LITMIR.BIZ

      NIIGATA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN

      Get loose

      THE MOST NOTORIOUS ITEM in the Japanese schoolgirl wardrobe would have to be loose socks. In the mid-1990s the kogal look was defined by them and they have come to symbolize a certain type of schoolgirl—one that is sexy, rebellious, and very cool. But originally, these infamous socks were American.

      Eric Smith, an attorney by trade, hails from three generations of sock makers. In 1982 he started his own company, E.G. Smith, after adapting a woollen hunting sock design from his father’s company. Eric changed the material to cotton, and managed to capitalize on the 1980s Flashdance fitness craze. By the early 1990s, the New York–based Smith was looking to expand and struck a Japanese distribution deal with a textile company in Osaka called WIX.

      Various stories exist to explain how the socks then became popular with Japanese schoolgirls, including one that has schoolgirls in frosty Miyagi Prefecture choosing them purely to keep warm. But Smith and WIX company president Takahiro Uehori have another story. “Originally, we launched an E.G. Smith display at a SOGO department store in Yokohama in 1993,” says Uehori. “Two high school girls bought the white boot socks and wore them to class. Before you knew it, the look had caught on at their school.” Rigid school dress codes called for white socks, and Smith’s socks were the antithesis of regulation tighty-whities. The boot socks—later dubbed “loose socks” for the way they hung—flattered short schoolgirl legs, making them appear long and slender. A fashion reporter noticed the Yokohama fad, penned a tiny blurb on the twelve-inch (30 cm) socks, and the trend spread across the country like a bad case of mono. “Loose socks weren’t your typical short-lived teen trend,” says Smith, “this one lasted ten years.” Each generation wants something to call its own, and for girls during the 1990s, loose socks were it. “The self-expression became a uniform in itself,” says Smith. “It expressed an entire generation of women.”

      ERIC SMITH

      Schoolgirls may have loved them, but schools didn’t. “When loose socks first caught on,” Smith says, “schools banned girls from wearing them. Which only fueled their proliferation.” Suddenly the socks weren’t just a fashion statement, they were a national obsession. “On trips to Tokyo, I’d visit Shibuya Station at three in the afternoon,” Smith says. “Schoolgirls would be changing out of school-regulation knee-high socks into loose socks to go meet their friends. I think this caused the loose socks to be fetishized by some businessmen.”

      By the mid-1990s, after reports that schoolgirls were meeting older men for enjo kosai (paid dating), loose socks were no longer just associated with schoolgirls, but with sex. Enjo kosai preoccupied the tabloids and the Japanese government. And by the end of the 1990s, new regulations cracked down on underage-sex-for-money. But schoolgirl characters were already turning up in porn films wearing loose socks, and massage parlors and sex clubs had young looking women decked out in the socks. The original rebellious meaning of loose socks had been twisted by the media so that even today they carry sexual connotations.

      ANDREW LEE

      Stuck on you

      THE SECRET behind how girls managed to keep their loose socks up? Glue.

      In the early 1970s the president of chemical company Hakugen noticed his granddaughter fretting about her school socks falling down. In 1972, the company launched a roll-on glue dubbed “Sock Touch” that could be used to stick knee-socks to the skin of your calves to keep them in place. In the following decade fashion trends changed, however—skirts got longer and socks got shorter. Sock Touch lost its touch, and in 1985, Hakugen stopped producing the adhesive.

      But when loose socks went supernova in 1993, the company took notice and re-introduced their Peanuts branded “Snoopy Sock Touch.” After having its production halted for almost a decade, Sock Touch was a smash. Hakugen geared up its sock-glue production, rolling out Disney-themed Sock Touch, perfume-free-sensitive-skin Mild Sock Touch and Super Sock Touch, recommended for “furious sport-like movement.”

      HAKUGEN

      Navy socks

      BY THE YEAR 2000, even the strongest Sock Touch could not hold up the popularity of loose socks. They were no longer a cutting edge high school trend, but rather something junior high kids wore in hope of seeming grown-up. Navy-colored knee-high socks were the next big thing. But even then girls needed a way to express themselves and chose socks bearing the logos of famous brands, such as Burberry, Polo, Vivienne Westwood, and even Playboy.

      By 2013, however, some schoolgirls began wearing navy socks under baggy loose socks in a convergence of both trends.

      CONOMI

      Honey,

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