Fashion in Japan is obviously a huge, huge, so terrifyingly big area to discuss. If you’re looking for something about the different subcultures of Harajuku or gyaru fashion, I am sooo not the right person. However, I’d like to talk about everyday wear, especially for people outside the biggest cities like Tokyo and Osaka/Kyoto. I’ll let you in on a secret.
Regular Japanese people actually have atrocious fashion sense. Japan is not reviving the 80s, Japan never left the 80s.
This is the nation where crimped hair is cool and platform heels will always be in fashion because it makes you taller.
Outside of school, boys will sport fake mullets that are crimped. Yes, fake mullets.
These are the everyday people who genuinely think that pink leopard print shirts with a faux fur collar worn open over a floral wife-beater with white skinny jeans is the height of fashion. If you think I am exaggerating, this is exactly what I saw one of my male students wearing outside of school.
As an example, their pop idols wear during gigs, on a regular basis, ankle length silk coats or silk suits garnished with giant amounts of fur, feathers, flowers, glitter and often all four at the same time. These silk monstrosities may be in sensible colours, like red or navy, but may equally also be bright yellow or neon green. These are the fashion examples that the nation is set.
I’m not trying to set off any debates from followers of Japanese fashion. I’m not hating on anything. I actually buy quite a lot of clothes in Japan. I’m just highlighting that the fashion scene Westerners see of Japan generally reflects very little of what the normal folk wear, especially when you actually wander outside a major city.
Wow, that is really weird! I had no idea!
Yeah, it really is! My eyes bleed sometimes ;___;
I’d have to agree with that. Even when I was in Tokyo the mainstream fashion was a lot more gaudy than I was used to – especially for guys! I remember my guy friend trying on this fur-collared faux-leather jacket and being almost about to buy it (we’d been in Japan for a while by then, so I guess we were all a bit brainwashed in terms of what was acceptable fashion) before he realized that he would never be caught dead wearing it back at home.
Ahaha, ‘gaudy’ is exactly the right word for it! And you’re so right – you get swept away and suddenly it’s perfectly reasonable to wear random things piled on top of each other in a plethora of colours…