スジ盛り? Big hair! The short history of sujimori in gyaru

ちゃおっす It's Spacy!..... The one thing I haven't talked about yet is hair and make, so today we are gonna change that by doing a dive into morigami/sujimori hair in the gyaru scene!

Recently i hit 700 followers so this is my thank you for 700 followers. On Thursday I was talking to my therapist and I told her I had felt like I wasted my summer holiday by not doing anything productive, so she told me to do things I like but not force myself to complete it, so despite this ramble, would it shock u to say im forcing myself to do this? Not in a bad way, but I'm actually motivated, so I will try be more motivated and not wait for a divine spark to remind me what I love doing

Note: Everything i'm saying right now can be disputed and may not be 100% fact but rather interpretations I have made from sources.

スジ盛り- The literal translation of Sujimori actually means 'lots of/plenty of streaks'  This meaning is  very self explanatory of the characteristics of the hairstyle itself, as the 2 main features of sujimori are DEFINED hair strands and VOLUMINOUS hair

Let's preface this now, Sujimori hairstyles do not only exist within gyaru culture, although sujimori does sometimes look distinctly different in other subcultures, such as in visual kei or in the host scene. Sujimori has extremely close links to the host scene as well so there will be lots of talk about hosts

Vkei sujimori example

Where does Sujimori originate from?

Many websites will tell you sujimori hairstyles were popularised in host circles, which is true but certain sources dig deeper, and point to the origins of sujimori to be within the Vkei community, with Vkei fans being a huge consumer base for host clubs, many hosts adopted these sujimori hairstyles made by Visual Kei band men. (Although this may or may not be true who knows)

Sujimori also speaks for itself, despite being hair, it was bold and made hosts look very luxurious.

Pointy shoes and Sujimori was all the craze in male hosts scenes (which obviously rubbed off into the girls working in the same scene as well) however, the hairstyle and whole look naturally lost attraction, for reasons such as being too popular. I know. Something to popular it instantly made it unpopular.

Being a host requires knowing what attracts people. Many people felt that the luxurious sujimori look became too mass produced, flashy and over the top and this was bad for business, so sujimori became less popular within hosts scenes over the years.

Sujimori did make somewhat of a comeback within the next few years after, less with men and more with women, mainly with something called 'natural sujimori' because if something is fun in japanese fashion culture you can count on someone to make it look more natural.

Sujimori is also a professional hairstyle, with many hosts simply only wearing it to work, which gave sujimori an identity/ made it a costume in a certain fashion for people working in the host profession

Sujimori hairstyles with male hosts peaked from 2003-2007 

However we're talking about sujimori in gyaru, what about gyaru?

Rikachu (Ranzuki exclusive model) Sujimori in 盛れる!! Ranzuki March 2009

Like many things that came from gyaru in the mid to late 2000s (2005-2009) it was koakuma ageha who brought sujimori to gyaru.

Due to Koakuma ageha being a host magazine aswell, they often displayed clothes, makeup and hair popular with hosts, and due to koakuma ageha magazine also being popular with gyaru and many non gals and non hosts who just liked reading fashion magazine, sujimori picked up within gyaru circles as well.

Ayurina's sujimori hair in the july 2006 Koakuma Ageha volume

What made sujimori popular with gals?

One very important thing about sujimori is that the hair can be so big it actually makes your face look smaller, and the volume makes you look taller.

But lets not forget, sujimori is gorgeous, its bold and it screams 'PLEASE IM A STAR' to anyone walking on the street. Sujimori can also be tailored to the individual, making it a unique hairstyle to the wearer.

The characteristics of Sujimori:

Sujimori can look different!

Sujimori can be made into bob hairstyle, it can be straight and curly, you can sport cornrows and twin tails with sujimori hair, but like I said the 2 main characteristics of Sujimori hair is the definition of strands and volume

The strands are not actually individual strands of hair, but multiple bunched up to enhance the look of the strands, this makes each individual strand stand out. Due to sujimori being built on volume, the hair can have layers which have its own unique strand pattern, such as certain strands on the bottom layer can be curled, while strands on the top layer of the hair look brushed back. Defining the strands and building layers is what gives sujimori that huge hair look.

Sujimori hair can be done with natural hair but if you want that volume? You can use wigs of hair extensions to create styles like Megamori that were often sported by former Black Diamond members. 

There are many sujimori tutorials you can do at home, the main equipment you will need can be:

A straightener 

Hair gel or Hair wax

A curling Iron

Hair

A teased styling comb (this helps with creating volume or streaks depending how big you want the hair to be)

and 

Bobbie pins and Hair ties.

Now I've mentioned loads of words, like megamori, like morigami that arent sujimori, but theyr'e all part of the 'mori' family.

Megamori

Megamori actually means supersized, sometimes it can also be called dekamori, but that's not in terms of hair!

You may be thinking based on me mentioning black diamonds that BD were the people who made and popularised megamori as a hairstyle but that's not entirely true. (Just to a certain degree)

Megamori was created and popularised in a hairstyle magazine bible called, and bear with me for a second

'Morigami Set Salon Bible - A guide to the hairstyles for long hair and streaks that everyone is ordering!' 

Volume (mook 38) released in March 2009 depicts some absolutely wild hairstyles which are the base for the megamori hairstyle, large hair with loads of accessories which is close attributed to black diamond, Megamori existed in a form before black diamonds was around but BD themselves can be credited with popularising megamori that doesn't look insanely stupid and unwearable. It's safe to say Black Diamond has had a huge influence on hairstyles within the gyaru community.

What made this specific hairstyle iconic was the Ascending Pegasus mori mix hairstyle, with the hair turned into a unicorn horn, this went viral in the 2009's, but as Koakuma ageha was responsible for popularising morigami and attributing it with the hostess scene, it was Koakuma Ageha that took the credit for creating the Ascending Pegasus mori mix hairstyle

Although its important to note that no hostesses were wearing this... Ascending Pegasus mori mix hairstyle...

Other 2009 megamori hairstyles include:

Tornado Oiran Close-up

Kyoto Dosue Mori

and

Pompa Conch Half-Up

If you search up megamori hair in japanese into google this is the first thing that will come up

Megamori styles can and often do include charms and accessories,

In the gyaru subculture, megamori is most closely associated with the black diamond members of the 2010s gyaru era rather then hostess fashion of the late 2000s

But wait wait wait, Morigami? how did we go from sujimori to morigami to megamori.

Morigami by the japanese wikipedia definition:

Morigami is a type of hairstyle for women . As the name suggests, it refers to a hairstyle in which the hair is "pile-up" by tying or rolling it up with a rubber band , hairpin , or hairspray . "Mori" is a word that means to add volume.  This hairstyle has been seen since around 2005. It was initially recognized as a fashion for hostesses in the nightlife and cabaret clubs , but in recent years it has spread to women in their teens and twenties as part of gyaru culture.

...

wait so what's the difference between sujimori and morigami?

I don't think there is one, except morigami is a term specifically used for womens hairstyles, while sujimori originated with male hostesses, if you were to search sujimori in japanese you'd see more male host hairstyles, while morigami has more womens hairstyles, Although sujimori isnt a male specific term.

Sujimori is also worn outside subcultures, sometimes girls at their coming of age ceremony will wear sujimori hairstyles.

So to summarise this entire post, Sujimori first entered the gyaru circle of consciousness in 2005 thanks to male hosts who created sujimori, with female hosts also picking up on the trend and first publishing those styles in hair and fashion magazines like Koakuma ageha, after the ageha boom started in 2008, sujimori hairstyles gained popularity in gyaru circles. In 2009, megamori became popular, and around this time, sujimori hair started to add accessories like flowers and charms to give the hair personality. In the 2010s, Black diamond made megamori hairstyles famous internationally.

Here I will leave some tutorials for sujimori hair for those who want to do it!

I'm going to end my blogpost here since to be honest, there wasn't too much to write about but thank you for reading, thank you for 40+ followers in a single day. I said i was going to talk about it in the gyaru scene but I didn't really stick to that. I also don't think this post is all that informative, hopefully it was just fun to read, maybe i can come back in august with a better writing style, but thank you for 740 followers

Bye bye -Spacy