What are the different types of harajuku fashion?

Question:

I'm basing my characters off of the each fashion. I have Lolita, Gothic Lolita, Decora, Dark Decora, Fairy Kei, Oshare Kei, Gyaru, Ganguro, Visual Kei, and Kigurumi. Are there any more? Please list them!

Answer:

Actually, Gothic lolita is a style of Lolita fashion (if you want to see a whole list of "established" styles, go to hellolace.net). Ganguro is also a smaller part of a whole other world called "Gyaru" (gal).

As for "Harajuku" styles, there isn't an infinite list of them; street fashion is hard to research for because there aren't any concrete beginnings (unlike other co-culture styles like punk which began through music), and in spite of the speed and access of internet today, sometimes what we find on google might have been already been around in Japan a year or two before (heck, it took about 10 years for lolita fashion communities and online to become as they are today; even so, a lot of people still have misconceptions about the fashion and its participants). Please note that Western type fashions such as rockabilly, punk and goth is also "exported" to Japan (and others) and vice versa.

Here is as much as I can think of (including your list):

Lolita Fashion - includes Gothic, classic, sweet, and sub-styles
Decora - includes style like dark decora
Fairy-kei
Dolly-kei
Otome-kei
Natural-kei
Mori-girl
Oshare-kei
Visual-kei
Gyaru - includes Ganguro (kind of a dying style, but people still go out like that), Hime Gyaru, Kogal and others. Also note that Gyaru is commonly seen in more trendier districts of Tokyo such as Shibuya.

http://gal-handbook.livejournal.com/4657…

Cosplay - NOT a fashion, but it has a strong presence in Harajuku regardless (although the concept isn't really unique - people have long done this in theater and comic conventions elsewhere; it's just more popularized in Japan) and INCLUDES Kigarumi (which also has its own category). When it comes to cosplay, there are different types of it (i.e: maid cosplay, tokusatsu) , but they all have the same concept: dressing up and often emulating as someone else.

There is another concept in Japanese street fashion that might seem a little weird to the outsiders' eyes. Sometimes shops that cater their own unique style such as Cult Party (a shop that specialized in Dolly-kei) end up using their name as its own style. In other words, people who frequent a certain shop that usually specializes in a specific look is often labeled with kei or style at the end (in this case, Cult-Party-kei...it's still considered part of the dolly-kei look, but cult-party tends to use more pastels and appear more innocent, whereas another store, Grimoire is more dark).

I'm sure that there are others out there, but as someone who loves literature, I suggest that aside of doing your research, concentrate more on the story. There are a lot of fan-writings done about people who wear a certain type of fashion, but the author concentrates too much on what they're wearing and the often lose sight of why the character is there in the first place.

Good luck!