Balancing Style with Cultural Expectations

Stephanie Appleby
Sep 2, 2018 · 5 min read

Back in August, I moved to Southern Japan. And I find that I am struggling with balancing my sense of style with cultural expectations, for a number of reasons.

Now, when people hear I was moving/have moved to Japan, they get really excited and ask me if I’m excited about the fashion in Japan. Because it is often portrayed as being original and unique.

That’s true and it’s not.

Harajuku does not represent all of Japan. It is a very unique, but isolated area. And the people that dress up to go to Harajuku don’t necessarily dress that way 7 days a week.

Even outside of Harajuku there is some great fashion. I love the mix of professional and cute. I love wide legged pants and plaid shirt dresses. There’s a lot of great things to be found.

However, Southern Japan has different expectations and norms than the big cities.

I live in a reasonably sized city (600,000). And although the southern island where I live was one of the first to open its doors to Western ideas and innovations, there hasn’t been a lot of immigration, or even tourism — I have yet to see a person of African, India, or even South Asian descent here.

A lot of that cultural (i.e. fashion) influence present in Tokyo and other major cities isn’t here. So, the city is a little bit more traditional when it comes to fashion. And I’ll get into that in just a bit.

The other thing is that I work as an Assistant Language Teacher, so I work for the government. And the expectations of a government worker are higher, and they expect that the image you portray at work is the same as when you’re not working.

For example, back in Canada, I could have my 9–5 job, dress a certain way, and on the weekends I could don my gothic attire. And that’d be okay. I could also bring aspects of my goth style into my 9–5 fashion because chances are my work dress code would be fairly lax.

While the city has a reasonably sized population, it is still small in many ways. Chances are someone I work with will see me on the weekends or a student will. And by Monday morning the whole staff room will know where I was and what I was doing.

What are some of the expectations?

While I have yet to start working directly in the schools a lot of what I’ll be wearing is dressier pants, knee-length skirts, shirts with collars, or at least higher necklines. Makeup is expected to be minimal/natural looking and I have to take my industrial piercing out.

Whether at work or everyday attire no one shows their shoulders. Regardless of how hot it is, and it’s really hot. You can wear short shorts, but your shoulders better be covered.

I see a handful of exceptions to this, but most of the time, if they have a sleeveless top, it’s high necked. Or they have shoulder and 6 inches of upper arm exposed and then sleeves down to their wrists.

On occasion, I do go to the corner store with a tank top on because it was what I was wearing in the house. And that’s a lot of hassle just to buy a drink or snack from the convenience store (which I could literally hit with a rock from my apartment).

And I get stares in general because I’m foreign, but I do feel like I get longer looks when I have my shoulders out.

Because I’m foreign, on some level, there is that “oh, it’s okay because they're a foreigner.” They seem to accept that I may go by a different cultural standard but they’re still judging on some levels.

And normally I’m okay with that. When I’m in Canada or visiting France or the UK I want to challenge norms. I want to be able to express myself and also challenge people’s expectations and assumptions about beauty.

When I was visiting Tokyo I wasn’t concerned about how people perceived me. However, here because I’m also a teacher, I’m not just visiting, I feel I must be conscious to some extent about how people perceive me.

I’m already an outsider because of my ethnicity. I want people to accept me and be comfortable with me and one way to do that is to find that space where you fit into their cultural norms.

Now I will say the one thing that I have not retracted (?) are my arm tattoos. It is normal for women to wear sleeves to protect their arms from UV rays, so it would not look out of the ordinary for me to wear them as well. However, unless I am in the schools teaching I do not make a conscious effort to cover them. And I might get a second glance, but that’s it.

Two other factors have affected my ability to fit my style into cultural norms.

The first being that I’ve only brought maybe 15–20% of my wardrobe with me. Short of paying a lot of money to have my clothes shipped, there was no way I was going to be able to bring everything. And so choices had to be made about what was packed. Unfortunately a lot of what I wear that I feel reflects my sense of self was left behind. When I'm going to be spending the majority of my time in the school I need to prioritize that wardrobe.

The second being budget. Moving is obviously not a cheap endeavour and I have to buy all new things for the apartment — that’s where my budget priority lies at the moment.

I’ve bought some clothes since I’ve been here, but most are for work so I’m not wearing the same three shirts every week. And they’re also not necessarily something I would have chosen if I was still simply working as a writer/editor.

I found a great striped skirt that I would/will wear on a regular basis. But I’ve also bought blouses that are a size bigger than I’d normally wear and pastel pants (I couldn’t even tell you the last time I wore something that light).

I anticipate over time, I’ll have opportunities to buy clothes that are more my style. And even evolve my work clothes into something that feels a little more me.

I will have to really, because right now, I don’t always like what I see in the mirror. It doesn’t feel right. And for me, fashion is always about wearing what makes you feel like the best version of yourself. What makes you feel alive and confident.

I have to find my way back to the place where I feel excited to get dressed every day.

Stephanie Appleby

Written by

I am a writer, editor, martial artist, teacher, student, yogi, fashionista, feminist. And believe my titles do not define me, they celebrate me.

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