Gwen Stefani - Harajuku Lovers

Gwen Stefani Profile

Birthday: October 3, 1969
Age: 40
Sign: Libra
Birthplace: Fullerton, CA
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Big Break: No Doubt

Gwen Renée Stefani was born in Fullerton, California. Her mother got the name Gwen after the stewardess in the novel Airport. Her father Dennis Stefani is of Italian American descent and works as a Yamaha marketing executive. Her mother is Patti Flynn and comes from Irish and Scottish descent. Her mother used to be an accountant before becoming a homemaker. Gwen is the second oldest of four children. She has a sister and two brothers.

Stefani attended Loara high school in her teen years and was on the swim team at Loara. While attending high school she also worked at Dairy Queen as a floor scrubber. After graduating from high school in 1987, she began attending California State University, Fullerton.

Stefani became known in the scene in 1992 as the front woman of the band No Doubt. From then on it was international stardom for Gwen and her band. Gwen gave a shot at a solo album and that was a success as well. She recorded her first solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in 2004.

Besides music, Gwen has become a well known name in the fashion industry. In 2003, she launched her L.A.M.B. fashion collection. She married musician Gavin Rossdale in 2002, and the two have a son, Kingston, who was born in 2006.







Did you know...

Gwen is 5 feet 6 inches tall.
Gwen Stefani is a Catholic.
Gwen designed and promoted a camera for Hewlett-Packard.
Her sister, Jill appeared in No Doubt's Just A Girl music video.
L.A.M.B. stands for "Love. Angel. Music. Baby." which is the name of the four Harajuku girls.
Her favorite food is sushi.
Stefani's natural hair color is brunette.
Stefani's nicknames are Sunshine and G-loc.
Her band, No Doubt, was created by herself, Eric Stefani and John Spence (their friend).
Gwen got her dad a guitar for Christmas of 1996.
Gwen arrived an hour late to her wedding to husband Gavin Rossdale.















Billboard named Gwen Stefani 37th Hot 100 artist of the decade.

1 Early life
2 Music career
2.1 No Doubt (1986–2004)
2.2 Solo career (2004–2008)
2.2.1 Love. Angel. Music. Baby. (2004–2006)
2.2.2 The Sweet Escape (2006–2008)
2.3 No Doubt reunion (2008–present)
3 Vocals
4 Non-musical projects
5 Personal life
6 Public image
6.1 Harajuku Girls
7 Discography
7.1 Studio albums
8 Tours
9 Filmography
10 Awards and nominations
11 References
12 External links

Harajuku Lovers by Gwen Stefani | Japanese Style-Inspired Fragrance

Harajuku Lovers is famous pop singer Gwen Stefani’s line of fragrance based on the fashion she observed in the Shibuya, Tokyo area of Harajuku. The street style is all about attitude, outrageous pairings, and bright colors. Her four back-up dancers, she calls her “Harajuku Girls,” are inspiration for the fragrance line (Love, Angel, Music, and Baby). The fifth fragrance is named “G,” inspired by Gwen, herself.

Created in 2005, the ine is an extension of Stefani’s debut solo album. The tagline for the line is “a fatal attraction to cuteness,” taken straight from her song entitled “Harajuku Girls.”

Harajuku - Crazy / Scary Fashion (O.M.G)

Everyone loves Harajuku. Well, maybe.
Let get a story and find out how scary and crazy this fashion.

Harajuku ("meadow lodging") is the common name for the area around Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, Japan.

Every Sunday, young people dressed in a variety of styles including gothic lolita, visual kei, and decora, as well as cosplayers spend the day in Harajuku socializing. The fashion styles of these youths rarely conform to one particular style and are usually a mesh of many. Most young people gather on Jingu Bridge, which is a pedestrian bridge that connects Harajuku to the neighboring Meiji Shrine area.

Harajuku is also a fashion capital of the world renowned for unique street fashion. Harajuku street style is promoted in Japanese and international publications such as Kera, Tune, Gothic & Lolita Bible and Fruits. Many prominent designers and fashion ideas have sprung from Harajuku and incorporated themselves into other fashions throughout the world.

Harajuku is also a large shopping district that includes luxury western designers, Harajuku native designers, and affordable shops catering to youths.













History

Harajuku as it is now is traces its root to the end of World War II. U.S. soldiers and their families began to occupy the area known as Harajuku. It became an area where curious young people flocked to experience a different culture.

In 1958, Central Apartments were built in the area and were quickly occupied by fashion designers, models, and photographers. In 1964, when the Summer Olympics came to Tokyo the Harajuku area was further developed, and the idea of “Harajuku” slowly began to take a more concrete shape.

After the Olympics the young people who hung out in the area, frequently referred to as the Harajuku-zoku, or the Harajuku tribe, began to develop a distinct culture and style unique to different groups and the area. From this distinct style grew the culture of Harajuku as a gathering ground for youths and as a fashion mecca.


















Styles

The term "Harajuku Girls" has been used by English-language media to describe teenagers dressed in any fashion style who are in the area of Harajuku. This fashion infuses multiple looks and styles to create a unique form of dress. One of these styles, Kawaii, came to fame in the 1990’s. Kawaii became a popular phrase that meant something was cute or pretty. Kawaii was a form of resistance in that the style and culture associated with it were not seen as attractive by an older generation. This idea of Kawaii was a distinct youth culture separate from the traditional one in existence.

The cyber-punk look takes its influence from gothic fashion and incorporates neon and metallic colors. However, it isn't as popular as it was in the 1990s.

Lolita Fashion was created in Osaka. It is a play on Victorian era princess fashions and ripped gauzed gothic fashion. By wearing and promoting these styles performers allowed the fashions to flourish because fans were eager to replicate their idols.

Punk style in Harajuku is more of a fashion than a statement. Its fashion mainly consists of dark colors, plaid, chains, and zippers. Punk style is also one of the more gender-neutral fashions in Harajuku.

Ganguro is a style that reflects the average American teenager. The term translates to ‘black-faced’. The basic look is what Westerners would call a ‘California girl’, with bleached hair, dark skin, fake eyelashes and nails. No one really is sure how Ganguro came to be. Many assume it originated in the early 1990’s, when singer and performer Janet Jackson was popular.

Cosplay is more of a costume-based style. A cosplay enthusiast will usually dress as a fictional or iconic character from a band, game, movie, anime, or manga.

Ura-Hara is another section of Harajuku, which caters to a mostly male population interested in a hip-hop, graffiti, and skater fashion and culture. Ura-Hara is seen as the opposite of Harajuku in that it’s more hidden and reserved.

In addition to Harajuku is its counterpart, known as Visual Kei. this refers to the style of bands and their fanbase. The term Visual Kei literally means a ‘visual style of music’. The melodies of the music these bands perform often resemble eighties rock, heavy metal, or techno; in some cases, the sound is a good mix of the three. The fashion began in the 80’s, when American metal bands were popular. Japanese fans loved how their idols would dress frantically and paint makeup wildly on their faces, so they began to emulate their style. This mimicking is also known is costume play, or cosplay.














Impact

Harajuku gathering in Bogota, Colombia. The Harajuku culture has spread throughout the globe thanks to artists such as Gwen Stefani and the contents from her album Love. Angel. Music. Baby., as well as her Harajuku Girls dancing entourage, which performs along with Stefani on live performances and music videos. This also lead Stefani to create a Harajuku-related fashion accesories brand known as Harajuku Lovers.

Countries like Colombia have embraced this culture and arrange meetings under the same fashion as their Japanese counterpart, frequently held at the surrounding area of the Virgilio Barco Library in Bogota.

Excellent Parkour

Parkour

A traceur performs an équilibre de chat (cat balance).Parkour (sometimes also abbreviated to PK) or l'art du déplacement (the art of moving) is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment. It is a non-competitive, physical discipline of French origin in which participants run along a route, attempting to negotiate obstacles in the most efficient way possible, as if moving in an emergency situation. Skills such as jumping and climbing, or the more specific parkour moves are employed. The object of parkour is to get from one place to another using only the human body and the objects in the environment. The obstacles can be anything in one's environment, but parkour is often seen practiced in urban areas because of the many suitable public structures available such as buildings and rails.

Parkour practitioners are often called traceurs if male, or traceuses if female.




What is Parkour?

Parkour can be compared to some martial arts, but the traceur is more interested in getting away rather than defending anyone from physical threat; in the fight-or-flight response, parkour is the flight. In September of 2009, American Parkour began a community effort to define parkour. They invited the entire community to post their personal definition of parkour. It was edited into the final version by a committee of American Parkour employees and people outside of American Parkour to ensure that it was truly a community effort. Their result:

Parkour is the physical discipline of training to overcome any obstacle within one's path by adapting one's movements to the environment.
Parkour requires... consistent, disciplined training with an emphasis on functional strength, physical conditioning, balance, creativity, fluidity, control, precision, spatial awareness, and looking beyond the traditional use of objects.
Parkour movements typically include... running, jumping, vaulting, climbing, balancing, and quadrupedal movement. Movements from other physical disciplines are often incorporated, but acrobatics or tricking alone do not constitute parkour.
Parkour training focuses on... safety, longevity, personal responsibility, and self-improvement. It discourages reckless behavior, showing off, and dangerous stunts.
Parkour practitioners value... community, humility, positive collaboration, sharing of knowledge, and the importance of play in human life, while demonstrating respect for all people, places, and spaces.
—American Parkour Community Definition
Two primary characteristics of parkour are efficiency and speed. Practitioners take the most direct path around an obstacle as rapidly as that path can be traversed. Developing one's level of spatial awareness is often used to aid development in these areas. Also, efficiency involves avoiding injuries, both short and long term. This idea embodying parkour's unofficial motto is être et durer (to be and to last). Those who are skilled at this activity normally have extremely keen spatial awareness.

Parkour's emphasis on efficiency distinguishes it from the similar practice of free running, which places more emphasis on freedom of movement and creativity.



Basically, Parkour is a natural method to train the human body to be able to move forward quickly making use of the environment that's around us at any given time. This 'art of displacement' requires neither specific structures nor accessories for its practice. The body is the only tool. It's an athletic discipline accessible to all, because it combines all the natural skills of the human body: running, jumping, climbing, etc. It's a discipline that permits exploration of the potential offered by your body. It's about being able to face the obstacles with which you are presented, whether they be in the natural environment or in the urban environment, in a search for movement that combines effectiveness and control. The necessary equipment is simply a T-shirt, a pair of light jogging-type trousers, and a pair of running shoes.

Steps

1. Get in shape! Being in shape is the most important aspect of parkour. If you are not in shape, then you will get seriously injured. You can get in shape by doing 5 simple things: running a lot, doing push ups, pull ups, dips, and core strength training. These will all improve your endurance in a parkour situation, and help you not to get injured, if you ever have to try something risky, like a fall.

2. Buy your clothes. However, know that there is no perfect pair of shoes or pants or shorts. It's simply what you can move in freely and won't hinder any movement. But some recommendations are:

* Climbing pants, since they allow you to move freely, and are durable, fit well, and don't get in your way. Gramacci, Prana stretch Zion pants (very good), North Face, and Arborwear are recommended. Jeans are not recommended, as they are too stiff and do not allow enough freedom of movement.
* Buy shoes that are good for running (no skating shoes), that can grip various surfaces, have good shock absorption (forefoot absorption is great!), and you may want good toe bumpers, since it cushions those cat leaps. The shoes must be snug or else you're greatly increasing your risk of injury on landings. Nike Air Pegasus, Adidas Nova, and Montrail Masai are good.
* Shirts don't have to be anything fancy, but it's good to have a sweat wicking type. REI and running shoe stores have these. Long sleeves may be considered to prevent scrapes while first learning.

3. Start slowly, so that you will not get injured. Even if you think that you are not getting hurt, you may need to think of some of the long term effects of the things you are doing to your body. You need to condition and make your body used to doing certain things without over-stretching or bruising it.

4. Learn the shoulder roll: the shoulder roll is one of the most basic but useful tools in your parkour tool box. A shoulder roll is a forward roll diagonal across your back over the shoulder. So if you are a doing one on the right side you would bring your arm close to your body and tuck your head and neck close to your chest, and roll over your right shoulder and coming up onto your feet at the end. The reason you roll diagonally is to reduce the damage to your back and spine. Shoulder rolls are very important because they reduce the impact of any kind of landing, by converting the downward motion of a fall into forward motion, where you can easily begin to run again.

5. After you have learned the basic shoulder roll, practice vaults. These help you clear obstacles easily and in speed. A vault should essentially keep your forward motion going while you are clearing an obstacle.

6. After that, start training jumps from about 3 ft. You should never jump off anything higher than you yourself can jump. This is because if you repeatedly land on your legs from extensive heights you will damage your knees, but if you train 1000 low falls, than you will be able to do 1 high fall.

7. Practice always, and after you have mastered those three basic things above, move on to harder, and more complicated moves that can eventually help you clear obstacles more quickly and efficiently. You can find all kinds of moves










David Belle : History

Belle family

David Belle, parkour founder, at The New Yorker Festival.Main articles: Raymond Belle and David Belle
Raymond Belle was born in French Indochina (now Vietnam). His father died during the First Indochina War and Raymond was separated from his mother during the division of Vietnam in 1954. He was taken by the French Army in Da Lat and received a military education and training that shaped his character.

After the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Raymond was repatriated to France and completed his military education in 1958. At age 19, his dedication to fitness helped him serve in Paris's regiment of sapeurs-pompiers (the French fire service).

With his athletic ability, Raymond became the regiment's champion rope-climber and joined the regiment's elite team, composed of the unit's fittest and most agile firefighters. Its members were the ones called for the most difficult and dangerous rescue missions.

Lauded for his coolness, courage, and self-sacrifice, Raymond played a key role in the Parisian firefighters' first helicopter-borne operation. His many rescues, medals, and exploits gave him a reputation of being an exceptional pompier and inspired the next young generation,especially his son, David Belle.

Born in a firefighter's family, David was influenced by stories of heroism. Raymond introduced his son David to obstacle course training and the méthode naturelle. David participated in activities such as martial arts and gymnastics and sought to apply his athletic prowess for some practical purpose. At age 17, David left school seeking freedom and action. He continued to develop his strength and dexterity in order to be useful in life, as Raymond had advised him.


Practically since the inception of parkour in 1997, it has been used in cinema to aid in great storytelling. There are twenty basic moves in parkour, and while in homemade parkour videos we don’t often see them performed in combos of two or greater (out of sheer complexity!), through the magic of editing, an entire sequence of moves can be cut together to look like one non-stop stunt sequence, often to breathtaking effect. Parkour founder David Belle has said the philosophy behind parkour is “You want to move in such a way…as to help you gain the most ground on…something, whether escaping from it or chasing toward it.” and this philosophy lends itself perfectly to the narrative structure of a great action film or commercial. Here are some of the best parkour moments in films and commercials.

One of the first to leverage the spectacle of parkour in cinema was founder David Belle himself. In 1997 Belle created a group of traceurs (parkour practitioners), free-runners, and street acrobats called Yamakasi. Inspired by this group, Luc Besson scripted a heist film by the same name in which the Yamakasi clan rob from the rich to pay for a heart implant for a young boy injured while imitating their stunts. Here’s a couple of thrilling sequences where they’re being chased by Doberman Pinschers and over the rooftops (a popular parkour theme) by cops.










10 examples of Parkour in film and television




YAMAKASI

The success of Yamakasi led, understandably, to a sequel, Les Fils du Vent, in which the Yamakasi crew travel to Bangkok, Thailand to fight the Yakuza. In the opening credits, Yamakasi play a (highly competitive) game of capture-the-weathervane ball across the rooftops of the city. Check out some of the Capoeira-style soccer kicks. We’ll see more of that later in this post.


Les Fils Du Vent titles:
PARKOUR BALL

Perhaps the best known example of parkour in film is from Banlieue 13 (District B13), a Luc Besson-produced action flick about a government conspiracy to nuke the most gang-infested ghetto in Paris. In the film’s riviting opening, David Belle narrowly escapes the persistent and agile thugs sent to get him. Watch how fluidly he slips from one floor to the next!


BANLIEUE 13:

One of David Belle’s fellow traceurs in the group Yamakasi was Sabastien Foucan. He’s also one of the founders of free running, a discipline similar to parkour, but with the focus being more on the movement aesthetics (although they are sometimes considered interchangeable). In the opening of Casino Royale, Foucan’s character, Mollaka gives James Bond a chase that would be an acrophobic’s worst nightmare up an unfinished construction site in the Bahamas.



CASINO ROYALE:

Most people probably wouldn’t expect to see parkour in a film by the late Anthony Minghella, director of The English Patient and Cold Mountain. In 2006’s Breaking and Entering, Rafi Gavron plays Miro, a traceur hired to break into architectural firms. Here’s a compilation of scenes of some of the impressive stunt work from this film.


Breaking and Entering:

As soon as advertisers realized they could make a buck or two by exploiting the panache of parkour they wasted no time doing so. To its credit however, Nike went one step further in its “Presto” campaign by approaching parkour with a much-needed humorous tone, proving it didn’t have to be pigeon-holed into the action genre.

Here’s David Belle (again), going above and beyond the call of chivalry for a very fickle lover, who’s got a little surprise for him.



Nike “First Love” commercial:

Now it’s Sébastien Foucan’s turn in the spotlight, fleeing for his life through city streets and rooftops, from the angriest chicken ever.


Nike “Angry Chicken” commercial:

The traceur featured below is Chase Armitage, a key member of a crew called 3Run. Chase has been engaging in parkour and freerunning since he was 14, and it shows in this XBox spot. It’s amazing how the high-speed photography demonstrates how fluid and graceful moves which normally occur within a fraction of a second can truly be. The spoken text also elegantly captures the spirit behind freerunning.



Xbox “Slip” commercial:

And once again, here’s the incomparable David Belle, a little older, yet still in phenomenally good shape, performing some pretty nifty acrobatics in this BBC One commercial. Ever the iconoclast, Belle improvises his own way to beat the rush hour traffic home to watch some telly.


BBC “Rush Hour” commercial:

Finally, not technically parkour, here’s a commercial featuring a particular type of street acrobatics known as Capoeira. Capoeira originated in Brazil and is distinguished by its fluid kicks, sweeps, and headbutts. While some of the ball-passing has probably been executed in CGI, the acrobatics themeselves are nevertheless impressive to watch.


Fifa 3 commercial:

Teen Fashion - Trendy Styles

Teen Fashion Trends

Teen fashion trends borrow heavily from trends for grown ups, but include one important distinction: teen fashions exist within strictly enforced fashion subcultures. For most teenagers, clothing is short-hand for declaring which clique they belong to. Are you into hip hop or goth? Are you more preppie or more alternative? Are you more likely to play sports or write poetry? Teenagers tend to dress in clothing that announces their affiliations and interests with crystal clarity.

This quality gives their clothing a simplicity you're less likely to find in the adult collections and Fashion TV. However, simplicity can be a virtue, as can the teenager's whole-hearted devotion to his current passions. No adult would ever dress as utterly goth or absolutely slacker as a teenager would--a trait which gives clothing for young people an admirable exuberance.

One trend that has recently appealed to teens and adults alike is the goth fashion trend. Designers like Rei Kawakubo have riffed very successfully on this darkly fascinating style. Goth styles have also become quite popular with makeup artists and hair stylists, who are inspired by the trend's kabuki-esque pallors, dramatic eyes, and post-punk hair styles.

Hear all about the latest teen fashion trends photographers, and models all offer their insider's perspective on the fashion industry.


















Teen Vintage clothing

1950s vintage slip
Vintage half slipVintage clothing is a generic term for new or second hand garments originating from a previous era. The phrase is also used in connection with a retail outlet, e.g. "vintage clothing store." It can also be used as an adjective: "This dress is vintage."

The word vintage is copied from its use in wine terminology, as a more elegant-seeming euphemism for "old" clothes.
















Emo Fashion

Emo is a style of rock music typically characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s.
Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional and the emergence of the subgenre "screamo". In recent years the term "emo" has been applied by critics and journalists to a variety of artists, including multiplatinum acts and groups with disparate styles and sounds.

In addition to music, "emo" is often used more generally to signify a particular relationship between fans and artists, and to describe related aspects of fashion, culture, and behavior.

























Punk Fashion

Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewelry, and body modifications of the punk subculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including glam rock, skinheads, rude boys, greasers, and mods have influenced punk fashion. Punk fashion has likewise influenced the styles of these groups, as well as those of popular culture. Many punks use clothing as a way of making a statement.

Punk fashion has been extremely commercialized at various times, and many well-established fashion designers. Punk clothing, which was initially handmade, became mass produced and sold in record stores and some smaller specialty clothing stores by the 1980s. Many fashion magazines and other glamor-oriented media have featured classic punk hairstyles and punk-influenced clothing. These have caused controversy, as many punks view it as having sold out.















Gothic fashion

Gothic fashion is a clothing style worn by members of the Goth subculture; a dark, sometimes morbid, eroticized fashion and style of dress. Typical Gothic fashion includes black dyed and crimped hair, black lips and black clothes. Androgynity is common, with both female and male goths wearing cosmetics, skirts or high heels. Styles are often borrowed from the Punks, Victorians and Elizabethans.