Sailor Outfit
The sailor outfit (セーラー服?) is a common style of uniform worn by female middle school students, traditionally by high school students, and occasionally, elementary school students. It was introduced as a school uniform in 1920 in Heian Jogakuin (平安女学院?) and 1921 by the principal of Fukuoka Jo Gakuin University (福岡女学院?), Elizabeth Lee. It was modeled after the uniform used by the British Royal Navy at the time, which Lee had experienced as an exchange student in the United Kingdom.
Much like the male uniform, the gakuran, the sailor outfit bears a similarity to various military styled naval uniforms. The uniform generally consists of a blouse attached with a sailor-style collar and a pleated skirt. There are seasonal variations for summer and winter: sleeve length and fabric are adjusted accordingly. A ribbon is tied in the front and laced through a loop attached to the blouse. Several variations on the ribbon include neckties, bolo ties, neckerchiefs, and bows. Common colors are navy blue, white, grey, light green and black.
Shoes, socks, and other accessories are sometimes included as part of the uniform. These socks are typically navy or white. The shoes are typically brown or black penny loafers. Although not part of the prescribed uniform, alternate forms of legwear (such as loose socks, knee-length stockings, or similar) are also commonly matched by more fashionable girls with their sailor outfits.
The sailor uniform today is generally associated with junior high schools. A majority (though by no means all) high schools having changed to more western style plaid skirts or blazers. A large part of the motivation for this change was as a response to the fetishisation of the sailor fuku as well as the desire of modern high school students to differentiate themselves in a more grown up way to junior high students.
Read more about this topic: Japanese School Uniform
Famous quotes containing the words sailor and/or outfit:
“The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head—no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Nothing in medieval dress distinguished the child from the adult. In the seventeenth century, however, the child, or at least the child of quality, whether noble or middle-class, ceased to be dressed like the grown-up. This is the essential point: henceforth he had an outfit reserved for his age group, which set him apart from the adults. These can be seen from the first glance at any of the numerous child portraits painted at the beginning of the seventeenth century.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)