Je suis tombé sur cet article datant du mois dernier (donc pas si vieux que ça) Et je vous invite à le lire.
Oui alors je sais, c’est en anglais… Ben faites un effort, moi il est 4 heures du mat là et le dernier truc que je voudrais faire, c’est traduire ça, alors hein 
En plus c’est pas très dur à comprendre 
TOKYO -- Browsing in the trendy 109 department store here, 16-year-olds Sumie Tanaka and Saki Sanao are wearing what look like typical Japanese school uniforms: white blouses, navy-blue pleated miniskirts, knee-high socks and matching penny loafers.But the outfits aren’t the teenagers’ real school uniforms. They are uniform-like clothes that the two girls from the Tokyo suburb of Saitama have specifically picked out to wear on their shopping trip.
“Everyone is wearing uniforms,” says Ms. Tanaka. “They’re cute and easy to coordinate.”
Once seen as a symbol of conformity and oppression, the school uniform has over the past two years become ultrachic among Japanese girls. Many are wearing uniforms, or clothes that look like uniforms, on weekends and after school. Some girls wear uniforms even though their schools have no dress code. Ozakishoji Co., a uniform maker in western Japan, is seeing stronger-than-expected sales despite a shrinking population of students.
Suddenly, it’s hip to be a high-school girl. After years of riding the cutting edge of Japan’s fickle fashion waves, schoolgirls are seen as the ultimate arbiters of what’s cool, and their tastes are monitored by everyone from fashion designers to electronics companies. Schoolgirls were behind the rise of pop icons such as Hello Kitty, and were early and enthusiastic users of text messaging over cellphones. In the matter of school uniforms, they dream of staying just as they are.
“They know they’re under a spotlight,” says Yasuko Nakamura, who studies high-school students at Boom Planning Co., a marketing- consulting company. “They cherish their three years in high school and want others to know” they’re students, she says. The uniform-as-fashion trend hasn’t caught on with high-school boys, who aren’t considered trendsetters.
The uniform’s popularity may also be a sign of anxiety about growing up. Japan’s long economic slump has severely constrained career opportunities for the young, especially for women.
Eighteen-year-old Eri Ishida, a student at Chiba Keizai High School east of Tokyo, says she dreads the day she will no longer be able to put on her navy-blue miniskirt, white blouse and burgundy bow. “When I think that this is my last chance to wear a school uniform, I want to stay in school longer,” says Ms. Ishida, who plans to study fashion design after she graduates next March.
Uniforms weren’t always so cool. Decades ago, the school uniform was widely reviled as the most visible symbol of the strict control schools exercised over students. In addition to imposing inflexible dress codes, many schools forbid students to wear makeup and jewelry.
Still, the uniforms have always had some Japanese fans, who consider them an erotic symbol. Girls in uniform remain a staple of adult men’s magazines and pornographic films.
In the 1970s and 1980s, some students fought, without much effect, to shed their uniforms. Mikiko Morimoto, now 28, gained national attention in 1988 when she refused to wear a uniform to her junior high school in the western city of Takatsuki. “I thought it was important to show I had an identity of my own,” she says.
Ms. Morimoto, who now studies physics at a university in western Japan, is bewildered by the sudden popularity of uniforms. But she says there’s a big difference between being forced to wear a uniform and wearing one voluntarily. “If they’re wearing uniforms because they want to, what’s wrong with that?” she says.
Meanwhile, schools have loosened or eliminated dress codes in an effort to attract students, as Japan’s aging society has led to fewer children. Some tried to update their image by hiring famous Japanese designers to create more fashionable uniforms, with shorter skirts and colorful bows.
Tatsuo Inamasu, a sociology professor at Hosei University, says some students may be embracing the discipline associated with uniforms as backlash against the loosening of school rules. “They believe it’s cool to control themselves to a certain degree by wearing uniforms at a time when you see so much freedom,” he says.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the girls want to dress exactly alike. In fact, more girls are putting together their own unique uniform ensembles. That’s creating a black market in some sought-after uniforms. Many schoolgirls barter with their friends at other schools for skirts, scarves and blouses. Others raid the closets of older sisters or cousins.
To expand her collection, 16-year-old Mina Ozawa recently sneaked into a used-uniform sale at a friend’s school to shop for skirts and bows. Such sales aren’t officially open to outside students.
“I don’t care where it comes from, as long as it has a cute pattern or nice color,” she says.
One of the most coveted uniform designs is the traditional sailor suit, which features a dark blue skirt, a white blouse that resembles a Navy uniform, and a colored kerchief. Tokyo Jogakkan high school, where female students have worn this style for 70 years, now asks its graduating seniors to refrain from selling their uniforms to students from other schools, according to Masao Maruyama, the school’s vice principal. Tokyo Jogakkan students must also identify themselves when buying uniforms at two campus shops. The school implemented the ID check after teens from another school posed as Tokyo Jogakkan students to buy the school’s silk kerchiefs – and later sold them in an Internet auction.
The quest for uniforms baffles school administrators, who are struggling to create a curriculum that fosters greater creativity. “This trend is not good in the sense that [students] may lose some of their own personality,” says Hiroshi Oguri, the principal of Tokyo’s Shinjuku high school. His school has a designated blazer, although students don’t have to wear it. But up to 60% of them wear it on any given day.
Still, girls such as Sumie Tanaka and Saki Sanao, the pair from Saitama, say they see plenty of leeway to express their individuality through uniforms. In addition to their miniskirts and white tops, Ms. Tanaka wears a big, burgundy-colored bow that she chose herself. Ms. Sanao’s white shirt is actually her father’s old dress shirt, which gives her uniform a baggy, grunge look. The outfits, they say, are a world apart from their real school uniforms – knee-length, plaid skirt and feminine blouse – which they tucked away in their school bags during their Tokyo shopping trip.
The real school uniforms, says Sumie, “aren’t as cool.”
Miho Inada contributed to this article.
Bon allez je fais un rapide résumé:
En gros les étudiantes japonaises, surtout au lycée, sont devenues fans d’uniformes et les portent même en dehors de l’école, en ville tout ça. C’est un epu devenu comme un look à part entière, et le marché de l’uniforme, ou tout du moins des vêtements qui le composent, va très certainement exploser au japon.
Donc la tendance s’est clairement inversée: avant on avait une envie de jeter l’uniforme, d’avoir sa propre identité au lieu de celle imposée par l’école, mais maintenant on trouve ça cool et on hésite pas à en porter.
Moi je dis, je suis né dans le mauvais pays, voilà tout.
_<
(Axel, qui dirait pas non à se réincarner en lycéenne japonaise lesbienne plus tard :D)
