Personal style: Spunky, sporty, comfortable, and casual
Fashion icons: Zoe Kravitz, Kacey Musgraves, Bratz Dolls, Princess Diana, and @coco_pinkprincess. I draw from a myriad of style perspectives and aesthetics to blend my own concoction and don't cater to one style. All of the ladies (and dolls?) I mentioned are all unapologetically themselves and that is what matters most to me for fashion inspiration.
What is gyaru?
“Gyaru,” derived from the English word “gal,” is a Japanese fashion subculture. Gyaru emerged in the 1970s and gained popularity in the 1990s. Gyaru is a nonconformist subculture, and a core element of gyarus is rebelling against traditional beauty standards. At a time where Japanese women were held to societal standards that required them to appear dainty and modest, gyarus started adopting different forms of expression to oppose these standards.
Dusty screens and sticky desks, pocket protectors, and a mother’s looming watch from above the basement where one would lie. To be chronically online once meant to be a reject, a weirdo, a creep even.
Everything cycles: trends, styles, reproductive rights—and after the results of the 2024 election, so too do presidents. Amid the uncertainty of the last few months, a time marked by presidential campaigns with women’s reproductive rights at the forefront of debate, emerged a trend cycling all the way back to the 1950s: the tradwife.
Accessories and their labeling as such may ebb and flow through and between a spectrum of pure utility and bodily decor. Accessories may be a perfect semblance of both, or stray far to one side or the other, but at least ONE of these distinctions must be present. Above all, they must be, in technicality, unnecessary for basic clothing and even stylistic needs.