User:Chiku.heresy/sandbox

= Japanese Fashion = Japanese fashion is always unique, recognisable and significant, it is strongly affected by their culture and history, for example, we can now still see people in Japan wearing kimono as uniform or suit for import and special events, festival or ceremonies, like "coming to age 20", funeral, or wedding. The traditional "WA" and "ZEN" influenced Japanese contemporary fashion a lot to nowadays.

ZEN “禪”
The ancients believed that cicada is noble, "cicada in turbid dirty", in addition to float dust", because of its shape and meaning. (古人認為蟬高潔，“蟬蜕於濁穢，以浮游塵埃之外”，因其造型和寓意，很早就被中國人選用為吉祥佩飾. 古有説法，生以為佩，死以為含), the "ZEN" is consider to be clean and calm, a concept form buddhism.

Japanese Fashion- Accessory
There are few main characters in japanese fashion trend to be classified that is never fading out, such as the unique office look and Harajuku style, that is also why and how people change to focus on wearing special styles of accessories, like bags.

Changes on Office look
Walking on the street in Japan, we can always see a certain office look of "Sarari-man", men with proper suits, women with formal uniforms is their rule to be worn for work in their culture being polite. Therefore, a group of office workers wearing proper suits and uniforms walking on the street is the special view in Japan.

To men, older generation may bring briefcase to work, they are usually made with heavy materials and darker colour with thick strap, they also do not usually wear with suitable length of strap but all the way to hip length. However, these days in younger generation of office workers, around 20s to 40s, they do not have a choice to not wear suits for work, they prefer taking backpacks, which is their new trend.

Size of suits are also obviously different in younger and older generation. The older generation workers usually wear bigger and non-fit size of suit, that is actually influenced by the bubble economy period, people used to show off of their properties, this psychology affected a lot on how hey wear in fashion. But nowadays, younger generation office worker tend to wear fitter suit which could show up for their body shape, when keep fit is a trend in 21 century.

http://livejapan.com/en/article/h000023/

http://salaryman-style.tumblr.com

Office look to women seems leads to more freedom and flexible on fashion concern, besides of the traditional department stores are still offering staff uniforms to show the identity and image of the brand name, such as ISETEN, MITSUKOSHI, MATSUYA, etc. The independence of feminism in Japan is raising up quick these days, female office workers do not have to wear natural colour or black skirts, fashionable clothing is acceptable, like wide cropped trousers. In addition, japanese drama and actresses are also the strongest way to influence how office lady wear, for example, ISHIHARA REIMI, MITSUHARA KIKO, etc. According to what has appeared in dramas, MOUSSY, MAX&CO, SLY, SAMANTHA, are those brands popular to them, while the price setting of these brands just fit the salary-workers income level and fashionable at the same time.

Harajuku style
Harajuku and Shibuya are two spots to check the trend, where teen and youths love to go. We can usually see oddity costume on youths, how they play with different colourful items and layering, mostly either all black or all colour scheme on body, like Yamamoto yoji and Harajuku style. Harajuku style is unique and origin from Japan, inspired from animation and otaku culture, girls usually wear thick platform heels with lace-up skirt on pinky colour.

Additionally, with combination to the style, they always carry exaggerated size handbags and accessories or hair band. Wearing socks under sandals is also the unique way they present their fashion, this is so called "kawaii" in Japanese culture.