GirlsAward, Japan’s largest fashion and music event, has just opened a cafe and bar in central Shibuya run by dokusha moderu (“reader models” — pseudo-amateur models who straddle the areas of regular person and fashion model).
It’s a decidedly “girly” affair, with pink galore and dollops of gyaru aesthetic, appropriately enough for the Shibuya Center Gai location where many of the passing shoppers will fall into the definition of at least aspiring gyaru. The now-iconic gyaru is the spectacular bronze skin, dyed hair fashion subculture that just doesn’t seem to go away. To many foreigners’ perspectives the ladies merely look kitsch or even slutty. Beauty is in the eye — fake lashes and all — of the beholder; the gyaru themselves think they have achieved the height of cute.
The first floor sells such indispensable gyaru items as color contact lens, cosmetics and diet supplements, as well as merchandise from idols like Ayumi Hamasaki.
The second and third floors are respectively a cafe (“cute studio”) and bar (“stylish studio”), offering a special gyaru-friendly light menu.
The staff are gyaru who also work as dokusha moderu.
This is actually the second self-professed “gyaru cafe” to launch in Shibuya this year. The more hard-core Shibuya 10sion (pronounced “tension”) opened its doors in May, not far from Beauty Cafe.
