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School Uniform In The World
2/MAY/2009 on air

Wearing school uniforms to go to high school is just an ordinary custom in Japan, but how about clothing that looks like school uniform? School girls these days like to put on private clothing that looks like school uniform, and they call it “Nanchatte Seifuku” meaning fake school uniform.

School uniform has been considered cute at any time, but the trend is accelerated since AKB48 is popular on TV. They are the top idol in school uniforms, and how they arrange their uniforms is highly paid attention by many school girls.

“School uniform is the cutest thing to us!” “We look good in it!”
“School uniform is something we can enjoy by arranging as we like!”
“It just looks all the same, that’s why arrangement is the key!”
“It’s profound, not just a school uniform!”
It’s a conversation between AKB48 members.

School uniform boom is not only a Japanese thing, nor girls thing.
Madonna wears Nanchatte Seifuku? (She wears school uniform looking outfit?) DAIGO, a popular Japanese singer, also put on school uniform? Young guys like to wear school boy or military looking outfit!?

It’s no wonder cute school uniform attracts anyone, anywhere in the world. Rika 22 years old from Sweden and Maria 22 years old from Russia try school uniform. They meet with high school girls from BLEA high school to get some help for make over!

BLEA high school is different from ordinary high school. It’s like a career college, rather than high school. Students learn how to make up, decorate nails, or design hair. Rika, a Swedish girl found Gyaru with big eyes and overloaded hair online, wanted to be the one, and came to Japan. She goes to Japanese language school while she works at a Izakaya, or Japanese style pub, to earn money to buy cute clothing. She has a homestay at a friend’s house to save money.

Maria from Russia came to Japan because she was a big fan of X-Japan. She used to like Visual-kei fashion but now she wants to be kawaii Gyaru type of girl.

Did you know that Thailand is also famous for school uniform?
It’s been over 5 years since Scawaii magazine is published in Thailand,
and is arranged to Thai version with Thai Dokumo.

“We’ve been attracted to Japanese school uniform. That’s why we studied its design and made our costume like Japanese one.”
says Neko Jump, Thai pop idol unit.

There is a school in Bangkok that is well-known for its cute school uniform. It just looks like Japanese sailor-style school uniform!!
“We changed our school uniform lately, because we thought it’d attract more students if our school uniform is something like the one in Japanese anime. It’s modern and international.” according to the principal of the school. In fact, since they modified their school uniform, the number of students has increased as many as 8 times more than before!

University students in Thailand also enjoy erokawa (erotic + kawaii) school uniform. They keep beautiful legs to fit in a mini skirt.

Shizuka Fujioka, a fashion leader of school uniform as well as a charismatic sales girl at CONOMI who was nominated as a member of “Kawaii Ambassador” by the Foreign Ministry in Japan was dispatched on a mission to Thailand.
(You can purchase Japanese kawaii school uniforms from the banner below.)

She joined the school uniform contest as a judge, where IYA-chan was selected as a winner. IYA-chan likes character, deco, Hime-kei fashion, and buys various Japanese fashion magazines from Japan. “If I just copy Japanese style, that’s too much in our country. So I kinda arrange it with a bit of Thai taste, such as tropical way…you know. But we cannot get deco parts as easily as in Japan, I break my earrings to get some decorations to my nails.” says IYA-chan.

Back in Japan Shinjuku Marui One, there is a store that sells school uniform looking outfit. We’d call it “Visual-kei Seifuku” (=school uniform) which shares 30% of whole items in the store.

One of the well-known mail order companies in Japan named “cecile” works on Yuutousei Seifuku, meaning A-student school uniform, which is especially targeted to schools with strict school rules and understandings from the moms. They publish a school uniform catalog “CUPOP”. The important successful factors are;
-Low price, from top to bottom only under 10,000 yen (USD100).
-Moms or teachers would like it, too.

The point is kids select from catalog, but mom is the one who pays for it. It’s very important to gain understandings from their paretnts! That’s why the length of skirt is a big problem. Kids want 35cm, while parents prefer 45cm, how can they bridge this gap?

Back to the make over project, we can see how a Swedish girl and a Russian girl are changed. Japanese high schook students make good use of 100 yen shop. They buy accessories or fake eyelashes at 100 yen shop. In average, 1,1540 yen is the money they can spend per month for fashion.

Kobayashi-san, a charismatic stylist who leads school uniform fashion, is the one who invented deco-mori school bag. (overloaded decoration on school bag) She gives some arranges to Rika-chan and Maria-chan. Their shoot was on egg magazine!

According to the chief editor of egg magazine, parents would agree to buy school uniforms because they are safer compared with casual sexy outfit.

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Kirin’s opinion:
I remember one of the reasons I chose my high school was the cuteness of school uniform! But at that time school uniform was not as fashionable as today. I’d love to make some arrangements to it if I were a school girl now. I could go get the fake school uniform, but I’m too old to pretend a school girl any more! LOL!!
Oh how much I miss those days….But since I started to work, I really really hate company uniforms. I don’t know why but no matter how cute they are, I’d never choose the company to work for if they ask me to wear the company uniform. I want to decide what to put on by myself as I’m a decent aged adult, although many Japanese women think it is easier to be dressed with company uniform because they don’t have to spend extra time in the morning to worry about what to put on. That sounds true… :p
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