DAY 128 | What clothing hands over on Coming of Age Day
toi o matou | Wearing questions
Retail is an act of expression that delivers sensibility.
A daily record of handing over uncertainty.
Today is Coming of Age Day.
It is also the day when coming-of-age ceremonies are held across the country.
The legal age of adulthood has been lowered to 18.
Along with this, many municipalities have changed the name from "Coming of Age Ceremony" to things like "Gathering of Twenty-Year-Olds."
However, in many regions, ceremonies are still held for 20-year-olds as they always have been.
Even if the system changes, the scenery has hardly changed at all.
For the past 18 years, every year around this time, there are always young customers who come looking for jackets or pants for their coming-of-age ceremony.
A slightly nervous expression.
Standing in front of the mirror next to their parents.
A jacket with a distinct design, or perhaps a basic set-up?
Each of those choices is packed with a "milestone."
Coming of Age Day is a day when you can be the protagonist.
At the same time, it is also a day to be conscious of gratitude for having been raised this far.
18 or 20 years that could not have been lived by one's own will alone.
While choosing clothes, they gradually realize the weight of that time.
From now on, the law will also treat them as "adults."
As freedom increases, so does responsibility.
The situations where they must take responsibility for the results of their choices will certainly increase.
That is precisely why the attire for this day has meaning.
It is not just about "looking good," but clothing that "changes the way you stand."
I have seen many young people put their arms into COMME des GARCONS jackets.
They are by no means easy or gentle clothes to understand.
But I believe they are clothes that provide an opportunity to face oneself.
In front of the mirror, their backs straighten just a little.
Their expressions change ever so slightly.
I have witnessed that change many times.
What clothing can do is not change one's life.
However, it can prepare one's posture for standing at the entrance of life.
The job of retail does not end with handing over a product.
It is also an act of sending them off while quietly imagining their "future."
Today, while standing in the shop, I was thinking about such things.
I hope that by wearing these clothes, they will play an active role as members of society in their respective places.
It is okay to be lost.
It is okay to fail.
I want them to stand on their own feet, choose with their own words, and move forward.
Coming of Age Day is a day to be celebrated, and at the same time, a day to be entrusted with something.
Today's question is this.
"What am I handing over at someone's milestone?"
It might be clothing.
It might be words.
It might be the atmosphere that gives them a push.
Again today, while thinking about such things, I am standing in the shop.
Coming of Age Day.
A day when the future quietly begins to move.