Sailor-style uniform with skirt for boys arouses interest in Japan

In recent years, many Japanese schools have been implementing school uniforms to be neutral or unisex .

This change in Japanese schools has generally been to give female students the option of wearing pants, although there have been some exceptions, such as Sanyo Junior HS in Himeji , Hyogo Prefecture, which allows boys to wear skirts.

Kei Hirabayashi , president of the Japan Disability Fashion Association , which develops ” bottom’all “, a fashion brand designed for everyone to enjoy, regardless of disability, age or gender, hopes this will change.

Earlier this year, he shared a photo of himself visiting a children’s model of a school uniform with a skirt on his Twitter account, quickly sparking interest on social media.

“I’ve seen news in recent years that school uniforms are becoming gender neutral, but I’m not comfortable with the trend of allowing girls to wear pants and not allowing boys to wear skirts… It’s because of That’s why I made a sailor uniform that even children could easily wear.”

Said uniform borrows some aspects of the girls’ sailor uniform though updates it to look good on boys as well and ” wear-friendly “. The uniform was created through the projectミライの制服プロジェクト(mirai no seifuku purojekuto | Future of School Uniforms) as a collaboration between the Japan Disability Fashion Association and Hyogo Teacher Training University .

Many in their comments approve the project saying that it looks good, that they agree that the use of skirts is also allowed for children who wish to do so. Others comment that they would like to wear it since it would resemble some anime character.

Regarding the design of this uniform, Kei Hirabayashi explains that he tried to create a unisex impression with the length of the skirt, its color, the amount of pleats, and other things.

The ” Mirai no Seifuku Project ” is a project that aims to increase the number of options available to students when it comes to their school uniforms. Gender is not our only consideration , but it is an important factor.

His project is limited to school uniforms. Clothing other than school uniform will be made through the “bottom’all” project.

In Japan, we are starting to see スカート男子 (sukāto danshi | lit. “boys in skirts”), boys and men who wear skirts every day with increasing frequency. There are some celebrities like Brad Pitt wearing skirts and he believes this helps make it clear that it is a problem that was born out of prejudiced views. He hopes things like that lead people (with such views) to realize how boring his value system was.