In the scrum | Rugby World Cup: grit meets glamour as even uber-stylish Ginza pitches in for the cause
- Rugby fans people are particularly easy to spot wandering through the most exclusive and fashionable area of Japan
Ginza is crisp, fashionable, classy and elitist. Of course it’s affluent, but it does not outwardly reek of wealth or ostentatiousness like a Knightsbridge or a Beverly Hills. Because it’s the style capital of Japan, Ginza is inherently refined.
Rugby is not so refined, at least not in the wardrobe department. Rugby people dress like they like to drink beer. There is no such thing as a clothes that clash bash for rugby people, everything clashes. But that is OK because rugby is where the rubber meets the road with nary a whiff of artifice.
On the surface at least, it would seem that Ginza and rugby would not have much in common. However, they have been peacefully coexisting and sharing space smack dab in the middle of the largest city on the planet during the Rugby World Cup.
After the epic Wales-Australia tilt this past Sunday, Ginza was surrounded as fans spilled out of the fan zone next door in the Yurakucho area as well as the pubs in the nearby Nihonbashi area.
You did not have to be a trained surveillance expert to pick the rugby fans out of the Ginza crowd either. “Yeah, I suppose all these lumbering and large fans in oversized rugby shirts with rather large beer bellies would stand out in stylish Ginza,” said Steve Terry, a long time Hong Kong resident and rugby aficionado who has been getting his fill of action up in Japan. “But rugby is just dressing in your traditional team colours, that is the primary thing. And rugby fans, whether at a match or in a bar, I don’t think it matters at all making a fashion statement. On the contrary, I think it’s a point of honour that people don’t really care what they look like to be honest.