National News

Slacks are becoming a part of the school uniforms of an increasing number of schoolgirls. (Mainichi)

Slacks are slowly becoming part of schoolgirl uniforms throughout the country, with a Sapporo junior high school's decision earlier this year to make them compulsory threatening to end the hegemony of the hem.

Slacks replaced skirts as girls' compulsory garb at the Sapporo Municipal Minamigaoka Junior High School from spring this year, although pupils will be able to wear skirts for about three months over the summer period.

School officials say the main reason for making slacks compulsory is health, and that it's common for pupils to go for what's called the Haniwa Look -- tracksuit pants worn underneath a very short skirt -- during the colder months. Head teacher Minoru Sasaki said the school decided to make a formal change.

"It was sad to see how the girls were struggling in the cold. And the Haniwa Look was ugly. We worried that the cold may affect the girls' health, so we made slacks obligatory," he says.

Opinions on the change are divided, with some praising slacks for their warmth and ease of movement, and others complaining that the trousers make them too hot.

At Niigata Prefectural Kubiki High School, slacks have been compulsory for girls between November and March since the school opened in April 2006.

"We're an area with icy sea winds and felt that if we only made slacks an option, nobody would choose it," head teacher Katsuya Kobayashi says. Initially, girls were opposed to the slacks, saying that wearing them made them look like geeks, and many would change into skirts at railway station toilets after finishing classes. Now, Kobayashi says, the school body has accepted the look.

Slacks were made an optional part of the uniform at a high school affiliated with the Showa Women's University in Tokyo's Setagaya-ku seven years ago. The schools uniforms are supplied by a British manufacturer, but only about 10 percent of students at the girls' school have elected to wear slacks instead of skirts.

"I wear trousers all the time normally and they're easier to get around in, so I don't feel weird, but everybody notices when we're outside school," Yuka Taniguchi, a third-year student at the school, says.

Second-year student Chika Takami remains part of the skirt faction.

"Slacks are easier to move around in," she says. "But there's a very strong image that schoolgirls wear skirts. And school is the only time in our lives that we can wear these uniforms."

Head teacher Keishi Aikawa said it was important to give kids a chance to choose for themselves.

UNDER THREAT? Schoolgirls wearing skirts may one day become a thing of the past. (Mainichi file)

"It's important to offer a choice," Aikawa says. "We want highly functional slacks to be an option for students."

Nobuyuki Mori, an illustrator and researcher of school uniforms, has noticed the trend toward increasing use of slacks among female students.

"As well as being used to fight crime and the cold, slacks are also being chosen by many schools looking to eliminate gender gaps," the 47-year-old expert says. "I doubt whether there will be an increase in people wearing them, though. Body shapes determine the people who'll wear slacks, and I think those who like wearing skirts will strongly resist them."

So, how far have slacks spread among Japan's schoolgirls? Shuji Hirao, a spokesman for Japan's biggest school uniform manufacturer Ozaki Shoji Co., says it's not too far... yet.

"Of about 10,000 schools that we supply, only a few dozen have slacks as part of their uniform," he says, adding that trousers started being added about five or six years ago, mainly in colder parts of the country and the Kansai area. "Still, I haven't heard of a school that has slacks in its uniform stopping the practice, so I guess it will gradually start to spread."