Japanese Boomers are starting to get stylish

A week ago I was asked a question in the UK: “Does Japan exhibit generational characteristics”. A quick search on Google and this blog will indicate that the answer is YES. Especially when talking about Gen Xers and Millennial kids. However, there has often been a question mark about the Boomers – born post World War II and into the 1950s and 60s. That generation of Japanese workers still seems to have been ingrained with the work culture of the grey-business-suit, system-will-provide, company-for-life mentality that has served Japan so well and made it a dominant world force.

Fortuituously, I ran across a report in the New Zealand Herald that talked of this Japanese Boom Generation. You see, just like their global contemporaries, they are facing retirement soon. And, there is more than a sniff of a chance that the system will NOT provide after all. They’ve also had nearly two decades now of realising that their companies are NOT going to keep them for life. And just like all people in their 50s, their thoughts are shifting to “what is my legacy?”. All of these factors, and more, are causing classic Boomer behaviours to manifest – even in Japan.

Read the report about “Stylish granddads rewrite dress rules” here.

A brief summary:

Japan’s legions of monochrome-suited salarymen – the ageing foot soldiers who underpinned the country’s economic success and bore the brunt of its decline – are raising their sartorial sights.

Fashion sales are soaring as about 3.5 million men from the postwar population boom spend in anticipation of receiving 25 trillion ($335 billion) in pensions after they turn 60.

Retailers are vying to part seven million men and women born in 1947 to 1949 from their nest eggs. As well as being in line for 50 trillion ($670 billion) in pensions, they hold 11 per cent of Japan’s 1.5 trillion ($20.1 billion) in individual assets

“The postwar generation is very rich,” said Yasuyuki Sasaki, a retail analyst at Lehman Brothers Japan. “They are probably the first generation in Japan who have a chance to become leaders of the fashion world.”

As the first Japanese leader to talk about his wave of permed hair, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is also doing his bit to get older men spending.

Koizumi led the government’s campaign last year to raise office temperatures in summer. He urged workers to relax their suit-and-tie uniform and adopted the “cool biz” look by wearing open-necked shirts at parliamentary committee meetings.

“Koizumi became a fashion icon after the cool biz campaign,” said Fumio Iwadate, 50, a general manager at Takashimaya’s menswear department. “Salarymen followed suit.”

Yes, even in Japan the Boomers change the world!

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