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TOKYO, JAPAN - JAPAN'S successful Cool Biz energy-saving campaign is giving rise to an unexpected consequence: Embarrassingly underdressed office workers.
The three-year-old drive by the government to get staid Japanese to leave their jackets and ties at home in the summer has been well-received, but some office-dwellers seem to be taking the advice too far.
Men are shedding undershirts, women are exposing more skin than is desirable, and both sexes are guilty of attire that is more appropriate for a day at the beach than at the office.
A 34-year-old dispatch worker at an office in Tokyo's Marunouchi business district, for example, says she is constantly troubled by her male colleague, who does not wear anything beneath his shirt.
When he perspires, his shirt will stick to his skin, making it see-through, she says.
'It's an awful feeling,' the female worker, who declined to be named, says of those moments when she glimpses more of her colleague than she would have liked.
'Isn't this some kind of sexual harassment?' she quips.
She adds that she had confided in another male employee, who then had a word with the man in question.
But the latter was defensive.
'Before shorts and briefs were invented in Europe, shirts doubled as underwear. Wearing layers of underwear is odd,' he reportedly said.
But it cuts the other way, too, with some women having caused blushes by showing too much skin.
They wear low-rise jeans that expose their underwear when they sit or bend over. Many of them also favour camisoles, whose frills, lace or spaghetti straps make them similar to lingerie, their male colleagues say.
'Camisoles and tank tops are not suitable (for work),' says CareerRise Corp, a job agency based in Tokyo. It has this advice on its homepage: 'Skirts long enough to cover the knees are appropriate.'
Ms Chiyoko Anju, an employment and business etiquette consultant, is also critical of overly revealing outfits.
'People's first impressions are based on what a person wears,' Ms Anju says.
'Wearing clothes that expose skin or casual attire creates an image of a selfish person who's brash or showy.
'A person misses out before they know it and should realise that clothing makes a difference to their salary,' she adds.
To remind office workers of the importance of dressing right, one management consultancy, Link and Motivation Inc, has even created playing cards for young workers.
One of the cards warns: 'Low-slung trousers (hanketsu in Japanese) will be judged as illegal (also hanketsu).'
Japanese office workers beware: The fashion police could be sitting in the next cubicle.
YOMIURI SHIMBUN/ ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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