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      THE ROYAL COLLECTION © 2010, HER MAJEST Y QUEEN ELIZABETH II.

      At the Tombow museum hangs a copy of an iconic 1846 portrait of the then Prince of Wales, Albert Edward. The future King of England looks about four years old and is decked out in a miniaturized sailor suit that looks uncannily like what Japanese schoolgirls wear today. The painting caused a sensation in Britain at the time. In an age when blue-bloods set fashion trends, soon children across the UK were suited up in sailor outfits. By the tail end of that century they were also the de facto threads for American and European kids. The nautical theme even spread to adult attire with seaside summer holidays very much in vogue.

      During the Meiji Period (1868–1912), as Japan suddenly found itself playing catch up with the West, it began importing loads of foreign concepts, fashions, and technology, including the latest in military firepower. The military was short hand for modernization since Japan needed a modern military to become a modern power. Along with that came new uniforms, including European style naval outfits. Pretty soon boys in Japan were required to wear school uniforms inspired by the navy look. Girls, however, still wore kimono. But the snug, form-fitting kimono, while fetching, were designed for sitting on tatami mats—not in a chair hunkered over a desk, taking notes, and listening to a teacher. A change was needed. Some educators suggested the hakama, which were pants designed for horseback riding and worn by, gasp, men. Others, more forward thinking, proposed Western-style uniforms. That pitch was nipped right in the bud when the country’s first Minister of Education—a British-educated advocate of Western clothing and culture—was assassinated in 1889. Worried that schoolgirls would be targeted for wearing Occidental outfits, a compromise was reached: young ladies would don balloon-like Japanese trousers. They looked like feminine skirts, but offered pant-like functionality.

      That would change at the turn of the century when educator Akuri Inokuchi was sent abroad to research physical education at Smith College in Massachusetts. There she saw female students doing exercises in sailor-inspired “bloomers.” When she returned to Japan in 1903, Inokuchi encouraged school-girls to get off their duffs and do gymnastics, and to do them while wearing the sailor-style outfits she had seen in the US. This was less to do with fashion and more to do with practicality as the bloomers allowed women to move freely. Two years later, after students at the country’s national high school for girls began daily exercises in similar clothes, the look began to cling. Sailor outfits became synonymous with active wear, but it was not until the next generation of schoolgirls that the now iconic sailor uniform was born.

      Standing beside a display in the Tombow museum, Katsuhiko Sano points to a black and white photo from 1920, showing a schoolgirl in a long naval gown. “This is the first sailor-style school uniform for girls,” he says. Sano should know. He not only tracked down that uniform, but also created the Tombow Uniform Museum to show how far uniforms have come. Thanks to Sano’s detective work, Tombow was able to pinpoint this uniform from Heian Girls’ School in Kyoto as the country’s first. Unlike other school outfits or study clothes, these sailor-style, one-piece dresses were all identical and worn in class. But the one-piece design never really caught on.

      HEIAN JOGAKUIN UNIVERSITY

      In 1915, the headmistress of the Fukuoka Jo Gakuin—a Christian High School for Girls—was Elizabeth Lee, an American. “Ms. Lee was very beautiful,” says Sano, “and all the students loved her fashionable sailor-style clothes and wanted to dress like her.” The kimonos the girls had weren’t exactly practical for study or physical education. A local tailor, Ota’s Western Clothing Shop, began reproducing Lee’s outfits for the spring 1922 class, complete with a ravishing beret. The Ota design made the rounds at other missionary schools, and in the pre-war era, the two-piece sailor suit became synonymous with Christian education. Best of all, the naval look of girl’s uniforms dovetailed thematically with the naval inspired boy’s uniforms. The two-piece design with a separate blouse and skirt became the blueprint for sailor uniforms and the design still used by learning institutions across Japan.

      FUKUOKA JOGAKUIN JR & SR HIGH SCHOOL

      Meanwhile, in Okayama, the Tombow factory was producing split-toed socks called tabi, but having a hard time staying afloat. “Fewer and fewer people were wearing traditional Japanese clothes on a daily basis,” explains Sano. The company needed another product and ended up ditching the socks to switch to school clothes. It was 1930—a time when it was common for families to have as many as five or six children—and the government was pushing education. Voila! Instant customers.

      FUKUOKA JOGAKUIN JR & SR HIGH SCHOOL

      In the years leading up to World War II Japanese nationalism raged. Yet schoolgirls still wore Western sailor suits. (Though, when materials became scarce during the war, schoolgirls wore uniforms fashioned out of their mothers’ old kimonos). Pants, however, replaced the skirts, with the rationale that it was easier to run from falling American bombs. Detachable padded hoods to protect against flying shrapnel were also necessary.

      FOX PHOTOS/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

      The war did little to stop the advance of the sailor suit as Japan got back on its feet in the post-war years, and it became part of the academic landscape. Other changes in the social fabric also had little effect on their spread. In the 1960s Japan experienced anti-war protests and leftist demonstrations much like those in the US and Europe. School uniforms were viewed as a symbol of Imperial Japan and came under fire by some on the grounds that they stripped kids of their identity and creativity. For baby-boom teenagers the in-thing was the “Ivy” look, and they dressed like characters out of a J.D. Salinger novel, prepping themselves up with chino pants, sweater vests, and button-down shirts. “Everyone thought being free was ideal during the 1960s,” says Sano. “Uniforms came to represent the oppression of freedom and were therefore looked down upon.” This stink might have caused some schools to rethink the mandated school outfits, but hardly stubbed them out.

      TOMBOW UNIFORM MUSEUM

      In the confining parameters of school uniforms, however, kids were figuring out their own ways to show their individuality—with scissors! In the late 1960s and early 70s, bad schoolgirls in long skirts and Converse sneakers began cutting sailor tops short, exposing bare midriffs. The look was called sukeban explains Sano—slang for “girl gang leader.” Not all sukeban chicks got in fist fights and knocked heads with baseball bats, but the delinquent look became iconic. The mere act of standing up to conformity by altering assigned clothing gave the most innocuous suburban rebel the air of danger.

      Sukeban style marked the nascent stages of “uniform fashion” and soon schoolgirls everywhere were personalizing their apparel. While the first sukeban did the uniform altering themselves (or had their mothers do it), tailors soon began charging to shorten school tops. And when sukeban graduated, they’d embroider things like roses and Japanese kanji characters on the back of their sailor suits. Nothing says thorny rose like a schoolgirl who’s going to punch your face in—or at least act like she will.

      Sukeban boy

      YAKKUN SAKURAZUKA not only knows what it’s like to wear a schoolboy uniform, but just how comfortable a form-fitting schoolgirl uniform can be. Since getting into showbiz over ten years ago, the cross-dressing Yakkun has donned a sailor suit as part of his act. And not just any sailor suit but a hard-hitting sukeban version.

      TOP COAT CO., LTD.

      “I chose a sukeban style

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