Japanese Short Pants: Style Change

Japanese sources report in 1999 that in many places mothers just can't find the traditional hanzubon. Some stores do carry a few, presumably for the occasional mother who still wants her son to look really smart and for the occasional school that still requires hanzubon as part of the dress code. The shift to longer, in some cases baggy shorts began in the mid-1990s. Japanese boys had traditionally worn short, trim short pants. Some Japanese observers specualte as to why styles of short pants changed so sharply in the mid-1990s and what influenced this change. There is no sure answer here, but HBC Japanese contributors have offered several plausible theories.

Fashion Industry

One HBC contributor is convinced that the shift to longer dressier styles was pushed in the beginning by fashion magazines and trendy boutiques. The fashion industry is always trying to introduce new fashions to stimulate demand. Japanese boys fashions had changed relatively little since the 1950s. As to why fashion changes occurred in the mid-1990s is less clear.

National Influences

The change in styles for dressy short pants was probably not so much in response to American fashions but in response to what French and Italian boys were wearing for dressup. I don't think in the 1990s there was any dressup short pants for boys in the States at all, aside from those "little man" tuxedoes you see ringbearers wear in American weddings today.

American trends

One HBC contributor points that the most her sons can be forced into doing for dress-up--and that only under great duress and on exceedingly rare occasions--is knee length khaki shorts and polo shirts. Other than that, the normal dress for her boys is baggy cargo shorts and overpriced athletic shoes; sweatpants or the floppy nike shorts when it gets hot. She reports that this gives rise to disagreements with their grandmother, who still thinks that boys ought to like nice. The HBC contrinutor repots that she would like the boys to dress up too, but she's got more important things to fight about with her kids, and they just scream bloody murder if you try to get them to wear anything other than what they want to--they're 12 and 9, by the way). So there is no "dress-up" wear for Japanese designers to look to in the States.

While American fashions affected dressd styles little. American casual clothes have had a major inpact. It must be remenmbered that American boys did not begin to commonly wear short pants until the late 1970s and 1980s. Many of these casual short styles were picked up amd became popular in Japan.

The American fashions appear to have affect clothes for elementary boys indirectly. One HBC contrinutor believes it worked by influencing older boys (teens) to wear the ghetto style abominations, then their younger brothers wanted to dress like that too. So you get the situation where boys who are choosing their own clothes (a majority, but not as much as in the States) are wearing American-looking fashions. Boys whose mothers choose their clothes wear a more Euroepan looking neat, knee-length style. Mothers who would like to dress their children traditionally now have difficulty finding the trim fitting short shorts, and even when they can are understandbly reluctant to subject their sons to the risk of teasing from classmates who have no memory of dressy short shorts and associate them strictly with uniforms.

European trends

In France and Italy boys do still dress. There are clearly dressy styles. Japanese sources report that in any reasonable sized book store in Japan you can find the big Italian children's fashion magazines right there beside the women's and men's.

Japanese Concern with Foreign Views

The Japnaese tend to be sensitive to what foreingers think about them. Many worry about differences between Japan and other countries. I think that fashion designers and commentators began to notice that Japanese boys were strangely dressed, by global standards, or behind the times.

One HBC contruibutor remembers as far back as 1989 periodically seeing boy models in fashion magazines dressed the way no Japanese boy actually dressed in those days--the longish shorts popular in France and Italy. "Huh, where did that come from?" she remembers thinking. She visited a very trendy children's boutique in the Ginza back in 1992 when boys were all still in short shorts, but this store was selling the longish French and Italian things. She said to the very fashionably attired saleswoman, "I don't want these foreign-style shorts for my son. I want traditional Japanese short pants." The saleswoman said, "what is traditional Japanese short pants?" quite huffily as if the mother was an ignorant babboon. The mother said, "nice and trim and short". The saleswoman sniffed, "Oh but boys are now wearing longer shorts", which was palpably not true as she could have easily ascertained by simply walking over to the window.