Favorites of young and old, rich and poor, pure and perverted, the Japanese school uniform has a long, storied history few of us are aware of. For instance, did you know the uniform’s jacket, the gakuran, traces its linage to the Prussian military?
PingMag, a site I don’t link to nearly enough, has a full wrap on Japanese school unis, including the history, roles of the different kinds of uniforms, uniform fashionistas, a section that attempts get at why the uniforms are so popular “Beyond the Schoolyard,” and finally, and perhaps most fascinatingly, a section entitled “Symbol of Beauty.”
1 response so far ↓
1 simon // Apr 4, 2008 at 9:13 pm
I’m not a regular reader of that site, but my friend Jon Yongfook Cockle’s been involved with it from the beginning as a designer and occasional contributor to the mag. Neat how you picked it up, though the East Asian English language blogosphere can sometimes seem rather like a village (I guess that’s the same with any blog community).
http://pingmag.jp/about-pingmag/
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