Figure 1.--Here are two schooloutfits for primary school children made by Top Kids in 2006. The outfits are coordinated, byt the jackets are blue and the shorts/skirts are both blue/green plaid. Both children are pictured in white fights, but different footwear.

Japanese mail order catalogs and newspaper advertisements offer a very useful time line on changing fashion trends. I am not sure precisely when mail order catalogs first appeared in Japan. We suspect the 1950s or late 40s, but cannot yet confirm this. Fashions magazines were also of some importance. HBC has begun collect mail order pages. Advertisements appeared in the newspapers before the first mail order catalogs appeared. Here we are hoping that our Japanese readers will assist us by providing information on catalogs.

The 19th Century

We have not yet found any 19th century Japanese mail order catalogs, advertisements or patterns. We suspect that there must hsve been some, especially by the 1890s, but we can not yet conform that.

The 1870s

The 1880s

The 1890s

The 20th Century

We have not yet found any early 20th century Japanese mail order catalogs, advertisements or patterns. We suspect that there must hsve been some, especially by the 1890s, but we can not yet confirm that. We have only found this material after World War II. Even then, however, our archive is very limited. We have very little access to Japanese publications. Hopefully our Japanese readers will help find these items.

The 1900s

The 1910s

The 1920s

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

We notice school satchels being offered in 1977.

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 21st Century

With the expansion of the internet it becomes much easier to find advertising and catalog items. Unfortunately without Japanese language capabilities we can not understand the ad copy with information bout the various items which of course is one of the most valuable. We can not even identify the ctslog in many cases. We continue to see a lot of school wear for the children, including uniforms. We also see a variety of suits for a boy's first day of school, a very important day for every Japanese child. In some cases there were coordinated boy-girl outfits.

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Created: 11:35 PM 11/30/2005
Last updated: 11:40 PM 9/14/2011