'Modern girls': Japan's first recognizable youth culture movement

The period of relative prosperity that Japan enjoyed in the mid- to late 1920s gave rise to the country’s first recognizable youth culture.

However, this new cultural phenomenon wasn’t spearheaded by young men in Japan at that time. Instead, “modern girls” (modan gāru, or moga for short) were the talk of the town, sauntering down the streets of Tokyo in neat bob cuts and wearing chic dresses and heeled shoes.

These women were Japan’s equivalent of flappers in the United States or garconnes in France, abandoning traditional kimonos and conservative societal values to embrace Western fashion and lifestyle.

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The 1920s also marked the growth of a small but significant group of urban Japanese who eventually formed a new middle class. This new set of bourgeoisie were a collective of university-educated, salaried employees of corporations and government ministries and their families.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2021/12/06/lifestyle/japan-modern-girls/