Cool Japanese school girl outfits

Japanese school girl outfits are very cool! Here's what you need to know about Japanese school girl outfits, and where you can buy some of the cool and fashionable clothing and accessories that Japanese schoolgirls wear.

Japanese school girls love their school uniforms, and they normally wear them after school as well as at weekends. Wearing a school uniform to go shopping is almost mandatory in Japan it would seem. In my various trips to Japan I've seen plenty of school girls browsing in Hello Kitty stores and Tokyu Hands when they should have been studying in school!

In Japan it's also common to see schoolgirls on trains and buses. School girls can often face a long commute to and from school. Commuting time is usually used to catch up on home work or to sleep. In Japan sleeping on trains is very common!

Japanese school uniforms are often designed around a nautical theme. I'm not sure how the sailor suit thing arose, but it's very kawaii (that's Japanese for cute)! They also make great school uniform inspired cosplay outfits.

Japanese school girls often wear plaid skirts in a variety of patterns. Tartan patterns are very popular. Needless to say, girls like their skirts to be very short! Sometimes this gets them in trouble with their teachers, and all sorts of tough rules and regulations about skirt wearing have to be introduced.

Below is a great selection of fashionable plaid skirts that are great for creating a great Japanese school girl inspired outfit. Wear with opaque tights to preserve modesty!

The Japanese are big sock wearers. I think this is related to the ancient Chinese belief that it's dangerous to let the feet get cold, as the body's vital energy can easily be lost through the feet.

There are three popular styles of socks in Japan. Knee length socks sit just below the knee, and seem to be an essential part of most Japanese official school uniforms.

Long knee socks or over the knee socks (popularly known as thigh highs in the USA) are also quite common.

Finally leg warmers are popular, especially with older school girls. School uniform leg warmers are normally white, and are worn very loose. Legwarmers are sometimes called loose socks. Loose socks were immensely popular with Japanese school girls in the 1990's. I guess their popularity arose after the 1980's fitness craze started largely by Jane Fonda and movies like Flashdance.

Trends come and go - but the latest Japanese trend for school bags is size! School bags must be big! I don't know what girls carry around in such big bags, perhaps they get a lot of homework?

Schoolbags tend to be quite plain. One really great way of accessorising a school bag is to attach a really big plushie to the bag! Again, the bigger the better! It's not unusual to see enormous plush teddy bears attached to these bags.

All Japanese teenagers have a mobile phone. In fact Japanese girls probably invented the whole texting thing, which actually started off with the their discovery of instant messaging using pagers back in the 1980's. A Japanese school girl will normally accessorise her phone. Common mobile phone accessories include a whole range of mobile phone strap attachments and plushies. Sometimes a plushie is bigger than the phone itself. I suspect attaching such big plushies to a mobile phone strap makes it much easier to locate the phone in the school girl's massive school bag.

TokyoToys is a great store to visit if you want to find cool Japanese keyrings, plushies and other accessories. If you're lucky enough to visit Japan then head for Shibuya and Harajuku.

I'd like to point out that Japanese society is pretty complex for us Westerners to work out. Very often all is not what it seems in Japan. Take schoolgirls for example. A lot of Japanese school girls you see in Japan aren't actually school girls, and they're not even wearing proper uniforms. How is that possible? Well there are actually clothing stores in Japan that sell fake school uniforms, i.e. clothing that looks exactly like Japanese school girl outfits, but isn't actually an official uniform of any school in Japan. So working out if a school girl is a school girl or just dressed exactly like a school girl is pretty tough to work out.

Are you confused? You should be! Here's some more wacky stuff from Japan, and some great Domo Kun merchandise!

Love Japanese fashion? Here's some more photographs and inspiration for gothic themed Harajuku outfits, more cute girls, and photos of Japanese sock culture.