FT: Monthly Aesthetic: Visual Kei - Forum

Chat0yant
World famous

Chat0yant wrote:

Good evening and welcome to the first (and hopefully not last) monthly aesthetic forum!

With so many cool styles of fashion out there, many might not be well known or explored. Let's dive into looking at some different aesthetics!

The first style to discuss is...
Visual Kei

Main characteristics:
◼️tends to have a goth/punk feel to it
◼️can range from subtle, streetwear level to bold cosplay/movie costuming
◼️tends to incorporate layering and complexity while still being cohesive and neat
◼️may appear somewhat androgynous
◼️overlaps with things like lolita, Harajuku, glam punk, and anime-inspired/cosplay
◼️started around themes like visual shock
◼️tends toward dark color schemes and bold styles or patterns

Have you heard of visual kei before? If so, how? What are your impressions? Have you been into following or creating around any of these visuals? Pros and cons? Share some favorite pics or music videos.

...OR try your hand at styling an avi based on the theme! Let's see some fun outfit experimentation!

Please discuss and have fun! Feel free to share any questions or ideas you have too!

Chat0yant
World famous

Chat0yant wrote:
More details:

This is a style created by Japanese rock/metal bands starting around the 70's to early 90's and continuing through today. It is now also a fashion style, but it tends to center around bands and fans. As with many fashions, it tends to gradient in intensity and bleed into other styles.

This is focusing more on the fashion/visuals side of this, but it is also a style of music. It tends to be around the rock/metal side of the world like a lot of the 90's and 2000's hard rock/ "light metal" (but ranging from softer rock to full metal).

Since it is somewhat Western-inspired, several bands have some or most of their songs in English if you're not a fan of listening to music in other languages.

A few select videos in (mostly) English:

Sources/Further reading:
j-fashion.fandom.com/wiki/Visual_Kei
visualkei.fandom.com/wiki/Kei_Style
stephano.me/blog/visual-kei-fashion-brands/
www.pinterest.com/iheartanime0001/visual-kei-makeup/
www.reddit.com/r/visualkei/comments/10said8/are_there_any_vkei_bands_that_make_english_songs/
images: googling

Private
Popstar

Melody wrote:
oooo nice. i honestly don't know much besides their fashion, and it's right up my alley

Chat0yant
World famous

Chat0yant wrote:

Melody wrote:
oooo nice. i honestly don't know much besides their fashion, and it's right up my alley

i feel the same way! I want to look up some of the music to 'cause some of what I heard is similar to my tastes. And yes, the fashion is super cool. I'd never heard about it until reading about it in a few different manga that referenced it

Teabag
Living legend

Teabag wrote:
omfg why is the name of my fave band gone from my brain asdfg

Teabag
Living legend

Teabag wrote:
ROYZ! omfg brain farted so hard

also been listening to DIV alot

Kuunsirpale
Popstar

Kuunsirpale wrote:
GAZETTE IS MY FAVOURITE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAND. I've been listening to them for 15 years and I still do

Kuunsirpale
Popstar

Kuunsirpale wrote:
Honestly Gaze's music saved me back in school where I was alone

Chat0yant
World famous

Chat0yant wrote:

Teabag wrote:
ROYZ! omfg brain farted so hard

also been listening to DIV alot

OOH this looks so cool!

How'd you find those bands?

Chat0yant
World famous

Chat0yant wrote:

Kuunsirpale wrote:
Honestly Gaze's music saved me back in school where I was alone

wow 15 years is so long to have been into them!

What spoke to you about them? Like lyrics or style or their story (idk if they have anything dramatic like a story, but I've never heard of them before)

MojitoDE
Youtube star

MojitoDE wrote:
oh god takes me back ahahah a classmate of mine was REALLY into this in school so i had to learn all members of versailles and listen to them with her a lot ahahah i also had LOTS of hizakis guitars in my school planner because i started to learn to play the guitar back then and like that red guitar with gold roses on them was like my BIGGEST wish ahahah (also hizaki looks cute in dresses and i'm jealous but it's ok)

i have to say, kamijo has a nice voice of course but i'm more into the harder "singing" of metal music, so nocturnal bloodlust was my go-to japanese band idk if they're visual kei tho

and i'm totally into that clothing style, i dressed goth for over 10 years now and i remember my first "bondage" pants being by punkrave and i wore that thing to death for real loved it. i tried to get another one like that but i probably wouldn't fit in any japanese sizes anymore ahaha,

OH and we always watched these j-rockers try to speak german videos or the misheard lyrics videos those were funny. i still can't listen to some songs without hearing the misheard stuff

Chat0yant
World famous

Chat0yant wrote:

MojitoDE wrote:
oh god takes me back ahahah a classmate of mine was REALLY into this in school so i had to learn all members of versailles and listen to them with her a lot ahahah i also had LOTS of hizakis guitars in my school planner because i started to learn to play the guitar back then and like that red guitar with gold roses on them was like my BIGGEST wish ahahah (also hizaki looks cute in dresses and i'm jealous but it's ok)

i have to say, kamijo has a nice voice of course but i'm more into the harder "singing" of metal music, so nocturnal bloodlust was my go-to japanese band idk if they're visual kei tho

and i'm totally into that clothing style, i dressed goth for over 10 years now and i remember my first "bondage" pants being by punkrave and i wore that thing to death for real loved it. i tried to get another one like that but i probably wouldn't fit in any japanese sizes anymore ahaha,

OH and we always watched these j-rockers try to speak german videos or the misheard lyrics videos those were funny. i still can't listen to some songs without hearing the misheard stuff

i hope you had fun with your super fan friend at least. Do you still listen to the harder core metal J bands or not so much anymore?

(also nocturnal bloodlust with quick googling looks like it could fit the theme but I'm not an expert or anything. So many styles have so much bleed through to other styles idk how you can be for sure unless you are like a die hard fan of something)

Kuunsirpale
Popstar

Kuunsirpale wrote:

Chat0yant wrote:

Kuunsirpale wrote:
Honestly Gaze's music saved me back in school where I was alone

wow 15 years is so long to have been into them!

What spoke to you about them? Like lyrics or style or their story (idk if they have anything dramatic like a story, but I've never heard of them before)

Hmm I had to say that their song lyrics spoke to me the most. Back in the days tho I was one of those "weird kids" so also style xD I had my cringe phase when I tried to dress and do make up like visual kei. I was so young back then! Haha. But music was important to me and to this day I really enjoy how in j-rock (japanese rock) they play instruments. Especially how they use bass. It's so different

Chat0yant
World famous

Chat0yant wrote:

Kuunsirpale wrote:

Chat0yant wrote:

Kuunsirpale wrote:
Honestly Gaze's music saved me back in school where I was alone

wow 15 years is so long to have been into them!

What spoke to you about them? Like lyrics or style or their story (idk if they have anything dramatic like a story, but I've never heard of them before)

Hmm I had to say that their song lyrics spoke to me the most. Back in the days tho I was one of those "weird kids" so also style xD I had my cringe phase when I tried to dress and do make up like visual kei. I was so young back then! Haha. But music was important to me and to this day I really enjoy how in j-rock (japanese rock) they play instruments. Especially how they use bass. It's so different

lol i'm sure most people had "weird" phases like that as kids, but as adults, we can appreciated that weird is ok! But it is super cool that art/music have a language all their own that can help and soothe and communicate between people like that.

Do you have a fav song from them you'd want to link here? Or one you really like (if you suck at choosing favs like me)

Kuunsirpale
Popstar

Kuunsirpale wrote:

Chat0yant wrote:

Kuunsirpale wrote:

Chat0yant wrote:
wow 15 years is so long to have been into them!

What spoke to you about them? Like lyrics or style or their story (idk if they have anything dramatic like a story, but I've never heard of them before)

Hmm I had to say that their song lyrics spoke to me the most. Back in the days tho I was one of those "weird kids" so also style xD I had my cringe phase when I tried to dress and do make up like visual kei. I was so young back then! Haha. But music was important to me and to this day I really enjoy how in j-rock (japanese rock) they play instruments. Especially how they use bass. It's so different

lol i'm sure most people had "weird" phases like that as kids, but as adults, we can appreciated that weird is ok! But it is super cool that art/music have a language all their own that can help and soothe and communicate between people like that.

Do you have a fav song from them you'd want to link here? Or one you really like (if you suck at choosing favs like me)

I had to pick Cassis because it always has me crying. It's not their usual 'rock' song but oh well, it's from their older albums (I think Cassis was released on 2017). It brings A LOT memories, seeing them live when they had their europe tour on all

Chat0yant
World famous

Chat0yant wrote:

Kuunsirpale wrote:

Chat0yant wrote:

Kuunsirpale wrote:

Hmm I had to say that their song lyrics spoke to me the most. Back in the days tho I was one of those "weird kids" so also style xD I had my cringe phase when I tried to dress and do make up like visual kei. I was so young back then! Haha. But music was important to me and to this day I really enjoy how in j-rock (japanese rock) they play instruments. Especially how they use bass. It's so different

lol i'm sure most people had "weird" phases like that as kids, but as adults, we can appreciated that weird is ok! But it is super cool that art/music have a language all their own that can help and soothe and communicate between people like that.

Do you have a fav song from them you'd want to link here? Or one you really like (if you suck at choosing favs like me)

I had to pick Cassis because it always has me crying. It's not their usual 'rock' song but oh well, it's from their older albums (I think Cassis was released on 2017). It brings A LOT memories, seeing them live when they had their europe tour on all

(the video is broken here fyi, so hopefully i found the right video)

I liked it! It's pretty and yes emotional. It's fun when rock bands do more ballad-ish rock songs too!
Also the setting for the music video is so pretty?? And I'd definitely put their fashion in the vk style.

Also you got to see them live in Europe?? So cool! Did they sing in english or japanese at the concert?