allows people to choose their favorite look instead of following already set streetwear guidelines.

Japanese streetwear guide

Japanese Streetwear style guide that may help you with your Japanese streetwear fashion:

Create a bold look by sporting a simple care-grasping print tee.
Visualize a trendy and bulky look by matching a wide T-shirt with same sized denim trouser.
Be bold with your choices in terms of style.
Be inventive by repurposing pieces of your clothing
With the rising demand, Japanese streetwear will continue its trend to move upward and spread to other countries throughout the world.

Wrapping it up

If you would like a fashion of attire that characterizes tradition and individuality, buy your Japanese streetwear from reliable brands selling quality products like Harajuku Streetwear.

Streetwear and Anime don’t seem like two different things anymore. Today, the world of Japanese fashion streetwear has a lot of anime styles. It is believed that the cartoonish street fashion originates from Tokyo’s Harajuku district that marked a revolution in Japanese fashion.

Anime: More Lifestyle than Fashion

Anime is a fascinating TV sensation that finds its way to comic books known as manga into TV shows. Then how Anime affect fashion? In reality, it is not just the anime, but the lifestyle of individuals who watch Anime. When people opt for flashy and comfortable clothes, they are required to substitute their present fashion trends.

Regarding this, the inflexibility of the Japanese culture is being mocked with highly comfortable clothing occupying the market. These clothes are not only worn by anime lovers to feel relaxed but they love what it tells about their unique lifestyle – it is not all meant to be being serious and working all the time.

Anime commands fashion rules

Anime is affection the fashion rules in various ways in addition to the comfortable and relaxed lifestyle-oriented apparel that goes opposite to the harsh business dresses. In contrast, we are starting to witness a lot of anime designs, and many colors begin to occupy the dressers and closets of Japanese.

If you look at the streets of the busy cities, you will see business uniforms and school uniforms. You usually would not witness flash and bright colors portraying scenes of love and battle. However, all of these are becoming more common today. People feel less stress to leave their comfortable and fun clothing behind while they move out on the street.

A sense of belonging

People need relaxed apparel, unique outfits, and bright colors to show their love for anime. Besides, they need a sense of belonging among their social group. When a person who loves anime watches another person with an Anime outfit showing their favorite character, they will know they are in great company and can start a conversation.

Modern Japanese street style

The breakdown of modern Japanese street style is somehow like this:

1. Lolita: Dresses like Victorian-style having lots of lace and bright colors.

2. Visual Kei: Showy, colorful apparel, and makeover that creates a rock star look.

3. Kogal: A Gyaru’s subculture with slight tans, school uniforms with short dresses, and long nails. It tries to copy the California girl's appearance.

4. Gyaru: Wild outlooks, light color hairs, slight tans, and loads of other things to create a look of a bratty European girl. It is a fascinating choice.

5. Kawaii Boys: Light hair, pastel colors and focuses on having high energy. It is very famous among music bands and groups.

6. Kimono style: It is a superior fashion idea where people have pervaded the classical kimono appearance into their clothing style.

Find the best, high-quality, and modern anime-inspired streetwear from Harajuku Streetwear.

Anime has entirely transformed the way people think about streetwear in Japan and throughout the world. Currently, people are valuing their personalization and look for the apparel style that makes them feel relaxed. That may mean wearing a comfy cape to keep them cozy or using flash colors that depict their personality, such changes are important.