Japanese men show off their underwear on the streets of 1990s Harajuku
While we tend to concern ourselves chiefly on these digital pages with the goings-on of the Japanese female, we are not blind to the charms and amusements of her male counterpart.
Indeed, we take delight in a real gem like this.
Recently discovered and shared in a series of photos on Twitter by Joshua Hunt, the now-defunct street fashion magazine Relax did a spread on “men who love their underwear” inside an issue in 1997.
The article title translates roughly as: “Street Corner Underwear Attack in Harajuku: Guys So Proud of Their Underwear That They Can Show People.”
Ah, the cheeky 1990s. Back when posing in your underwear in the middle of Harajuku was a perfectly acceptable practice.
As Hunt wrote when he posted the images, this “captures a very particular fashion trend with a mixture of joy and seriousness that I’ve rarely encountered elsewhere.”
The profiled Japanese gentlemen are shown with their brightly colored boxers on full display — sometimes jeans pulled down to their knees — and smiling in glee as the camera snaps away at their bizarre appearance. And all in public, folks.
Well, at least they weren’t wearing their briefs on their faces like another Japanese man we know.
We may have to include this as an entry or footnote in our brief history of public streaking in Japan.
