How To Find Your Gyaru Style

Today’s post is another installment of my “Gaijin Gyaru Guide” series: how to find your gyaru style! I’ve been asked this question quite a lot lately and even though I have answered it briefly in the past, I wanted to go into more detail.

First things first – I call myself a “gyaru chameleon” because I tend to flip between styles quite a lot. This is normally based on the weather and how I’m feeling, but my main style is agejo. It isn’t a bad thing to not find a particular style and sticking to it. I personally find it more fun! But for those who want to find a style… Well, this post is for you 😀 So here goes!

Gaijin Gyaru Guide: How To Find Your Gyaru Style

01. Research & Experiment

You’ll never be able to find your style if you don’t research and dabble in (nearly) all of the styles! It took me years to figure out mine because I didn’t really explore that much in more than one style, but as soon as I did I managed to figure out which one I enjoyed doing the most. It isn’t limited to just what you wear – experimenting with makeup and hairstyles is good too!

The thing I love most about gyaru – there’s a style for everyone! I wrote an article about all of the gyaru substyles.

02. See what’s in your wardrobe

I was torn whether or not I wanted this or the previous post as #1, as they’re both equally important, but before you go any further than the research stage I’d see what you have in your current wardrobe. You never know – you might already have some gyaru-inspired pieces!

03. Remember the basics

You’ve got to remember the basics when it comes down to doing a particular style. Every style is built up on these basics. For example, upper and lower lashes are a must in ever style but you can adapt to whichever ones you want to wear according to your style. Onee gyaru tend to wear fluffier and softer lashes, whereas agejo tend to wear bigger and spiky ones.

04. Create a mood board

This is great for those who don’t own items from every single style, and I use it quite a lot. Spend about an hour or so just flicking through online magazines, tumblr, blogs etc and put together a mood board on all of the things that jump out to you. Once you made quite the collection, take a step back and see if there are any similarities. Then, if possible, narrow it down to just 3 – 5 photos. This will clearly show what you’re really interested in rather than just saving a pic because that particular gyaru looked like a goddess.

Here’s my most recent one as an example:

Looking at my mood board, you can see that I am really inspired by pink and white colours. I seem to be going for the sweeter styles of gyaru such as hime gyaru and himekaji, although the swankiss photo on the bottom right shows that I’m liking gyaru kei and larme kei as well.

05. Buy those clothes

The mood board idea is great, but you’ll never truly find your style unless you try it. Use your mood board to help narrow down the amount of clothes you buy, and go ahead and buy them. For beginners – I would say try and stick to local brands as much as possible, or even eBay, just in case! Even though it’s the makeup and hair that makes you gyaru, it’s the clothes you wear that pinpoint what substyle you’re fitting in to.

06. Go with the floooooooow

Don’t force yourself into a style if you don’t like it or aren’t really feeling it. If you find yourself wearing something and thinking, “Eurgh I hate this but it’s popular right now” then stop right there. Don’t dress to go with the flow, dress in whatever YOU want to dress. Listening to your inner voice is so important, and it’s often the quickest way to figuring out your favourite style.

And that’s all for this post! I wanted to keep it short-and-sweet because it really isn’t that difficult finding a style, it’s all about trying lots of styles out! And even if you find that you don’t really have a set style, that’s totally okay, because in gyaru you don’t *have* to have a set style!

Until next Sunday ♡

Lizzie Bee xx