Yoiks!

Looks like the hot look for male fashion in Japan this year is going to be the girdle!

From the article: "Men are getting so much more fashion conscious these days that they're starting to pay attention to the lines of their body and their silhouette, just like women,"

It only goes to support my theory that the home of the Metrosexual is Japan. Seriously, guys spend just as long preening themselves as women here. You see them in packs down the main street or hanging out by the station. Baseball caps all on the same odd angle, pants barely hanging onto the hips (one of these days I'm going to dack one of these guys, I swear!), the same goofy spiky coloured hair, the same blank sneer - all emmaculately coiffured.

The salary-man is not immune either. All that working at the desk for 10+ hours a day and consuming vast amounts of calories (convenience store food for lunch and beer with fried snacks after work then going to bed after midnight) makes for an ever expanding waistline.

But for this happens means it's another triumph of mass marketing. The championing of the quick fix and the admission of defeat - that Japan has joined the ranks fo the western countries as far as diet and the expansion of the waistline is concerned. The traditional Japanese diet is fast becoming a thing of the past. You see young folk in the fast food restaurants all the time - feeding their expanding bodies. Type II Diabetes is on the rise here, as are the numbers of large-size clothing stores. The rise in number of curvy girls and men sporting frames that would've betrayed a past in sumo walking the city streets is plain to see.

The fact that these girdles are selling out means that the idea of diet and exercise haven't caught on at all. A quick fix and all is better. I'm sure that squeezing in the internal organs can't be good for the long term health either.

At least a new street sport can be added to 'toupee spotting' and 'mullet hunting'!