Japanese Fashion (Informative Speech)

What do you think of when you hear Japanese fashion? Maybe a kimono? Or sailor
uniforms? Those are definitely some staple items, but there’s a lot more to Japanese fashion than
you can imagine. Let’s take a look at some major points of fashion in Japan.

1. Edo (1600s to mid-1800s)

Kimonos were the main staple wear around this time. Kimonos nowadays as bright and
colorful formal wear, but back then they were everyday wear and kimonos were often recycled
(thrifted), patched, and put to good use. In the later part of the Edo period, the government didn’t
allow people to wear showy kimonos, so most folks wore kimonos with plain patterns like stripes and
checkered type patterns.

2. Meiji/Taisho (mid-1800s to 1920s)

During the Meiji era, Western culture came in and changed a lot in Japan, including fashion.
Folks still wore kimonos but started to wear Western clothes, often for fancier events. Some even
wore a mix, like a button-up under a kimono. It was common to see people using Western
handbags or umbrellas with their kimono, too.

3. Nyutora/Hamatora (1970s)

Short for New Traditional and Yokohama Traditional respectively. High fashion-type stuff was
really in. Think gold buckles, pleated skirts, blouses, silk scarves, and brand-name items. Hamatora
was based on brands bought in Yokohama, whereas Nyutora was from Japan overall.

4. Gyaru (Gals) (1990s to early 2000s)

Gyaru, or gals, were not the majority of how girls back then dressed, but they definitely left a
big mark in Japanese fashion. If you walked the streets back in the 90s or early 2000s, you couldn’t
miss the girls walking around with deep tans, bleached hair, miniskirts, and make-up that would
accentuate the eyes. Gyaru fashion wasn’t just about fashion either. These girls talked and acted in
a particular way, and gyaru culture is still prominent today (minus these tans).

5. Present Day
With the internet being a thing, strictly Japanese fashion has become blurred. On the streets
today, you’ll see a lot of clean cuts, high-waisted bottoms, long coats, and flowy, casual styles.
There are lots of fashion styles, but to name a few, there’s Amekaji (short of American Casual;
fashion focused on what Americans would wear), Yamagirl (Yama = mountain; a women’s fashion
focused on wearing outdoor gear brands), and Normcore (short for Normal Hardcore; a fashion style
focused on minimalistic style).

That is all about the evolution of fashion in Japan. If you were to follow Japanese fashion just
make sure that it will be suited to your personality and make sure you won’t look weird imitating
someone’s fashion.
Thank you for listening!
Japanese Clothing Style
There are typically two types of clothing worn in Japan: traditional clothing known as Japanese
clothing (wafuku), including the national dress of Japan, the kimono, and Western clothing (yōfuku),
which encompasses all else not recognized as either national dress or the dress of another country.

Traditional Japanese fashion represents a long-standing history of traditional culture, encompassing

color palettes developed in the Heian period, silhouettes adopted from Tang dynasty clothing and
cultural traditions, motifs taken from Japanese culture, nature, and traditional literature, the use of
types of silk for some clothing, and styles of wearing primarily fully-developed by the end of the Edo
period.

The most well-known form of traditional Japanese fashion is the kimono, with the
term kimono translated literally as "something to wear" or "thing worn on the shoulders". Other types
of traditional fashion include the clothing of the Ainu people (known as the attus) and the clothes of
the Ryukyuan people which is known as ryusou, most notably including the traditional fabrics
of bingata and bashōfu[2] produced on the Ryukyu Islands.

Modern Japanese fashion mostly encompasses yōfuku (Western clothes), though many well-known
Japanese fashion designers – such as Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo – have
taken inspiration from and at times designed clothes taking influence from traditional fashion. Their
works represent a combined impact on the global fashion industry, with many pieces displayed at
fashion shows all over the world,[5] as well as having had an impact within the Japanese fashion
industry itself, with many designers either drawing from or contributing to Japanese street fashion.

Despite previous generations wearing traditional clothing near-entirely, following the end of World
War II, Western clothing and fashion became increasingly popular due to their increasingly available
nature and, over time, their lower price. It is now increasingly rare for someone to wear traditional
clothing as everyday clothes, and over time, traditional clothes within Japan have garnered an
association with being difficult to wear and expensive. As such, traditional garments are now mainly
worn for ceremonies and special events, with the most common time for someone to wear traditional
clothes being to summer festivals, when the yukata is most appropriate; outside of this, the main
groups of people most likely to wear traditional clothes are geisha, maiko and sumo wrestlers, all of
whom are required to wear traditional clothing in their profession.

Traditional Japanese clothing has garnered fascination in the Western world as a representation of a
different culture; first gaining popularity in the 1860s, Japonisme saw traditional clothing – some
produced exclusively for export and differing in construction from the clothes worn by Japanese
people every day – exported to the West, where it soon became a popular item of clothing
for artists and fashion designers. Fascination for the clothing of Japanese people continued into
World War 2, where some stereotypes of Japanese culture such as "geisha girls" became
widespread. Over time, depictions and interest in traditional and modern Japanese clothing has
generated discussions surrounding cultural appropriation and the ways in which clothing can be
used to stereotype a culture; in 2016, the "Kimono Wednesday" event held at the Boston Museum of
Arts became a key example of this.