According to the BBC, there's a new subset of British youth that thrives to be just like the Japanese ganguro &mdash you know, the girls with the bleached blond hair, super tanned skin, and crazy makeup. I read somewhere that for Japanese women, making themselves up this way is a deliberate form of rebellion against the traditional aesthetic of jet black hair and pale white skin. I wonder what it means when Caucasian girls with naturally lighter hair pick up the trend.

Unless they are just cosplaying, I would say it means they have no taste.
And the blotchy makeup isn't helping.
Mind you, I feel much the same way about real gyaru.
Posted by: Daemon | July 02, 2009 at 12:17 PM
Just like the girls in San Diego. Although, I'm not sure they San Diegans are attempting to look strange.
Posted by: BR | July 02, 2009 at 12:38 PM
This is awesome! We used to have a Rastafarian/Japanese Tempura joint in my area that had a 100% Ganguro waitress staff, and I totally loved the reverse raccoon look as it is so awesome & absurd. Seeing it mutate into Britain is fabulous (and kind of creepy in a blackface way).
Posted by: Marshall | July 02, 2009 at 01:05 PM
:O I've never seen this before, I'm going to assume it's in London! In my experience you can't really dress up in public here without being ridiculed!
Posted by: Moogly_bear | July 03, 2009 at 01:13 AM
Wow, British girls imitating Japanese girls imitating American girls... Perhaps a new subset of ganguro will arise imitating the imitators and they can appear so garish they'll make drag queens blush (only really blush, not just make-up blush).
Posted by: misterhankscorpio | July 04, 2009 at 05:34 AM