Japanese fashion

is, in part, a response to the fact that people tend to look alike (one hair colour, unless it is dyed; only two eye colors, brown and black), and so their natural appearance does not exhibit the physical diversity seen in some Western countries.

Another reason for the attention paid to high fashion is that Japan standardizes radically. People tend to look alike (one hair colour, unless it is dyed; only two eye colors, brown and black), and so their natural appearance does not exhibit the physical diversity seen in some Western countries. This is turned into a virtue, and people dress alike as well: the navy-blue business suit, the high-collared or middy-bloused school uniform, the occupational clothes.

is a domain in which the clothes are beautiful, but the people are not really wearing them yet.

On observing people on the street in Tokyo, a foreign fashion designer, quoted by Peter Popham, said that ‘. . . the clothes are beautiful, but the people are not really wearing them yet.’ There was something, he added, not quite modern about that.

japanese fashion, n.All

japanese fashion