Japanese Fashion Magazine Mini-Review: Egg and KERA

(This is a review post. If you want to buy a copy of KERA magazine, click here.)

It’s pretty exciting anytime you get a package in the mail, but it’s twice as good when it’s a couple of Japanese fashion magazines. In this case, KERA and Egg landed in my mailbox last week. Now that I’ve finished “reading” them (my Japanese is pretty basic), I figure I’ll present a brief rundown of each in this mini-review.

Egg
November issue
148 pages
Description: Features the genre of Japanese fashion known as gyaru style, and its subsets. There are various trademark features of the gyaru look, the main ones being tanned skin, blonde hair, and excessive makeup. Egg’s target audience seems to be teenage girls, and the content is very style-specific, though anyone with an appreciation for wild, extravagant street fashion can probably appreciate the magazine. A lot of pictures are taken on the street, but I think most of the subjects (if not all of them) are paid models.
Highlights
-“Black Revolution” spread – 8 pages of gyaru looks featuring black/darker colours
-“Street Groove” spread – 5 pages of autumn styles on the streets of Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya area.
-Several pages focusing on hair and makeup

KERA
November issue
196 pages
Description: Focuses mainly on punk and rock styles, with some other styles thrown in, such as gothic and lolita. The fashions here are not quite as “out there” as in Egg, but there are still plenty of crazy outfits and cool combinations to be enjoyed and appreciated. The target audience here also seems to be teenage girls, but the diversity of styles will probably appeal to a wider audience than what Egg has to offer. Also, a good number of looks featuring “real people.” Features an 8-page black and white comic.
Highlights
-Photo spread (with interview) of cover girl Kazumi Horisawa
-16-page “Street Snap” spread with several full-page pictures
-Plenty of pictures of cool clothes, shoes and accessories

These two publications are full of off-the-wall fashions from the Land of the Rising Sun, and are truly a visual delight. If you can’t read Japanese, you’ll obviously be missing out on a large chunk of information. If you like written information more than images, then maybe these magazines aren’t for you. But if you love amazing fashion photography and are curious about what’s hot, new and trendy in Japan, then I highly recommend both KERA and Egg.

If I had to choose just one, it would probably be KERA – more variety in the looks, features more actual street style, and has quite a few more pages than Egg.

You can get Egg and KERA, as well as several other Japanese fashion magazines, at J-list.com.

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