What is seiso Gyaru? What actually led to gyaru becoming 'toned down'

  ちゃおっす It's Spacy!  Uusually I don't decide to write blog posts on a whim but today I thought I may as well since I had a good idea and I'm still drafting other blog posts. But all in all, what is Seiso gyaru, and what are the actual causes for gyaru gradually toning down from the flashy ganguro era to our current sun kissed reiwa era? This is a text heavy post so put ur reading glasses on folks!

HONESTLY....

i don't usually try and make repetitive blog posts, and I think my blog post about visual appeal in gyaru magazines links very closely to the subject of this blog post, but rather attacking it from a wider perspective that's not magazines.

So first off, what is Seiso Gyaru?

Remember in march when everyone was up in arms about people on tik tok claiming clean gyaru was a valid substyle? Seiso gyaru can essentially be defined as clean gyaru.
I'm gonna reference this toxictsunko video to summarise what needs to be said. But essentially, seiso gyaru was created for those who wanted to do quote on quote gyaru at school and work while also maintaining that air of professionalism that isn't associated with kuro gyaru or even other shiro gyaru styles. Even before seiso gyaru, shiro gyaru was popular due to the influences of ayu who was mega popular with the public, making it feel like this new shiro gyaru style was more socially acceptable. But even then, shiro gyaru had that glimmering flare to it that still made it feel unique and gyaru, however, seiso gyaru, which was created to fit in, was a rejected concept by many hard core gals who believed the concept of 'seiso gyaru' simply wasn't gyaru, but a lot of magazines and brands started to follow these trends and shifted to appealing to that demographic, until the fine line between what was actually gyaru and what people slapped the label gyaru on became indistinguishable in seiso gyaru and shit started to just hit the fan, EGG magazine stopped publishing, ranzuki was a hot mess, Popteen decided gyaru wasn't fun no more and stopped being a gyaru magazine. Ageha was still glamrous and sexy but they stopped displaying that huge sujimori hair it did in the early 10's late 00's. Jelly didn't even have the right to call itself a gyaru magazine anymore, NUTS had given up years ago, what I'm saying is that there was just a bit of a collapse

But thats not the actual point, the real question is, why? What caused people to reject gyaru in its traditional senses? A better way of saying it is, what caused gyaru to stop appealing to teenagers?

Most gals became gals when they were teenagers, being gyaru was typically seen as a teenage thing, and that gals should really graduate from being a gal by their coming of age, with one person stating 'Gals as adults are unintelligent. They make me feel like I’m going to die every time I interact with one' this census which is from Gal Data labs was from 2014 and was said by a 28yr old woman. You can see how gyaru was viewed as negative and immature, especially adults looking down on gals, with another woman saying 'It’s better to be neat girl than a Gal because I feel like it would appeal to men better.'
Even in 2014 with all this seiso gal crap, people still viewed being a gal as dirty, gals as whores who were only good for sex and one night stands, its clear the opinions on gals weren't satisfactory, which was a possible contribution to gals toning it down to appeal to what society expects of them. Gyaru being viewed as a teenage thing means lot's of teenagers, seeing the negative associations with gyaru at this time, started to stray away from gyaru, and of course, gyaru has always had such negative connotations, starting during the ganguro boom during the 90's were people would accuse ganguros of having aids and being prostitutes, and kogals of doing enjo kosai, all the nasty stuff. But... why? If gyaru has always had these negative connotations what made gals of the past different to those of that present?

One of the things that influenced teens of that time was the new age of social media which led to a little bad thing called, Cyberbullying. In this article from women's wear daily I'll be referencing a lot, it says '“Because of social media, if you wear something really flashy, they kind of attack you, so people don’t want to be too flashy anymore. People in general, that’s one of the things we’ve noticed. The Internet bullying.” In research conducted from Osaka university, it said 20-30% of japanese high schoolers have admitted to being bullied in some way or form, with 8% admitting to being bullies themselves. In a November 2020 article, it shows that 'In 2019, the number of reported bullying cases in Japan’s public and private elementary, junior high, and high schools rose from the previous year by 68,563 to 612,496.'... almost 70,000 reported incidents to over half A MILLION! And that's simply the cases of REPORTED bullying in schools, not including cyberbullying that can be experienced by people you don't even know. Due to the increases of things like cyber bullying and how gyaru was viewed at the time, you can see why teens didn't want to be associated with a subculture that connotated to sexual promiscuity and immaturity. And because of this fear of electronic and in person bullying, teens started this somewhat counter culture, where a lot of them started essentially wearing a lot of the same thing, creating not simply a sense of uniformity, but a uniformity that almost frowned upon those who dared to be unique, as fashion designer Mikio Sakabe says “Before, people wanted to be personal and have individual taste. But now, if you walk in Shibuya or Shinjuku wearing individual clothes, you feel ashamed. There is a sense of what’s correct or incorrect fashion.”

Another thing about social media being, when people take pics of their coord and post it on social media, it genuienly decreases the culture that actually surrounds street culture fashion, bc all your inspiration is from digital media, what is street fashion culture if you aren't on the fuckin street? When everything was easier to do shopping online, when you can look at coords from the comfort of your bed, when you admire folks on social media then swipe away 10 seconds later instead of admiring them in person and having the chance to speak to them in person. There's no shopping in person, and actually physically immersing yourself into the gyaru scene in shibuya, you simply can't do that from the comfort of your bed. Social media enabling that creates an effect on street fashion as a whole.

Another thing that had a huge influence on street culture and by extension, gyaru was the construction for the 2020 Olympics, with buildings been torn up and redone, there was a gloomier atmosphere to shibuya compared to the bright and glittering lights of 2000's shibuya with 109 standing tall, posters everywhere. Gyaru's roots are in shibuya. 109 is essentially a historical heritage sight, loads of gal models were hired when working in clothing stores in shibuya and 109, the gloominess of shibuya paired with the death of 109 caused by the seiso gal confusion, then realising gal was dying so they shifted to targeting new demographics, Shibuya is no longer the land of flowing milk and honey it used to be, whats the point in going to shibuya when theres nothing there to do for gals, people don't dance para para in shibuya, no where for gals to shop, I mean, looking at some of the pics inside 109 from 5 years ago you could almost think you're in H&M if you didn't know you were in Shibuya 109, and yeah there was Datura and Baby Shop but even Cecil Mcbee was looking fucking tragic....

Another thing affected the fashion scene is economics.
Gyaru was born from the post-bubble era chaos. In small words, the bubble were 5 years of economic prosperity from 1986 to 1991 where everything was easy breezy japaneesy until 1992 where the economic crashed and everything wasn't all that good. I'm not gonna bother explaining japanese economics and let the professionals talk:

'With annual salaries in Japan either remaining stagnant or decreasing, spending among households of those under 25 years old has dropped by more than 30 percent since 2009, according to government data. More than 60 percent of high school students, university students and twenty-somethings feel it more preferable to be viewed as frugal rather than spend-happy, according to a Dentsu Innovation Institute study. Less than 40 percent of Japanese Millennials are positive about their financial future, according to a study conducted by employment agency ManpowerGroup.

Wealth distribution has steadily decreased among the country’s middle class since the implementation of Shinzo Abe’s Abenomics policy, which relies on trickle-down economics as a mode of growth. Economists worry that this trend could see many middle-class households declining to a low-income classification.

The trend extends to consumption, with one source noting its effect on the Japanese fashion system. Explained Ahn: “In Japan, the middle class used to be a lot wider and this gray zone produced a lot of good, Japanese brands. Recently the economy has been going down, and fast fashion has pushed this old model out because of price. Fast fashion means that anyone can buy something and look decent. People got safer and safer, there isn’t as much of an effort to search for new and cool things.”

People simply didn't (and still don't rlly) have the disposable income to pay for that gyaru lifestyle, I mean, a lot of the gals we actually admire are models, ambassadors, or have jobs that make being gyaru a requirement, ya know?

Let's not forget about the economic recession of the late 2000's with the 2008 economic recession that affected economies world-wide. Paired with how expensive gyaru brands and all the other things like hair nails and make, paired with the increasing lack of disposable income meant that the overall shopping culture that gyaru was built on collapsed. With the collapse of gyaru shopping culture, paired with the collapse of shibuya as a holy gyaru grounds, lack of disposable income, teens straying away from being unique in favour of uniformity due to increasing bullying, other things such as lack of models and icons to follow, seiso gyaru confusing the gyaru scene, and even old gal legends like ayu and namie slowly becoming what is now called 'aunt music' by japanese youths, you can see why gyaru ended up crashing.

But honestly, i've strayed a bit off topic talking about HOW gyaru crashed but not actually how it became toned down, and the main reason why gyaru became so toned down in my opinion is simply due to the lack of individualism. Gyaru has had trends, gyaru has had icons, but the whole point of gyaru is being yourself and expressing yourself in that way. A lot of Japanese youths, seeing the worsening economy, and other socio economic issues, including the lock down, including increasing depression rates in japanese youths that continues to increase year by year. A huge part of japanese culture also emphasising fitting into a community (this is sourced from rightstep.com's article on mental health with japanese teenagers not my own words). Japanese teens who stand out from the crowd are more likely to be bullied, making an increasing need for collectivisation with youths afraid of bullying mean none are bold enough to express themselves uniquely and stand out from the crowd, such as being a gal, because gals do very much stand out.

This can really be seen in the reiwa scene. Although there is a push back against this counter culture movement that has kept gyaru held down for a while, it's not gone and it doesn't seem to be leaving. I mentioned how many people turned to fast fashion due to worsening economy which led to a lack of individualism in the way we can express ourselves in clothing? Even magazines like EGG show off coords with shein in them (not a terribly bad thing tho, but still bad bc shein booo)

In reality, the more the gyaru scene decides to play it safe, the more boring gyaru may become. I mean, even big magazines like ranzuki labelled themselves a korean gyaru magazine, because they wanted to rebrand as a gyaru magazine but they probably knew that wouldn't feed any mouths, mixing that kpop style that japanese teen girls like so they could play it safe with a broader audience, ageha is turning into minimalist slop, NUTS will never regain its spark in graphic design glory if they continue at the rate their going, SOUL SISTER?..... I mean, even EGG's covers feel a bit hit or miss these days, it just seems like these magazines are playing it too safe which is why it feels like gyaru has become majorly boring, No J-divas, no cool brands, shibuya 109 is dead, even most models these days aren't too individually striking. There was once upon a time where Romihi, Kumicky, Kanako Kawabata, Watanabe Kaoru, Satomi Yukawa,Rina Sakurai, Hoshiaya, Tsubasa Masuwaka, Aya Suzuki, Nicole Abe, Sayako Ozaki and Momoka Eri were all modelling at the same time, Ayumi Hamasaki and Koda Kumi(?) were ever popular, Namie Amuro wasn't retired, Shibuya 109 was the shit, I fear that era of gyaru simply can't be replicated in this day and age because everything and everyone was playing it safe, it's essentially set gyaru on a path it can't turn back on, but as one delusional bitch, I hope gyaru can get out of this minimalist slump before i nerf these graphic designers once and for all.

Thank you for reading this blog post
The referenced other references i used are from gal data labs