Breakdown of Uniform Fetishism #2 – Bloomers

“Why would I only wear that sort of pants while quietly exercising? When I was an ordinary, medium sized school-girl, the gymnastics festival became a meeting of about 500 bloomer-clad bottoms, something which I now think was a madhouse.”
~by Takemiya Yuyuko – Author’s Notes on Toradora’s spin off volume 2

Bloomers, as most should had already known, are sport attires students used in Japan for physical education. They are known to be comfortable and easy to move around with, but the extremely revealing bottoms had caused wide controversy in Japan and unfortunately, bloomers were no longer in use in early 90s. However, through the power of escapism and immersion, bloomers remain an extremely strong medium in the art of anime.

The designs of bloomers from all the schools are almost coherently the same, they consists of a bland white T-shirt with slight bulky sleeves, and sports bottom; tight-fitting bottoms that exposes the thigh, allowing very free movements. It’s revealing design however, which almost look like a pair of panties, no doubt became bloomer’s eventual downfall.

One thing bloomers do, is that they managed to embody the feeling of activeness in the wearer. Bloomers symbolize assertiveness, confidence and decisiveness, so when they are worn by the more quiet and passive types, the contradiction sparks off incredible intrigue. Say for instances, if quiet and reserved characters like Yuki from Haruhi, or Kanade from Angel Beats were to wear bloomers, it will create an inconsistency which will attract a fair amount of attention from others, as opposed to characters who were already active on the get-go. In that sense, bloomers can also represent “change”, or in other words, a character’s wish to change or develop herself. In doing so, they wear bloomers, which represent boldness and frankness for their “training”. Sometimes indeed, one may find even more charm with bloomers worn by reserved and passive girls rather then the already more active, out-going ones.

Aforementioned, bloomers had became non-existent due to it’s revealing outlooks, but it’s because of it’s non-existence that it became a widespread phenomenon. I’m sure most of us had never seen a Japanese school actually using bloomers, so we could only use our imaginations. Luckily, the fact that bloomers are still such a powerful medium in anime helps manifesting our imaginations to stronger levels; it helps the men demography immensely in ‘sexualizing’ these objects known as bloomers which had somehow disappeared in our world. This might be another major reason behind the extreme obsession over them.

While bloomers no longer exist, it is still nice to see it still managed to have a solid presence worldwide, even if it’s only in the world of anime. Bloomers had an interestingly long history and it’s great to see that it’s legacy still remain strong even after all these years.

Breakdown of Uniform Fetishism:
Breakdown of Uniform Fetishism #1 – School Uniforms
Breakdown of Uniform Fetishism #2 – Bloomers

Tags: active, bloomers, frank, gym clothes, obsession, sports, tight, uniform fetishism

This entry was posted by Kai.

• August 1, 2013
• Anime, Editorials
• 12 Comments