Victim fashion fashion victims

Literally on the bleeding edge of fashion, Japanese clothiers have devised yet another teenybop trend designed, I can only imagine, to baffle Americans. It's called Kegadoru, which roughly translates to "injured dolls" (also known as "one-eyed virginal maid mummies") and involves young women wearing frilly, Lolita-style dresses and accesorizing with bandages, slings and eye patches. According to one young devotee of Kegadoru interviewed by Japan's Weekly Playboy,

"When you're covered in bandages, everybody pays attention to you and worries about you. They also provide a chance to start talking to guys, who'll ask you how you hurt yourself, so the bandages are really, really good. One guy told me he likes seeing a thin woman's body wrapped in bandages because it made him think about bondage, and made him want to protect me from harm."

In a country where individual thought and expression is frequently squashed by a society that values conformity and order, dressing up in bizarre fashions is one of the few outlets that rebellious teens have. In the teen-fashion district of Harajuku in Tokyo, cosupre (costume play) has even become a weekly scheduled event, taking place every Sunday in front of the bridge leading to Meiji Shrine. For most of these teens, who grow up in sterile, concrete housing blocks that are typical of much of urban living in Japan, the Sunday street show is sadly their one chance to break away from a repressive culture.

Via Gadling.