When it comes to the start of the financial year and the annual intake of fresh graduates, around town can be seen many a fresh-faced youth in a “freshers suit”, as they are called in Japan. Thus, this recent report by japan.internet.com regarding a survey from goo Research into purchasing suits decided to focus on the fresher suit.
Demographics
Between the 12th and 14th of March 2013 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.7% of the sample were male, 13.7% in their teens, 15.5% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 17.2% in their forties, 14.8% in their fifties, and 17.3% aged sixty or older.
Rather than a pie chart today, here’s two television advertisements for a suits store. Which do you prefer?
Last year I translated an interesting survey on kimono, so as perhaps a followup, DIMSDRIVE Research recently took a look at the other Japanese national dress, the suit.
Demographics
Between the 22nd and 31st of August 2007 6,366 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.9% of the sample was female, 1.0% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 35.8% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 6.1% aged sixty or older. In addition, 39.0% of the sample were company employees (including contract employees), 1.6% were executive or board level, 4.2% worked in the public sector, 9.2% were self-employed, 12.9% were part-time or caqsual, and 33.1% were others, which included housewives, students and retired people.
In Q7A, the “aging playboy” option is my translation of a phrase that has been in vogue recently, ちょいワル, choi waru, a shortened form of ちょい悪オヤジ, choi waru oyaji, literally “slightly bad old guy”, an aspirational phrase that is meant to appeal to the middle-aged men’s fashion and lifestyle magazine reading segment of the population. Thinking about western role models, George Cluney and Sean Connery in Italian tailored suits would perhaps be typical choi warui oyaji gaijins.
One suspects that in some of the answers in Q9, the male respondents may have been thinking more about birthday suits. Indeed, I couldn’t find images of many of them in said formal dress, so instead here’s a couple of other Japanese women in suits:
Last year I translated an interesting survey on kimono, so as perhaps a followup, DIMSDRIVE Research recently took a look at the other Japanese national dress, the suit.
Demographics
Between the 22nd and 31st of August 2007 6,366 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.9% of the sample was female, 1.0% in their teens, 15.3% in their twenties, 35.8% in their thirties, 27.6% in their forties, 14.2% in their fifties, and 6.1% aged sixty or older. In addition, 39.0% of the sample were company employees (including contract employees), 1.6% were executive or board level, 4.2% worked in the public sector, 9.2% were self-employed, 12.9% were part-time or caqsual, and 33.1% were others, which included housewives, students and retired people.
I personally hate suits, but own two; one gets dragged out for the very occasional business trip, and the other one is in reserve for funerals. Our office is casual or company uniform, but I am about the only person in the office who wears a shirt (open-necked) on a daily basis, which is perhaps a bit odd.
For the purposes of this survey, a suit was defined as a matching jacket and trousers or skirt. Read the rest of this entry »
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