Published in · 6 min read · Mar 3, 2021
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“Lemon Sea Salt”, “Raspberry Black Tea”, “Mint Candy”, “Dusk”, “Unicorn”. Could you ever imagine these names are all for different plaid skirts? In China, such plaid skirts with matched blouses and ties are known as JK uniforms. JK is the abbreviation of the Japanese word “Joshi Koukousei”, which means Japanese female high school students. These Japanese female high school uniforms have become increasingly popular in recent years. According to Erech, in 2019, the number of transactions of JK uniforms on Taobao, a Chinese online shopping platform, has increased by 3.5 times compared with the year before, and during the Spring Festival of 2020, “the cumulative sales of JK uniforms exceeded 500 million yuan”. The success of JK uniforms in China is due to the popularity of Japanese anime and the rapid development of domestic e-commerce. While the commercialization of JK uniforms has made it more popular among the public, such commercialization process has completely deviated from its original meaning.
The history of JK uniforms can be traced back to the Meiji era when Japan started to have more contact with Western countries. During this time, the military-style naval uniforms arose, and were later influenced by the Catholic uniform style and adopted plaid skirts and blazers with high socks. In Japan, high schools require students to wear uniforms, and this rule is considered a way to cultivate a sense of uniformity. Wearing uniforms according to the standard means obeying the rules of the community you belong to. However, the JK uniform was also regarded as a symbol of rebellion, since students would make changes to their uniforms to show their disagreement with school regulations. For example, during the 1970s, Sukeban, which means delinquent girls, lengthened their skirt to the ankle to protest against school rules. Since Japanese people usually do not wear school uniforms outside their school, JK uniforms became a unique symbol of female high school students and were widely used in many campus-theme Japanese animations.
The popularity of Japanese animation in China plays an important role in bringing JK uniforms to the public view. Themes about high school life appear frequently in Japanese animations. Some of these animations like Your Name and Kaguya-sama: Love Is War depict beautiful love story, and animations like Kyō Kara Ore Wa!! (From Today, It’s My Turn!!) talks about the delinquent culture in Japan. These high school stories are extremely appealing among young Chinese people because of the restrictions they have been through during their high school. In China, most high schools start at 7:00 am and close at 10:00 pm. Usually, there are eight 40-minute classes a day with ten-minute breaks between, and students must stay at school for additional mandatory self-study classes at night. Students in most schools are required to wear school uniforms that have a fat loose sportswear design, and there is a specific restriction for girls that they are not allowed to wear skirts or pants above their knee. Being in a relationship is strictly prohibited by school rules. In Hengshui High School, one of the best high schools in China, school rules forbidden “irregular contact” between boys and girls, which includes having lunch together on the same table, sending gifts or messages to each other, and etc. In my high school, students being in a relationship can be suspended for one month if their relationship is detected by teachers, and sometimes the punishment will be printed on paper and posted on a bulletin board. These strict rules are normal among many Chinese high schools and are oppressing Chinese teenagers until they go to college or work.
Under such strict restrictions, some Chinese youth have developed a longing for school life that was depicted in campus-theme Japanese animations. JK uniforms as the most prominent feature in these animations has gained popularity among Chinese youth. Since most schools do not allow students to wear JK uniforms at school, high school JK girls can only wear them during weekends or vacations. However, unlike in Japan, JK uniforms are not only wore by high school students in China. Instead, they are also wore by women in their 20s or even 30s. But for all of them, JK uniforms have the same meaning. Wearing JK uniforms is as if they are brought to the world in the anime, where they can express their love to whom they love at the pure age and rebel against the restrictions like the protagonists in From Today, It’s My Turn!!. The close relationship between people’s love for JK uniforms and Japanese animations is also evident in the advertisem*nt of JK uniform stores. Take the advertisem*nt video of the JK uniform named “The Misty Sea” as an example. The video was shot on the subway that was built beyond the sea in Xiamen, a coastal city in China. The subway will pass a place that is considered to have the same scene in Spirited Away, a Japanese famous animated film. In the ads, the piece of fabric that shows the grid of the skirt was put on a book with a picture of a girl in a sailor suit JK. The video was shot in a way as if the viewer is sitting on the running subway and viewing the beautiful scene from the window. Many advertisem*nt videos are shot like this one, which relates JK uniforms to Japanese animations and things that can bring happiness to our life.
Originally, JK uniform is common to see in Comic Cons, and it is often compared with Hanfu, the traditional clothing of Han people, and Lolita, another dressing fashion that originates from Japan. However, since JK uniform seems more normal to wear in daily life, it has gotten out of the ACG (Animations, Comics, Games) circle and accepted by people who do not watch Japanese animations. JK uniforms, indeed, have become extremely popular among Chinese people, especially young Chinese ladies, and gain a huge profit in the market. Data shows that there are over 90,000 stores on Taobao that sell JK uniforms as part of their products. However, as a commodity, JK uniform has also been involved in the wave of consumerism that caused its deviation from the original meaning.
Unlike common cloth stores that directly sell clothes to consumers, JK uniform stores collect advance payment from their customers. When paying the advance payment, customers can only see a piece of fabric displaying the color and grid of the plaid skirts. After the advance payment, there is usually months of waiting for the customer to get their uniforms. Moreover, JK stores selling genuine versions of JK uniforms always sell a limited amount of JK uniforms or sell them during a limited period of time. This special selling model creates a sense of scarcity and encourages consumption, because no one knows when will the store sell the same genuine skirt again.
In the article written by Tan Jun, she says that “The spread of cultural symbols of JK uniforms by Chinese social media can be said to be a display of goods under a kind of consumer culture.” Indeed, most posts on social media now aim to strengthen the consumption motivation of JK uniform lovers. The original low-key colors of high school uniforms have changed to light pink, orange, or green. The skirts that consumers can receive within one week after purchase requires months of waiting after such commercialization process. The original longing for a better school life developed into the desire for collection. Under the trend promoted by consumerism, JK uniform has completely deviated from its original meaning. The original meaning of longing for a better school life is undermined by the consumption trend brought by the social media.
Is it still heading in a right direction? I think we cannot merely blame the consumption trend for the deviation it brings, because it, at the same time, provides us a way for a subculture to integrate in mainstream aesthetics. However, we still need to be cautious about the loss in the original meaning, since without the love for the original cultural context, the popularity of JK uniforms culture will only become the victim of the trend and cannot last long.
