Japan Fashion: Accessories

In the winter most of us are prone to wearing hats, gloves, scarves and accessories to keep us warm. Sure most Japanese people will wear scarves, almost men more so than women. But to see then wearing hats is another thing entirely. Especially in winter. Men will wear hats typically, but I feel like it is definitely not as many that would wear them in the states. The beanies, toboggans, berets are all amiss over here. Women in particular are very against wearing hats. It comes and goes with the fashion of popstars, but the recent consensus is that wearing hats, especially winter hats ( in other words NOT sun hats) makes girls faces look large.
Weird right? I don't think I have ever been concerned about my face shape in America. But I suppose it is a bit like saying 'Does this dress make my butt look big?' only instead it is 'Does this hat make my face look fat?' An excessively large number of Japanese women are concerned over the width of her face, and it is often one of the first things they will notice about a new person. I remarked upon how I thought a woman across the street was very comely and the Japanese woman next to me said her face was too big. I am sure I made something similar to one of these faces (o.O). It is super weird to hear Japanese people say anything is fat seeing as they are all so skinny and practically under the degree to which their body mass indexes are recorded for average. It is also weird for my students to tell me I have a small face. Personally, every time I hear that I am thinking about the shrunken heads from the Night Bus of Harry Potter, and get a bit concerned.
But I digress. The point is due to the attention that hats will draw to ones head, many Japanese women will avoid wearing them. Additionally hats will push their hair and any volumizing elements that wear added to it, down flat, mussing their carefully maintained hair styles, and lets be honest, to carry around all those cosmetics just to have a wear head with a hat is just a pain!
But what they might wear is a scarf. Especially if it does not mess up their locks. It is outfit accentuating and very fashionable. Summer scarves likewise seem to be a good accessory for most women. A light breezy one, or even the stewardess ones that tie around the neck. As for the hipster scarf, I swear Japanese people must have mastered the look before it reach America, with the ease that they wear them. And it is just unearthly how perfect their scarf placement looks at all time. As far as I go with scarves it looks like It found fabric and rolled in it and they assume it as a pitiable attempt at clothing oneself.
Gloves are fashionable for winter and for the gothic lolita sort, and primarily consist of a thin material, often a knit or a wool and the primary function is fashionability and not so much warmth. Mens gloves have a greater degree of variance and will be thin or think in mostly darker colors.
Also in winter, I would swear up and down that those face masks are popular, because I see no other point in donning one of those ridiculous and irritating things on. Well I suppose there is no point if you are a mouth coverer whenever you cough, but like I mentioned earlier, it seems that is against most Japanese peoples policies. Though it is really not just a winter fashion. People wear it for pollen too. It just gets to its peak of fashion popularity in the winter.

Jewelry, ah jewelry. What most people automatically jump to whenever accessories are mentioned. Jewelry here is certainly worn. And I would ever fractionally hesitate to say that it is worn more here than in America. The largest difference is rings. Japanese girls and boys do not really wear rings. If you wear them people automatically seem to think that your significant other gave it to you. No matter how it looks or on what finger you are wearing it. It seems to me that they really don't know too much about the significance of rings like Korean do; who will get couple rings to all of their long term fancies and pretend they have lasting significance as promises of marriage to one another. Japanese people do wear wedding rings, but it is more of a recent fashion and I would certainly wonder as to the percentage of married people that choose wear them. It seems to be a younger thing to do for sure. Additionally, they don't really wear them like the married couples of America. I saw a family on the train this morning where the mother was not wearing her ring and it didn't look like she had in a while and the father was definitely wearing his. But she didn't look like the type to be promiscuous or anything for those who were about to suggest...(too homely). So it seems to me that rings, even wedding rings, are an accessory that are seldom worn and not worn with the regularity and meaning that I grew up with.
Necklaces and bracelets are of course worn in plenty. And the shinier the better, or so it seems. Those hipster things with feathers or made of cloth, are not too popular in this part of the world ( though I was told that feathers were in several years back). For men, necklaces are again not too uncommon, but are much more simple. There is a significant abundance of bracelets that seem to adorn the womens (and sometimes a simple thing for interested men) arms here, but a noticeable lack of watches. Even in the men, I find that watches are noticeably less. Though not as significantly absent as with the women.
Belts are worn, but nothing too noticeably different there save for that my students seem to prefer a punkish looking belts and the girls will often get some pretty often shiny or sparkly affair. Not that they need belts. They use them to hike up their skirts.

But the major Japanese accessory, is a pocket towel. Or a handkerchief. Men will often carry them about in their back pockets, and women their purses. These guys serve for multiple purposes. Such as wiping your face from sweat on a hot summers day. I see many a man doing this all the time. I think ladies must go to the bathroom and dab at their sweatiness so as not to rub their make up all around. In the winter, when you have a cold and are in complete absence of tissues, is serves as a super secret nose wipe. Now please note, it is not really polite to do this, but I have seen them do it and know they do it. The thing is, blowing your nose is disgusting to them. They would rather see you sniveling throughout an entire day than clearing your air passages in public. It is considered gross not only to blow your nose, but also to blow it into your handkerchief, but significantly better than wiping your nose, say, on your sleeve for instance. But sometimes, things get a little desperate. So the trick is to do it unseen. Going to the bathroom (which will not always have toilet paper. Especially in public ones) or any separate, vacant room, and hiding from view in one way or another is perfectly acceptable solution to this kind of situation. And lastly, and probably most important, they use them as hand wipes. Not to wipe your dirty icky hands on. More so to use after you have washed your hands afresh and need to rid yourself of the water rivulets running down them. You got it. There is no paper towels or hand dryers in a very large amount of the bathrooms in Japan. In this manner, they can save, money on electricity, trees, and maintenance as well. And, especially at the present, Japan is all about saving some electricity.

That seat is saved...

And so is that one. And that one.

In some ways Japan has not yet left childhood. You have the comics, the anime, the pen cases, and all other manner of bright colorful objects of childhood that are quite commonplace in the adult world. But one thing I think is truly amazing, is the seat saving.
Between cafes like Starbucks or restaurants ( using the term loosely) like McDonald's, you might find yourself hard pressed to find a seat. In Japan it is natural to go and scout out the situation and reserve seating or a table by placing a personal item upon the furnishing. Marking your territory. This lets everyone else know that that seat is claimed. This personal item may be a cell phone, a handkerchief, or even a purse. The amazing thing for this is not that they save the seats as you would for a childhood friend in a cafeteria, it is that all other people respect that and will not relocate their items or worse take them. They simple recognize that someone has prior claim and will move along.
Interestingly, when visiting another country, say Korea, they might still do the same thing to save their seat; however, Koreans are not so big on doing this and will line up first, order, and seat scout later. Therefore, unless the item is very evidently a personal item, like a purse, they (the Koreans) will sit down anyways wondering who the hell left their handkerchief there. Thus making the Japanese tourist later retrieve the item from the now occupied seat and find a new one.

There is exactly one stool in this picture that is not on reserve.