Japanese Fashion!

After spending some time in both Kyoto and Osaka, I have a couple of observations on Japanese fashion. Well, mostly on women’s fashion, actually.

So it seems that there are a few general ground rules that most women here follow*.

1. The more layers the better. Women are seriously into the layered look here. They typically wear dresses (that would be perfectly fine on their own) with leggings (most common) or jeans or other pants (less common). If wearing a shorter top (which still typically comes to their thighs), they will throw on shorts and leggings (even though you may only barely be able to see the shorts). Usually, several tops are layered on top of each other (which sometimes looks fine and other times seems like overkill). Sometimes you’ll see a normal top and shorts and they will still have leggings.
2. The frillier and more obviously feminine they can make the outfit the better. This means that a lot of outfits have ruffles, tiers, and most oddly, lace in random places. Lace in particular is really popular to have in parts of your top or skirt. I actually don’t think I’ve ever seen as much lace worn before.
3. Even when it is sickeningly hot out, shorts are generally not worn in preference for dresses and pants (or usually both). Shorts are only worn (generally) if they are really really short or as part of a romper that is very hard to explain (it sort of needs to be seen to be believed). But no matter how hot it is, many women will still maintain the layered look with leggings or jeans. (If it isn’t obvious from what I’ve written so far, leggings which usually go to the mid calf or ankle are very popular here. Usually black.)
4. The look must be completed with heels of some sort. It doesn’t matter how incongruous heels look with the rest of the outfit, or what activity has been planned for the day (see my earlier post about this). Many times I think that the footwear really doesn’t go with the rest of the outfit, but they wear those heels anyway. (Note regarding #2: there is a particular type of heeled sandal that some women wear here that has lace attached to the straps. It looks quite odd…again; I’m at a loss for words to describe it). Also, there are these gladiator sandals with heels that I see all over. Sometimes the straps go to the ankle but sometimes they go almost to the knee!
5. As for hair, it is generally down, pulled up to a tuft at the top of the head or into a side style. They like side ponytails here, something I have not seen in a long time.
6. For most women, it seems that the paler the skin, the prettier it is considered to be. This is partly why you see women with umbrellas everywhere in the heat of the summer (often these umbrellas are frilly in an attempt to keep with #2); the other reason of course is to beat the heat. You also see women with these gloves that go to or even over the elbow everywhere. I guess the main reason they wear these is to keep their arms from getting tan. I can understand that, but what I can’t understand is why most of them are black and made of some heavy almost felt-like material. It is freaking hot here, why wouldn’t you wear white gloves made out of a lighter material? Also, some women have taken this as a fashion I think because you also see several women wearing them indoors. (Note: there is a group of young women that are the exception to this rule. There is definitely a subset that tan like crazy, often lighten their hair, and wear a lot of bright often neon colors)
7. Makeup is a must here. I don’t really ever see Japanese women without it (except for maybe Yuko here at the lab, but she like me is a science nerd so I don’t think she counts). They must put something over it to lock it onto their face in the summer because otherwise I don’t know how it doesn’t sweat off (these women DO sweat. Considerably less than I do, but they do. I have seen it).

So those are a few general rules as to what to wear if you are a young hip Japanese woman in her 20s and even 30s. Of course these are generalizations, but it’s kinda scary how little women deviate from these rules. The US has a lot more variety in what women wear for sure. My general impression of fashion here – it is absolutely crazy. I think some of the underlying ideas are fine, but it is often taken to far or too literally or something. Many, many Japanese women are beautiful, however, I feel like they try to hard. They often wear so much frilly, lacey stuff that it overwhelms them I think. It almost seems like they feel the need to scream that they are female in every possible way, and I don’t like that kind of obviousness. Of course I’m not really fond of frills and stuff, I like things simple, so I may be biased. But I really do feel that if they relaxed a little, took it down a notch, many Japanese women would look far prettier which I think is the ultimate goal here. I think eventually I will put up some pictures to illustrate these rules.

A few notes on men’s fashion here. Many businessmen wear suits for work, and they are perfectly normal. And young men here generally wear typical guy stuff casually. But there are some obvious differences from what young guys wear in the US. Men here wear far more colors than guys in the US, and very bright colors at that. Liz and I were at the Osaka Nike store this past weekend and the bright colors of the shoes they sold there would never fly in the US today (maybe back in the 80s or early 90s). Also guys here aren’t worried about being labeled as feminine (i.e. they seem more secure in their masculinity, maybe because the culture maintains such sharp divisions for them they don’t need to worry about it). This means that guys wear pink, accessorize, and will even wear hair clips (I saw a guy in Osaka with a neon pink hairclip this morning that matched his neon pink shirt). I don’t really have a problem with it, but it is a bit startling at times.

And just to kill two birds with one stone here, some older Japanese women are really pushy! Sometimes to the point of being what I would consider rude. I give these women the right of way every time I see them. But often, they come up behind you and shove you over. This is of course not the general case, but I saw it (and experienced it) often enough (particularly in Kyoto) to see that it is a trend. Anyway, I was really annoyed by it last weekend and felt the need to comment on it.

*These fashion rules apply to younger women (20s and 30s). Middle aged and older women wear stuff that is pretty typical in the US. Though they still wear heels more often than we do. And rule #6 applies to all ages. Also, I should note that there are some middle to older aged women that always wear kiminos, and yukatas (the summer kiminos) are very popular with all ages to wear in the evening when going out.