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, I shrunk the uniform
WHAT BETTER WAY to remember your schoolgirl days than with your uniform... miniaturized? Tokyo wedding-dress company Petite Leda does just that. Mini blazers, tiny skirts, small sailor suits—you name it.
Petite Leda began crafting one-of-a-kind pint-sized school uniforms after blushing brides wanted a way to memorialize their student years. Former schoolgirls can have the company make the mini clothes from the original fabric—even using their uniform’s actual buttons. For those unwilling to part ways with their precious schoolgirl threads, Petite Leda will find matching fabric. They’ll even sew the former schoolgal’s name on the miniature uniform’s inside, just like the real deal.
According to Petite Leda, the 15-inch (38 cm) high get-ups are extremely tricky to make, with the uniform collars and the sleeves being the most difficult. Since each is different, there isn’t a set pattern per se, meaning that Petite Leda’s expert seamstresses must try to capture the essence of the original uniform as a small-scale replica. Quality craftsmanship like this ain’t cheap: the pint-sized replicas cost 31,500 yen (US$320). The mini clothes are available as stand-alones or versions fitted to small teddy bears.
PETITE LEDA
Middle-Aged Sailor-Suit Dude
DURING THE WEEK, fifty-year-old Hideaki Kobayashi is a computer engineer, working on algorithms to solve image processing problems. On weekends, he’s a Japanese schoolgirl.
How does a mild-mannered computer engineer turn into a schoolgirl? First, Kobayashi got interested in taking cosplay (costume play) photographs of manga, anime, and video-game fans dressing up as their favorite characters. When exhibiting his photography at a design event in 2010, and hearing that a well-known cross-dresser would be checking out his pics, Kobayashi decided to dress up as a schoolgirl. He was surprised at the positive reactions his outfit garnered at the event. But it wasn’t until the following summer that he wore the outfit out among the general population when a ramen restaurant in Kanagawa offered a free bowl of noodles to anyone over thirty years old who came dressed in a sailor-type uniform.
“Nobody took up the ramen shop’s offer in the first month,” Kobayashi recalls. “A friend of mine recommended I go. I was the first one to get a free bowl of ramen.” After that, Kobayashi was hooked and began wearing the outfit in Tokyo. Online, people began buzzing about a bearded man in a sailor suit. The gray-haired man in the cute schoolgirl uniform and the braided beard cut a striking figure. Middle-Aged Sailor-Suit Dude was born!
“The sailor suit is a symbol of cuteness,” says Kobayashi. “I think it makes middle-aged guys feel nostalgic for when they were in school and had a secret crush on a female classmate. Well, that’s what I imagine, because actually, I went to an all-boys school.” Kobayashi wasn’t a fan of the boys’ school uniform, saying it made him feel “tied up.”
Now that Kobayashi is an internet celebrity with his own website (growhair-jk.com), he’s been able to parlay that into television appearances. He’s even involved with a sugary sweet pop group called “Chaos de Japon,” populated with actual junior high schoolgirls, not just as the group’s photographer and one of its producers—he’s also a fully fledged member. “Now, I have to follow the rule imposed on members: I’m prohibited from falling in love with someone,” Kobayashi says. “If I were found violating the rule, I would have to shave my beard off.”
PHOTOS TAKEN BY HITOSHI IWAKIRI
Kobayashi isn’t being serious. Then again, maybe he is. There’s a certain playfulness about his sailor-suit schtick. It’s unusual, sure. But it’s also fun and oddly cute to see a middle-aged man in a schoolgirl uniform riding the Tokyo subway or flipping through a magazine in a bookstore. In a way, it breaks up the monotony of urban life. Here is someone doing what they want, instead of being constrained. For Kobayashi, the schoolgirl uniform is liberating.
“People are surprised when they see me in person, because they’ve seen me on the internet or on TV,” Kobayashi says. “They rush up to me and ask to shake my hand or take a picture. That makes me feel good, and I feel like I’m doing something good in society too.”
On the eighth floor of the Don Quixote building in Tokyo’s geek capital of Akihabara, throngs of AKB48
