VOX POPULI: In a free society, you can wear what you like

An article in the vernacular Asahi Shimbun's weekly "be" supplement about Twiggy, the British modeling sensation of the late 1960s, brought back fond memories.

When Twiggy visited Japan in 1967, she was wearing culottes as she disembarked the aircraft--not her signature mini skirt with a hemline 20 centimeters above the knee. But when she showed up for her news conference the following day, her hem was 30 cm above the knee.

In baseball terms, first she threw us a curveball, then quickly followed it up with a powerful fastball.

Looking at the Twiggy pictures from that era, I recalled how great that mini skirt looked on her long, slender legs. The fashion icon, whose name even appears in English-Japanese dictionaries, is now 60.

Hemlines have since risen and fallen. Perhaps because the 1960s was the decade of Japan's phenomenal economic growth, some pundits claim skirts get shorter when the economy is robust. Nowadays, the hemline is no longer a subject of heated debate--except, it appears, in some homes.

In this year's Gendai Gakusei Hyakunin Isshu (100 poems by 100 students today) contest sponsored by Toyo University, I came across a real gem. By a first-year senior high school student in Saitama Prefecture, the poem goes: "Early in the morning/ My mother and I argue over my skirt/ She says it's too short and I say it's too long." The poem depicts a delightful mother-daughter skirmish.

Likely the mother grew up in the economic bubble era of the late 1980s, when young women sported body-hugging fashions. But she has conveniently forgotten that and instead lectures her daughter on modesty.

In the history of apparel worldwide, trousers were first worn by both men and women in the East, and both sexes wore skirt-type bottoms in the West. Even when men in Europe later switched to trousers that better suited active lifestyles, women then were prevented from making the switch because of their inferior social status.

In Japan, where femininity was considered the ultimate virtue, all women--except farmers--eventually gave up wearing trousers. Women's bodies remained confined in kimono even after the Meiji Restoration in the late 19th century.

But in this globalized era with no visible barriers to segregate the sexes, we see skirted young men on city streets. As for young women, one fad perhaps represents a compromise with their mothers--a mini skirt layered over leggings or jeans.

A society that doesn't enslave its citizens in a strict dress code is a fortunate society. To maintain that good fortune, though, we have to retain a strong sense of self-responsibility.

--The Asahi Shimbun, April 5

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.