Japanese Street Fashion in a Nutshell

Your Aristocrat to Zipper of street fashion in Japan!

Aristocrat

Looks like: Similar to normal Western "Romantic Goth", it involves long skirts and pants, ruffled shirts, jabots, top hats and Victorian-inspired accessories. It is a unisex fashion, sometimes considered as the "male" version of gothic lolita. This isn't entirely true, as a lot of girls wear it.
Worn by: Visual Kei fans, some lolitas, some goths, some VK band members (think Klaha in Malice Mizer).
Brands: Black Peace Now, Atelier Boz, Alice and the Pirates

Cosplay

Looks like: Dressing up as a character from a TV show/movie/manga/book or any other person that is not yourself. Not really a fashion but it used to be popular to dress up as Visual Kei musicians in Harajuku and Ame-mura in the 90s. From that a lot of the new styles were born.
Worn by: Otaku, Visual Kei fans
Brands: ID Japan

Decora

Looks like: Random thrift shop clothes with tonnes of colours mixed and matched in a chaotic manner. Disney characters feature heavily, and many clips are attached to the hair. Delveloped as a style seemingly by middle-schoolers who couldn't afford expensive clothes.
Worn by: Younger Visual Kei fans, teenagers. Not very popular as of 2009.
Brands: 6% DOKIDOKI Random cheap shops in Harajuku and Ame-mura, Disney stores, second-hand American clothes stores.

Fairy-kei

Looks like: Sweet Lolita or Decora but with more neon pastels and "fairy"-like accessories. The first "Fairy-Kei Lolita" arguably be the singer Kana, but the style itself was not made popular until around 2009.
Worn by: Modern lolitas, Spank fans.
Brands:Spank, Nile Perch, random cheap shops in Harajuku and Ame-mura.

Ganguro

Looks like: They deeply tan their skin, then paint on white eyeliner and lipstick, have multi-coloured hair and wear "Hawaiian" style clothes. Tans ranged from light to very dark, and the more extreme ones were called "Yamamba". Originally it was mainly a schoolgirl fashion, and it gradually got more popular. Para-para dancing was also popularised by these people. It died out in the mid-2000s when having light skin began being popular again.
Worn by:School-girls, young adults, hardly anyone as of 2009
Brands:Unknown.

Gothic (J-Goth)

Looks like: Similar to Western gothic fashion, Japanese Gothic style has a few popular brands and an emphasis on very elaborate costumes and make-up.
Worn by: People in their 20s and older.
Brands: Alice Auaa

Gyaru (and Gyaru-O)

Looks like: This is pretty much "normal" fashion for young people who care about fashion at all. It changes every season, but short shorts and short skirts are always in vouge. Girls dye their hair brown and always have it curled and wear thick make-up. Male gyarus are called "gyaru-o" and wear tight jeans and T-shirts and spike their long hair up into "wolf" style.
Worn by: Teens and young adults, most of the Japanese young population.
Brands:Liz Lisa, Tralala etc etc... almost every store in trendy places.

Hime-gyaru

Looks like: BIG HAIR. Short dresses. Thick make-up. High Heels. This fashion started out as a girl pink version of gyaru, but was taken in by hostesses and popularised by the magazine "Koakuma Ageha". The dresses may be short and thin, but they are artificially expensive to make them a status symbol for young women who make a lot of money through various forms of hostessing. Sometimes it is confused with gyaru or lolita, but the hair is the main point. Recently circle contact lenses have become almost mandatory as well.
Worn by: Hostesses (at work if their bar allows it, in their free time if it doesn't), some teens and young women.
Brands: Jesus Diamante, La Parfait

Lolita (Gothic and Sweet)

Looks like: A mix between Rococo, Victorian and 1950s style, lolita is one of the most varied fashion subcultures in Japan. The most important point of the dresses is a sillohette that emphasises a full skirt that comes to just above the knee, with a puff-sleeved top, knee-high socks and quaint shoes. There are style from gothic to sweet to punk and whatever people's imaginations can create. So far it's the biggest fashion subculture export to overseas from Japan.
Worn by: Girls from middle school and up.
Brands: Angelic Pretty, Baby the Stars Shine Bright, Moi-meme-Moitie, too many more!

Mori Girl

Looks like: The idea is to make an outfit that looks like it's worn by a forest-dwelling wild girl or perhaps fairy ("Mori" is the Japanese word for forest). It's made up of decora-like layers, but done in beiges, whites, creams and browns. The fabrics are usually natural fibers, and are arranged in random ways. Random knitted wool things are also in favour.
Worn by: Young adults to older women.
Brands: ????

Natural Kei

Looks like: Modest to frumpy dresses that borrow from American Pioneer styles. Long skirts, plain bodices and bonnets, making up something that Anne of Green Gables might have worn. Layers and frills are important, and the skirts are usually ankle-length.
Worn by: Older women.
Brands: Garland, Street Organ, Seraphim

Onee-kei (and Ani-kei)

Looks like: More mature version of gyaru fashion, generally features dresses with cardigans over them, more modest hemlines, jeans instead of shorts and more conservative colours. Hair is usually brown and permed. The men's version usually involves jeans and T-shirts and vests.
Worn by: Women in their later 20s and up, same for men. Especially popular with office ladies.
Brands:Anything features in CanCam, Vivi, Ray, JJ magazines etc...

Ouji (aka Kodona/Dandy)

Looks like: Little Lord Fauntleroy if he was a punk. Knee-length shorts with long socks, frilly shirts, jabots and top-hats. Ouji means "Prince", and this fashion is the closest you can get to a male version of lolita. It has been incorrectly called "Kodona" in the West for a long time.
Worn by: Usually cross-dressing girls.
Brands:Black Peace Now

Pink House Fashion

Looks like:Said to be the originator of Gothic Lolita, Pink House was the first label to produce the girly historical-inspired fashion that later became lolita. However, since the 90s, the fashion change to look more like the clothes worn by the cast of Little House on the Prarie- Long modest dresses in floral fabrics. It could be called Natural Kei now, but was considered a genre of it's own before lolita.
Worn by: Older women.
Brands:Pink House, Wonderful Wold, Kaneko Isao, Inge Holge

Seifuku (School Girl)

Looks like: School uniforms, except either not an acutal uniform, a costume or just worn by people who graduated years ago. There are even shops that sell fake uniforms that are not based on real ones or anime ones, but just "fashionable" version of school uniforms. Not to be confused with real school uniforms (which most kids are required to wear even on weekends).
Worn by: Usually worn by girls in the late teens/early 20s who are afraid of getting old. Also worn by kids who don't like their own school uniforms.
Brands:CONOMI, Bodyline

Spank

Looks like: 1980s kids cartoons brought to life. May not have started in Japan, but is similar to Decora, with an Electro twist.
Worn by: Electro kids, same kind of people who wear Decora and Fairy-kei.
Brands:Spank, Nile Perch, random Harajuku shops.

Ura-hara-kei

Looks like: For men it's monotones in layers- black jeans, grey tops with black and white scarves and more greys layered on. For women it's more about putting together a lot of weird second-hand clothes in assymetrical layers
Worn by: Poor band guys, not so poor band guys, host guys on their days off, tomboy-ish girls in Harajuku, trendies.
Brands:????

Visual-kei

Looks like: Glam Rock meets Punk-Goth. Visual Kei is a style of music and the style of costumes that the bands wear. The fans also have a very specific style of "visual kei" clothes, which are basically cheap "punk-goth" clothes. For the most part, black with incomprehensible Engrish printed on in white- red tartans, spider-web lace, leopard prints and also crosses, bondage straps and spikes feature heavily.
Worn by:Visual Kei fans, guys in poor visual kei bands.
Brands: Hellcat Punks, h.Naoto, Sexpot Revenge, Hide Rock, Algonquins

Wa-Cyber

Looks like: The Japanese take on Cyber Goth. It can either look the same, or have some kimono-elements involved. Certain hair-styles and accessories also originated in Japan and spread to the world.
Worn by: Goths
Brands: Takuya Angel, Anarchy JP, Qutie Frash

Wa-Gara

Looks like: Western fashion with kimono prints or traditional Japanese design elements in them.
Worn by: Young men, some young women.
Brands:Gouk, Takuya Angel, Qutie Frash, Kasuu Koubou, random shops in Ame-mura

Wa-Goth

Looks like: Kimonos worn in a gothic fashion, or printed with gothic patterns, or cut up and made into Japanese/Western hybrid gothic fashion.
Worn by: Some Visual Kei bands, Visual Kei fans, J-goths
Brands:Gouk, Takuya Angel, Qutie Frash (n.b. these brands can only sometimes be used, usually is from second-hand clothes)

Yukata

Looks like: A Summer kimono-style garment, worn for a couple of months a year in Summer to festivals and other events. Can replace normal clothes for men and women during the hottest months of the year. Recently they have become more popular, to the point of almost all popular brands producing their own "trendy" versions. The basic shape remains unchanged however.
Worn by: Children to adults.
Brands: Mainly non-famous brands, but famous brands have started making their own.

Zipper

Looks like: Like decora but with less layers and simpler hair. Basically takes any cheap or second-hand clothes and puts them together with any other cheap or second-hand clothes. Sometimes takes elements from fashions like visual kei or lolita, but doesn't attempt to match brands or styles.
Worn by: Poor students, Visual Kei fans.
Brands: World Wide Love, Second-hand American clothes shops, Visual Kei brands, cheap mall shops.

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