Japan’s ‘secret pleasure’: luxury lingerie

Press, 1 February 1986, Page 14

Japan’s ‘secret pleasure’: luxury lingerie

By

Seiichi Kanise

of

Agence France Presse in Tokyo

Keiko Yamaguchi, a 26-year-old office ~ clerk, casually steps " into \ a boutique in Tokyo’s ■ fashionable Aoyama district, makes her selection and giggles: “It’s a secret pleasure.” Her purchase, priced at about $2lO or one-eighth of her monthly salary, is not a showy piece of designer clothing but a pair of ladies knickers. Mr Yamaguchi is one of a growing number of Japanese women leading Japan’s luxury lingerie revolution. ’ i " . In what the trade calls a “high-class underwear boom,” the volume of sales' inwomen’s lingerie have dropped by 1.2 per cent in five years. •; • But the value of under- . wear sold yearly has . soared by 11.6 per cent to $1333 million a spokes- ; man for the Nihon Body Fashion association (N.8.F.) says. These burgeoning profits are closely linked to the Increasing popularity of high-priced quality underwear. The group is 145 Japanese women’s underwear makers, and related companies. Under Japan’s traditional Confucian morals, women’s underwear was thought of as something meant to hide the contours of the female body.

But all that is changing with Japan’s ever more Westernised, post-war lifestyle.

‘.'Today, it’s a medium for women to express their personality with ele-

>< garice,”/ said Kito. lejima,;/ . chief H tidn coiin-;.' ■ try’s /leading ■ manufec-; § turerof lingerie. Japanese women used to ' prefer their lingerie made of thick, stiff material. In recent years they have begun seeking underwear that is supple, soft to the touch, and revealing, he added. “Many Japanese women no longer purchase their underwear at supermarkets. Instead, they turn to fashionable boutiques and expensive stores which deal in quality products,” Mslejiiriasaid, . . / / Supermarkets sell' three i pairs of'domestic-made. , panties forabout $39, arid' . a slip for about'.s37. „• - A store: In, the -popular / Ginza " shopping; district, ;. offers "slips .priced! at/$765 each -Mthe: Cost fdu'ri/i day/ holidayj to the /Pacific! island of .Guam, or about' 53! evenings out at, the movies. The customers are mostly women in their 40s but some men come in and take home a giftwrapped slip, said Seiichiro Kitamura, manager of the up-market Wako department store’s women’s wear division. “Young men make their purchases casually while middle-aged/ men/ tend to be hesitant.” . , More and ' more

boutiques along Tokyo’s trendy streets ' have started to sell the hichpriced underwear in a bld to cash in on the trend and new stores specialising in imported founda-

•:/“Thecustomers at my /./•'store v in }'a ’ wide'rahjje'of ages from / 605,” sa}d Yasukd/Kbike who manages ai’boutique in downtown. Aoyama. “About; half of them are working women and the rest housewives,” she added. .; At the Shocking ■ Blue lingerie boutique in residential Daikanyama, the shoppers are different st ’ > Six out of 10 customers on average '/are/ men alone, two are' lobe ; 'womenandtheremaining :two areAa cduplepisaid the U inariagbri /Tokifumi'/Miya--7' zaki, * ; -/At .this istore, -handling . mainlMtaliainjbrGducts,/a *-fblacfc?;t^h!Seils;-'fpT-. l -$2OO > and.a'slip costs $383. t,. ( male :.who.< have' wives',’! said Ms-Miyazaki,