Jennifer Aniston goes Agejo in Allure

Ok, have you seen these photos of Jennifer Aniston? Her hair is bleached out, she has bangs and curled hair. She’s wearing white cotton and not much else but a nubby terry cloth teddy bear. The stylist was clearly going for the look of kyabajō, which literally means a club girl. It is also a style of make up, hair, nails and the look of the increasingly popular “Mori,” or forest, girls. The imported look of forest girls is to wear layers of thin cottony dresses, thick tights and boots. The heavy makeup, is designed to make the eyes innocent and wide as well as using pale colors so the make up doesn’t look like it is there. Add to it oversize cloth carpet bags, with the intention being to resemble a handmade doll from some romantic, Black Forest setting.

Did you notice all the women wearing eye shadow under their eyes at the Golden Globes? About three years later the western world is catching on to the over the top glam style of the “Ageha,” or swallowtail butterfly, girls. These kyabajō and enthusiasts of the style who are not hostesses, resemble 1980′s beauty pageant queens. Another division of the complicated style is hime, or princess and the ladies get their tiara on with that. The style consists of heavy liquid eyeliner, worn with several sets of false lashes, and lots of shadow layered all around the eye. Not only is shadow placed outside the lines, but so is liner. White liner and shadow is used around the eye to make them appear larger like dolls or anime characters. The hair is teased up on top and worn over a rat, and then frequently extensions, hair pieces and wigs are used. The hair colors vary little from shades of auburn, gold, red and strawberry blond. Curls and long drill curls are often desirable.

Contact lenses are used which extend the iris of the eye and out line it with a dark color. This also gives the perception of having a doe – eyed and innocent look. The nails are done long and pointed, and then encrusted with glitter and bejewels. Long clingy ball gowns just like you would see on the red carpet at awards shows are a popular evening look.

Both styles are easy to emulate if you wished to for a special night out. Or to add something different to your next attempt at cos – play. A good vintage clothing store can supply plenty of inexpensive pieces to achieve the looks. Even older gowns that are on the discount rack in the second hand shops in winter can provide garments to be re-purposed to get a retro appearance.

Anyone can enjoy looking as sexy as a modern day geisha, even if you don’t have Jennifer Aniston’s entourage. The best resource for finding out about the new styles are JMags. Japanese fashion magazines such as Forest Girl for the mori type. Ageha and Pop Sister are for the the “agejo”, hostess fashion style that is a Shibuya fashion subculture. You can look around in certain communities for scanlations of magazines. Even if you can’t read Japanese the magazines give copious amounts of step by step make over information to go along with the photo shoots of the models, that you don’t get in American mags. The make up can be bought online. Or products which are similar, in the same colors can be used. The liners are placed far outside the natural lash line, and special contacts with extra large irises outlined in black are used to make the eyes appear deep and far away and significantly larger. The really detailed pictures of the application of the makeup is what makes JMags a treasure for anyone who enjoys makeup design.