Japan’s jumper plan to save energy has Tokyo governor sticking her polo neck out

Yuriko Koike wants Japanese, including staff, to reduce energy use and costs by wearing a polo neck – or turtleneck – jumper to keep warm
She said keeping the neck warm can make ‘a dramatic difference’ in cold weather, preventing colds and helping to slash power consumption

Japan

Julian Ryall

Published: 10:30am, 20 Jan 2023

Why you can trust SCMP

Polo neck jumpers are back in vogue in the Japanese capital’s corridors of power after Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike called on the public to cover up and keep warm during the winter months and urged her staff to set an example.

She stuck her neck out with the fashionable initiative to encourage people to cut energy consumption as costs rise due to the Ukraine war, and help the city reduce emissions.

Metropolitan government officials are showing their solidarity with her campaign by slipping into an item of clothing – also known as the turtleneck – that became iconic decades ago. The so-called Beatnik generation and stars including actress Audrey Hepburn helped to popularise it, followed by the likes of Apple boss Steve Jobs.

Apple Inc. CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs helped to popularise the turtleneck for a new generation. Photo: EPA

The Asahi newspaper reported that “seemingly overnight, staff and senior personnel rushed to purchase turtlenecks to help drive the message home to the public and not to stand out from others by sticking to regular shirt-and-tie attire”.

Virtually every bureaucrat who attended a ceremony marking an agreement between Tokyo and the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association earlier this month was pictured conspicuously wearing a polo neck.

Koike herself wore a white one when she outlined her campaign, declaring: “keeping the neck warm makes a dramatic difference in cold weather. Colds can be prevented and it is also helpful in slashing power consumption.”

Japanese asked to save power amid shortage as plants reel from quake

Kentaro Uehara, a spokesman for the metropolitan government, said that previous energy saving campaigns – notably the “Cool Biz” initiative, which encouraged people to ditch formal ties and jackets for open-neck, short-sleeve shirts in the steamy summer months – had proved so successful that the city was seeking new ways to cut energy consumption and emissions.

“Governor Koike has been encouraging people to wear turtlenecks so they can stay warm and work comfortably,” said Uehara.

“In fact, I now see many people in my office dressing this way and I think it is making it easier for everyone to move away from formal clothing to more casual attire,” he said. “And it’s interesting that it is not only younger employees who are dressing more casually; I have seen the vice governor and director generals also wearing turtlenecks in the last few weeks.”

The late actress Audrey Hepburn often wore turtleneck jumpers. Photo: Getty Images

Uehara confessed that he “could not remember” the last time he last wore a tie to work – unthinkable just a couple of years ago.

With the success of “Cool Biz”, which has become perfectly acceptable in previously strait-laced Japanese business circles since it was first dreamed up in 2006, the polo neck trend may become a perennial winter fashion statement.

It is almost certain to survive longer than the Japan Sports Agency’s effort in the summer of 2018 to adopt “in-sneaker commuting”. The aim was to convince millions of workers to exchange their leather shoes for trainers and to get off their commuter trains one or two stops before their destination and walk the rest of the way.

10 signature work looks, from Steve Jobs to Karl Lagerfeld

The campaign to help the public get fit was not reprised the following year and has largely been forgotten since.

Not everyone is behind Governor Koike’s polo neck initiative, however. The left-leaning Asahi newspaper recently ran a commentary that said the governor’s request “made me feel as if I were a child needing to be told how to dress – and that deeply irritated me”.

“You wear what you want to wear, never mind the reason,” the apparently hot-under-the-collar writer concluded.

02:08

Tokyo residents turn off lights midday to save power under strain of city’s hottest June

Despite Governor Koike’s appeals to the public, there do not appear to be more polo neck jumpers on the streets of Tokyo than in previous years. Japan’s winter weather has so far been unseasonably warm and scarves have long been popular to keep necks warm.

Nevertheless, Emi Izawa was wearing a black turtleneck when she went to university in Yokohama, near Tokyo, on Thursday, saying that as well as keeping her warm, the high neck and dark colour served to show off her silver necklace.

Post