Any visitor to Japan will have immediately noticed the gangs of school girls hanging out around town in their school uniforms. Obviously they are not in class but they still want to keep their uniforms on even in their free time.
Tapping into this love of uniforms, Nanchatte seifuku (なんちゃって制服, lit. “just kidding uniform”) is a fashion trend, said to have started way back in 2002, where high school students purchase and customize school uniforms to wear, even though it is not compulsory at their school.
Currently running at Ikebukuro’s Sunshine City until March 29, the Brand School Uniform Collection 2010 (ブランド制服コレクション) brings together all the leaders of this fashion subculture to sell customizable uniform clothes to hordes of mother and daughters. High school entrance has been decided for a new generation and it’s time to deck yourself out in a blazer, skirt, tie, socks — all as a matter of choice. You can mix and match as you like, and each brand has hundreds of kinds of items on sale.
The common amount to spend on a set is between 50 and 80,000 JPY (c.$550-880), according to the Nikkei Marketing Journal. The Brand School Uniform Collection was held first in 2007 in just one place but now has widened to seven, with its sales expected to be three times that of last year’s.
[Image via 47 News.]
A market that was once dominated by Harajuku store Conomi is now seeing competition from other brands and particularly online retail, such as cecile. What’s more, this month saw the founding of a whole magazine devoted to this fashion, School Mix (スクールミックス). Others have reported on how this trend is even spreading to other countries, and it’s also worth noting how adult Japanese females use elements of school uniforms (such as plaid skirts) in their outfits to make themselves look young and cute.
This is no doubt pretty strange to western eyes. I recall fellow students rushing home after school, eager to tear off their uniforms and get their own clothes on. The idea that students at high schools without mandatory uniforms would want to express their fashion identity through nanchatte seifuku is hard to comprehend. Far from putting on “home clothes” after lessons end, even students at schools with compulsory uniforms are now said instead just to customize their uniform with a different tie or other garment to express their “out-of-school” self.
