reflecting on my relationship with gyaru

two years of gal ♡

For the past few months, I've been reflecting on my relationship with gyaru. It really does feel like a relationship. We've had our ups and downs, but overall it's been a wonderful and rewarding experience. 

Recently (although I'm sure this is no shock considering my blog content), I've been drawn more and more to old school gyaru, which doesn't include a lot of today's most popular and widely accepted signifiers of gal. As a result, I've struggled with feeling like I'm easily perceived as gyaru. 

It's my personal opinion that it is exceedingly difficult for a non-East Asian—particularly non-Japanese— gyaru to read as gal when wearing more "historically accurate" (that sounds pretentious, I know, but I can't think of another way to phrase it) 90s-gyaru make-up. These days, contact lenses and a droop are all-but required to be gyaru as a foreigner, even if the community at large might be hesitant, or even resistant, to admit it. 

I used to do more 2010s/tsuyome make-up at the beginning of my gyaru journey. I do—and did—like the way it looked, but it wasn't super comfortable or "true" to me. I also think that style of make looks best with post-2008 gyaru styles (a la tsuyome, and hime), and I've realized (or come to terms with, rather) that tsuyome does not suit me. They say black is universally flattering, but I don't think it does me many favors. I think the bright colors of ganguro do my complexion and hair color a world of good. 

I'm not considering abandoning gyaru; not at all! But I've been thinking a lot about the style, my performance of it, and what I want out of the fashion and community at large. 

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I've mentioned this before, but after going off birth control, I gained about 15 to 20 pounds. I want to preface this by saying that weight gain and loss (especially for women) is a sensitive topic. I’m only speaking from my own experience, and I want to acknowledge that some of what I’m about to say isn’t healthy or body-positive thinking. If you feel this might be triggering, please skip to the next section.

With that said, I've been feeling... well, I've been feeling less confident. It has less to do with my actual figure and more with the fact that most of my clothing doesn't fit anymore. It was a bit devastating.

Living in Japan, finding clothes that fit me sometimes feels like an exercise in futility. I'm tall by Japanese standards, so pants are never long enough. Even XL in Japanese sizes don't typically work due to the shape of my body: larger thighs and hips vs a smaller (by comparison) waist; a larger bust than the Japanese average. 

It is 2025, and even in Japan there have been some strides (minor though they are) towards more accessible clothing, but as a gyaru...

I know I'm not the only gal to complain about this, and I recognize that I'm still rather straight-sized and my struggles are not as severe as those who are plus-sized. But I have to admit, as a gal who loves Alba Rosa and CocoBongo, it's a bit demoralizing to see all these cute clothes on Mercari JP and know that I wont fit into them. Even if I were to starve myself, they still likely wouldn't fit due to the way my body is shaped. I am a woman and most of those clothes were made for Japanese teenagers. 

This isn't an insurmountable problem. And as anyone with a body knows, weight fluctuates. It's simply the reality of being human. 

I say all of this as a way to explain where my mind is at. I miss putting together coordinates and feeling great when wearing them. These days, I feel ugly and massive. Intellectually, I know that being "fat" is not an insult and that being thin is not a requirement for gyaru. But years and years of social conditioning on what it means to be a beautiful woman has no doubt effected the way I perceive myself. That, and (let's be honest) gyaru has always favored thin bodies. 

All the girls featured in Egg magazine are (and were) incredibly thin. We might know and acknowledge that gyaru is for everybody, but all the media (Egg is considered the gyaru bible, for fuck's sake) points to the fact that the "best" gyaru or the most celebrated ones inhabit a thin, teenage body. 

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In the past year, I've fallen in love with old school gyaru. It's without a doubt my favorite period of gal history and I've had such a great time learning about its origins and collecting many of the brands that were popular at the time. But the more I've begun to wear old school (specifically between the years of 1996-2003) make-up, I've noticed that I don't always "look" gyaru. I feel gyaru, but I don't know if I would be confident posting on a gyaru community. At first, I tried to identify what the reason for this was. Do I need to be tanner? More white shadow? More eyeliner? I've experimented with it all. 

There's a general rule of thumb among veteran gals that basically assesses a gyaru look on the basis of a few key elements: tan, make, hair and nails. If you're lacking in one, you have to go harder and heavier in the other areas. I wholeheartedly agree with this. 

So, by this logic, if I am doing the "more subtle" old school make, then I should being going harder in the other areas. But what I think people perceive as "going harder" in gyaru is more associated with 2010s gyaru styles such as tsuyome or the modern and Tiktok-ified version of gyaru kei. Old school gyaru weren't yet deco-ing their nails to the extent that the gals in the 2010s were. In fact, most 90s gyaru favored square-shaped nails over the iconic claws of kuro gyaru. And as a ginger with a pale complexion, there is only a certain level of tan that I can realistically achieve before it starts to veer towards racial mockery. 

Nothing is stopping me from blending substyles. As much as the gaijin gyaru community favors historical purity, the reality is that what gyaru is in 2025 is an amalgamation of all of gyaru history's "best ofs." It also favors more kawaii-esque elements such as dolly circle lenses and spikey-manga lases, both of which were not common among 90s gals. 

This begets a question: is it possible for a non-Japanese person to look gyaru while in old school gal, sans droop and circle lenses? Has gyaru evolved past this more subtle variation? 

I'm not sure what to make of these feelings. My love for old-school gyaru fashion and history is unwavering, but should I abandon the gyaru moniker in favor for something more nebulous? Should I abandon labels entirely? 

It's a weird question because I've spent so much of the last two years immersing myself in all things gyaru. Giving it up now feels like defeat. It feels wrong. But I also have respect for the style and the community, and I don't want to be here if I can't "read" as gyaru. I don't want to take up space.

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In all other realms, I am extraordinarily happy. I have a partner who I love and who loves me, I've discovered my love for teaching, I have friends I love, and I love living in Tokyo. I'm surrounded by love. 

The above issues don't effect my life at all... outside of the few moments when I think long and hard about myself as gyaru. Divorced from this label, I am simply Lexie who is now 29 years old; whose body has changed and will continue to change in the future. But I don't want a divorce. Gyaru is important to me. 

As I write this, I am starting to realize that I am speaking on gyaru solely as an online performance. I feel the most insecure about my body when I see it reflected back at me in photos; when I’m wearing my ganguro clothes and wishing I were thin like the Japanese gyaru they were originally designed for. I feel the worst about my own expression of gyaru when I notice that the most popular modern gyaru on Instagram and Twitter are the ones with giant circle lenses and vague kawaii fashion.

If my goal is to be a "popular gyaru" online, there is nothing stopping me from going to back to that tsuyome look. But that's an inane goal. 

It’s interesting (and a little unsettling) to be someone who studied media and communications in university, who fully understands how social media is designed to addict us and feed us a false sense of validation, and yet still fall victim to it. 

I had begun to associate my validity as a gyaru with the amount of attention my looks or make received online, which, admittedly, has never been a whole lot. This is not healthy thinking, and it shouldn’t be the point of gyaru. I know this, but "knowing" and "feeling" often act independently of each other, and the feelings...well... tend to feel most real.

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I'm writing this because it feels good to get out. I've also somehow managed to cultivate a small group of amazing mutuals (of which I am forever grateful) and if anyone's going to give me good feedback, it'll be them.  

I don't know what conclusion I'm drawing from this. I don't think there is one. Not yet. 

The only thing I'm pretty certain of is that gyaru, like anything else in life, is an ebb and flow. I might be ebbing now, but the flow will come again. It's inevitable.