The History of Gyaru

 ちゃおっす It's Spacy! Let's cut the chit chat and get straight into it, where does Gyaru originate from?

Note: This article contains mentions of mature themes, but the article is educational, and does not set out to promote any of the themes I discuss today, it's simply an educational essay on the history of gyaru, thank you

Many online sources tell the origin story of gyaru as a subculture AND a fashion style from a specific view point, many sources will say Gyaru originated from women fighting against beauty standards, which is true, some sources also point to gyaru taking origins from female yankee or sukeban (助番/スケバン) from the 1970's which is also true. You may also read some sources that point to the origins of gyaru being with teenage girls and clubbing culture during the economic boom of 80's japan, sometimes referred to as 'The Japanese economic miracle' (高度経済成長) which is also true. So where does it all come from? If you were to ask me, I'd tell you it's a combination of them all.

Even the origin of the word ギャル has been linked to many origins, but a commonly accepted one is it originating in the 1970's from popular American Wrangler, naming a new line of Jeans called 'GALS' or 'GURLS' depending on your source. The term became popular in fashion mags of the 70's and 80's but Gyaru as a fashion style didn't take off until the 90's and hit its boom in the early 2000's. In magazines, the word 'gyaru' was not used in the same way we would associate it today, but with models and in gravure shoots, with the popularised connotations to the word gyaru being popularised by  Yutsuko Chuusonj who created the seinein (Manga targeted towards an older male audience) manga 'Sweet Spot' (スイートスポット). The story follows an OL (Office lady) in the bubble economy era of Japan, who engages in hobbies usually associated with older men (Oyaji's /オヤジ) coining the term 'Oyajigal' (オヤジギャル).

I know your asking how that links to modern gals, but some of the stereotypical depictions of Oyajigals are high-end women who often drank in izakaya (bars pubs or saloons/asual drinking places depending on where you live) with older men. They were also sometimes depicted as bright and bubbly. But most importantly, Oyajigirls symbolised a change to women in the work-force in the bubble era of japan, although modern oyajigirls aren't sensualised as they used to, they technically still are around.
During the last year of the bubble era in Japan, groups of middle and high school delinquents called chimaas (a type of zoku/yankee gang) started appearing on the streets of shibuya. These chimaa gangs effectively ruled the streets of shibuya, riding their cars around, terrorising people and picking fights with other chimaa gangs. A lot of these gangs wore what would be considered Americanised fashion, think of outfits worn by hip hop legends in the 90's, sneakers, long shorts, oversized tee's chains, and girls wearing revealing-esque outfits. Chimaas are often credited with the origins of shibuya casual style, which helped with the evolution of gyaru substyles.

Its worthy noting right now that shibuya casual style, sometimes simply referred to as 渋カジ or Shibuyakaji was popular with wealthier highschool students. This is the same as the origins of Kogals in the early 1990s, as Kogals would often sport expensive burberry scarves and Kawaii accessories. Kogal literally means school gal or 'kokosei Gyaru' (高校生ギャル) and bouncers at clubs used to refer to girls who used to try sneak into clubs underage as 'kogals' to distinguish them as minors, but the word 'kogal' was not used to talk about actual gals, but was used as a code word in japanese clubs.
Kogals themselves were often perceived with scrutiny, the original Kogals being middle school dropouts who attempted to look older by shortening their skirts and acting older. Kogals were influenced by magazines like popteen and happie nuts, due to their older and mature nature (the magazines were often produced by editors of former 18+ content creators) compared to other fashion mags promoting a cuter image.

Around the time kogals starting getting popular, chimaas slowly stopped being pricks on the streets of shibuya and disappeared. Kogals in this era were often categorised by dark tans, short skirts and, bleached hair and of course, partying. In 1994, legendary J-pop diva and gyaru icon, Namie Amuro, popularised the platform shoes, a signature element to kogal. Kogal as a style is sometimes considered the first style of the greater umbrella of Gyaru. Kogal continued to boom into the mid to late 1990s, with Namie Amuro expanding into her solo career in 1995 with the song 'body feels EXIT' (a classic), and the most popular egg mag for teenage gals, Egg having their first publish the same year.

During 1997-8, the talk of the town was 'enjo kosai' or paid dating.I won't venture into the specifics of paid dating due to its nature but if you are interested please search it up online. Popular media depicted it as something bored housewives and highschool gyarus engaged in, with the movie bounce kogals depicting kogals engaging in it for money to buy new clothes and accessories. In its popular lifetime, Kogal was associated with a new rebel culture of highschool girls acting more mature and engaging in new, cool types of fashion trends. In the late 1990's Kogal slowly got replaced as the face of Gyaru in media by newer styles introduced and popularised by Egg magazine, Ganguro.

Do you guys remember at the very top where I mentioned people saying gyaru as a subculture originates from women challenging the japanese beauty standard? Ganguro falls into the larger substyle of gyaru, with the word ganguro (ガンガン黒) translating to something saying 'dark looking'. The defining feature of ganguro is its deep tan. Ganguros sported deep tans as a direct middle finger to Japan's long history of equating pale skin as superior, but as a whole, the emergence of ganguro in the mid-late 90's is a result of young women feeling bitter and resentful of societal standards, taking to colouring their hair in bright colours, wearing dramatic makeup and wearing colourful clothing. Ganguro can also be linked to a rebellion of school standards, but also young women wanting to explore their individuality. Ganguro can be credited with the huge boom of gyaru that also started at the start of the new millenia. Popular ganguros such as Buriteri are credited as pioneers of ganguro in the 1990's/ 2000's.

Yamanba is a substyle developed from Ganguro. Although Yamanba had actually seen its birth in 1998, the style really took off after the slow decline of ganguro in the early 2000's, mainly due to the bihaku (美白) craze in the early 2000's, where women wanted to imitate their favourite pop singers, for example, Ayumi Hamasaki, who is the best selling female solo artist in Japanese history with 50 million+ units, taking 3rd place over and 2nd place for best selling female act in Japanese history behind AKB48. Ayumi's smash hit 'boys and girls' became a staple amoung gyarus, and even today, her songs like trust, appears and hanabi (fireworks) are still popular in the community. (Yes I wrote all of this because I am a huge ayu fan, this is a biased source.)

This part of the history of gyaru is a tad bit confusing but in simple words:

Ganguro born -> ganguro hot -> yamanba born -> ganguro cold

->yamanba hot -> Manba born -> Yamanba cold -> Manba hot.

Gyaru hit its peak in the early to mid 2000's. In 2006, Agejo jumped onto the scene. Ageha magazine saw its publication start in 2006, and agejo became widely popular at this time, as gyaru was still associated with childishness and high schoolers. Agejo is a style often worn by hostesses, mature and more glamorous and glittery than styles like manba and others per say. Koakuma Ageha is also seen as a kyabajo magazine with models like Himena Ousaki and Singer and model Rina Sakurina creating their names in the gyaru hall of fame in the mid to late 2000's on the front pages of Ageha magazine. Other gyaru styles/trends were also formed in the mid-late 2000's such as haady, created by kaoru watanabe, defined by darker colours, inspired by the fashion scenes of 80's britain, and Hime gyaru. Hime gyaru was born around 2007, and was widely popularised on magazines like popteen and ageha. Hime just means princess, hime gyaru translating literally into princess gal, and is often associated with lolita, but it's not the same in certain aspects.

Heading out of the 2000's and into the good ol 10's gyaru continued strong for another few years, with the emergence of more casual styles like Roma gyaru, characterised by more nude/earthy colours compared to the bold stand out nature of gyaru clothing. A popular Roma Gyaru brand being Liz Lisa, who still are in business today compared to other 109 brands like D.I.A

However, as we move slowly into 2013-2014, we see gyaru as a substyle start to die. Formerly popular gyaru magazines like popteen and ranzuki start to shift away from gyaru in an attempt to appeal to teenagers, while 3 of the most popular gal mags, Koakuma Ageha, Happie nuts and EGG announced they would stop publication in 2014. Although you may think gyaru died here and got revived when some random japanese rapper went 'gyaru cho kawaii' like 2 years and and kpop idols started doing gyaru peace, this is pretty incorrect. Gyaru was still floating around in the mid-late 2010's, but gyaru had changed. The days of dark tans, crazy hair and clothing, flashy outfits had gone, with late heisei era (1989-2019) gyarus adopting western trends and mixing it with gyaru to slowly create the new, modern depictions of gals, Shiro gals. Shiro in japanese means white, Shiro gal = White gal in a literal sense but it just means a gal who doesn't tan. Shiro gals have always existed but in the late 2010's and when the Heisei era of Japan slowly came to an end, Gyaru started picking up again amoung japanese girls and women.

Now we are in our current era, during this whole shitstorm, we've walked through the showa era of japanese gyaru, the entire lifetime of the heisei period and now we are in the Reiwa era of gyaru, which started in May 2019 after the former japanese emperor stepped down. In 2019, Egg and Ageha announced a come back. Even nuts making their second comeback after trying to comeback in 2015 but ending publication around a year later. At the start of the new decade, Gyaru made its boom in international communities (although gyaru communities always existed internationally, but not recieving the exposure it does internationally like it does now) . In 2021, New Egg magazine formed a girl group called 'softboiledegg' who released their smash hit 'Gal is mind' in late 2021, and despite the song not really making sense, it thrusted gyaru back into a new spotlight. The gyaru peace, which is an upside down peace sign, was re-popularised by kpop idols, and at the same time, GAL by Ohayo, Shake Pepper and Yvngboi P went viral, with people all over the world covering the song in their native language after a korean tik tok user created her own in : Korean. Ever since then, Gyaru has become increasingly more popular.

Thank you for reading my first Blog Post. I've spent about a month testing and searching through websites to create the perfect blog for this, I hope this read was interesting, I don't want my blog to me too informational, this is all human writing and research, so if you have any comments for improvement or questions, feel free to comment and I will happily respond.

This is Spacy aka Mackerel Gal <3

sources: Wikipedia, Gal Data labs, Model press and other websites.

Bye bye!