Japanese Boys' Garments: Inclement Weather Clothes
Figure 1.--Here we see Japanese children wearing overcoats. Notice styled just like Western overcoats, but more like the ones adults wore. Many Japanese children, boys and girls, wore long stockings in the colder months, by the 1960s they had changed to tights. Based on how mother iscdressed, she is a wellyo-do fashionable laddy which is how she has dressed the children, although given the ages, they are noy all her children, probably in the late-1960s. Click on the image for a detailed discussion. .
Here as part of Japanese inclement gear we will include both cold weather garments and rainwear. Japan is located on a north-south axis. Which means roughly the same lattuitude as Canada (British Colombia) south to northern Mexico. After the Pacific War Japan lost southern Sakalin and the Kurile Islands to the Soviet Union. These were the norhern-most territories. This meant that the lattitude was reduced to the American Pacific northwest, although the climate in Hokaido is colder than Washington-Oregon. And there is considerable snow in Hokaido during the winter. Moving south the climate in Okinawa is semi-tropical. Thus depending on where you live in Japan, cold weather gear may or may not be needed. Thus we see variations in cold weather winter garments in Japan on a regional basis. Rain gear is needed throughout the Home Islands. The garments and styles we see are basically the same as in the West, including headwear, coats, jackets, sweaters, gloves, and hosiery. Here we see younger Japanese children, we think in the late-1960s, wearing headwear, overcoats, knee socks and tights (figure 1).
