Figure 1.--Japanese boys clothing in the mid-1990s began taking on a more American look with long baggier short pants.

Japanese styles appear to be changing in the 1990s. Short shorts are still commonly seen for elementary-age children (boys through about 12 years of age) as school wear and for dress occasions. Even today, despite the invasions of American styles, for a boy to attend a formal event (wedding, school graduation, etc.) in long pants would seem a little odd. Japanese boys might now wear jeans a lot of the time, but he would be in short pants for a formal occasion. Dress up shorts today, however, are typically cuffed and cut just above the knee--until the mid-1990s, they were very short. School uniform shorts are, for the most part, still very, very short, but the style has shifted for individual dress-up clothes. Casual clothes appear, however, to be adopting the long baggy American look. Shorts do not now appear to be exclusively reserved to only elementary boys. Older boys now are beginning to wear shorts as casual clothing. Teenagers are now occasionally seen in the long baggy hip-hop look complete with baseball caps of American teenagers. One disapproving Japanese observer reports in 1999, "The vast majority of boys are wearing the horrid baggy shorts; it seems almost worse this year--below the knee cargo shorts seem the fashion choice this summer. It mystifies me why anyone would voluntarily wear those hot, ugly, uncomfortable looking things but that's what boys from 6 to 22 are wearing here this summer." Another observer reports that dress shorts began to change about 1995 and now are virtually the only short pants available with short pants suits.

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Created: June 11, 2004
Last updated: June 11, 2004