Figure 1.--This Japanese boys wears a common school uniform with white shirt, blue short panrs, and white kneesocks. Most schools required a trim cut style of shorts. Elementary schools with boys of 11-12 years often requred short pants. |
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I am not sure just when elementary boys began wearing short pants, but the earlist photographs I have seen date to the 1930s and almost all of the boys appear to be wearing shorts, albeit rather long, knee-length shorts--sometimes rather baggy. I'm not sure to what extent they were required by the schools. After the Second World War, many schools adopted school uniforms, although I am not sure precisely when this ocuured. By the 1960s, however, Japanese schools boys were wearing trim fitting short pants, showing a European style. The most common shorts were blue and were often worn with white kneesocks.
Beginning in the 1950s, many school adopted much shorter length, trim fitting shorts. Mny boys wore short pants all year round, even in the cold winter months. This continued through the 1970s becoming a national standard. It only began to change in the 1980s as many primary boys began wearing long trousers, especially during the winter months. More change took place in the 1990s as the longer, baggy shorts popular in America and Euope also began to appear in Japan. This was especially true at non-uniform schools. The uniformed schools tended to retain the shorter, trim fitting shorts. After boys graduated from elementary school they would rarely wear shorts--except for scouts, even for casual wear. Although this began changing in the early 1980s as shorts became popular among older boys for casual, hot weather wear--but not to school.
Some Kindergartems require the children to wear smocks. This is only in Kindergarten and not primary schools. Often the clothesxunder the smocks are not specified. Many biys wear short pants to Kindergarten, but ofte not as partbofc a uniform.
Many Japanese primary schools require uniforms, especially the private schools. Short pants are very common in primary schools. Uniforms usually involve short pants. Even at the schools that do not have required uniforns, many boys wear short pants.
Almost all private primary (elementary) schools (about 1/3 the schools) in Japan require the children to wear uniforms. Most of those schools made short pants part of the uniform--often quite short shorts. The boys are required to wear them both in the warm months as well as through the winter. the Japanese believe this helps toughen boys. While Japenese boys in the 1990s began to wear the longer shorts worn by American boys,
most of the schools continue to require the shorter, smartly tailored shorts. This is a decission taken by the schools as most Japanese parents now buy the longer baggy style for boys to wear at home.
Public Primary schools have more varied requirements. Many do not
require uniforms and boys at those schools wear both long and short pants.
The schools that do insist on uniforms, genrally require short pants, usually
short short pants. Blue shorts are the most common. Younger boys might
wear suspender shorts. Girls commonly wear suspender skirts, usually in the
same color as the boys' shorts.
We notice that boys at some juniot highschools after World War II wore short pants. We are not sure how common this was. Apparently by the 1970s junior high schools mostly had long pants uniforms. A Japanese reader writes in 2005, "I have noted that a few middle school boys are going to school in the summer wearing their gym uniforms which are sometimes shorts, mosly the longer, to-the-knee shorts. I have not noted this trend until the 2000s. Middle schools like the seondary schools tended to be insistent on the students wearing the formal uniform."
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I am not sure just when elementary boys began wearing short pants, but the earlist photographs I have seen date to the 1930s and almost all of the boys appear to be wearing shorts, albeit rather long, knee-length shorts--sometimes rather baggy. I'm not sure to what extent they were required by the schools. After the Second World War, many schools adopted school uniforms, although I am not sure precisely when this ocuured. By the 1960s, however, Japanese schools boys were wearing trim fitting short pants, showing a European style. The most common shorts were blue and were often worn with white kneesocks.
Beginning in the 1950s, many school adopted much shorter length, trim fitting shorts. Mny boys wore short pants all year round, even in the cold winter months. This continued through the 1970s becoming a national standard. It only began to change in the 1980s as many primary boys began wearing long trousers, especially during the winter months. Long pants began to be seen in primary schools as far back as the early 1980s, particularly in the winter (coinciding with the first appearance of the non-athletic wearing of shorts by older boys and young men, albeit the styles of young boy-shorts and olderboy/young man
shorts were distinctly different back then). A further change occurred in the 1990s. The style of the short pants worn to school began to change. Sometime between 1992 and 1997 boys began to wear the long, baggy shorts becoming popular in America and Europe. Thi occurred at the nonn-uniform chools. Outside the uniformed schools, the classic short-shorts ("hanzubon" in Japanese) largely disappeared. However, the incidence of
long pants wearing in the primary schools if anything declined slightly from the 1980s since the newer, long styles of shorts were more comfortable in the winter and also regarded as "cool" by primary boys since they did not differ from what older boys and young men were wearing, unlike the "hanzubon" which had acquired a "little boy" aura. The uniformed schools tended to retain the shorter, trim fitting shorts and continue o o so into the 2000s.
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we have some limited information on a variety of characteristics of Japanese school short pants. There were a variety of points to cinsuder here such as color, material, style suspension. length, and other characteristics.
The most common color for school shorts in Japan is blue. Some schools also adopted grey for their short pants. There were other colors, but blue ad grey were by far the most common. Sone shorts were also done in patterns, usuall plaid. Often thuis was done to match the firls' skirts.
Some of the grey shorts worn by Japanese school boys were grey flannel shorts.
I'm not sure what kind of material is used for the blue shorts.
Younger children often wear suspender shorts. The girls wear matching suspender skirts. Suspender shorts are now not much worn in Japan except as part of school uniforms.
We are not entirely sure about the suspension of Japanese school shorts. We notice that the girls commonly wear suspender skirts. Suspender shorts, however, are not very common. We see some boys with clip on suspenders, but not the supenders straps in the same material and attached to the shorts. We do not jnow why this difference developed. Japanese short pants seem to have been influenced by European styles and suspender shorts were quite common in Europe in the 1940s abd 50s when current school fashions were set in Japan. We are not sure if belts were very common. We do note older primary boys wearing belts. We dp not, however, have much information on the types of belts worn. Some of the shorts may have had partial elastic waists.
Japanese boys before and after World war II generally wore rather long short pants at about knee level. The shorts worn by Japanese schools boys since the 1960s have generally been trimmed fitting short shorts. I'm not sure why this style became so popular in Japan or why they were so widely adopted by the schools. They were the classic "hanzubon" short pants that were once so common in Japan. Older boys in the 1990s have begun to wear short pants, but not to school. But they wear the longer baggy style that have become popular. These styles have become popular with the younger boys. Most schools, however, with an established uniform continue to insist on the trim fitting, shorter style. This is true of both the private and public schools.
Short pants have been commonly worn by Japanese boys through elementary school. This means boys of 11-12 years. Older boys rarely wore short pants in Japan. I do not know of any schools that required older boys to wear short pants. The only older boys who wore shorts were Scouts.
Japanese schools are often quite strict about the uniform requiements. Note in the photographs the uniformitynof the boys. Not only do the boys all wear very similar shirts, shorts, kneesocks, and shoes, but the shorts are all generally worn at uniform length.
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