Office dress can be confusing when you’ve come straight out of uni and suddenly need tonot wear t-shirts and jeans. Here is a basic guide for what to wear in the office. Since I’m male, my advice will focus on that. Maybe one of the female ALTs will add her thoughts.

There are two basic rules of thumb to follow:

1. Dress up REALLY nicely the first day. You will need a suit and tie.
2. From then on, it’s up to your BOE/schools’ culture. Look at what other teachers of your sex and approximate age are wearing, and match them.

But how, then, can you possibly pack if you haven’t yet SEEN your school? Here are some more guidelines. Bear in mind that you can buy clothing here at UNIQLO (or the GAP or wherever). You can also order from online stores and either have them ship to you in Japan or have your family/friends forward them to you.

Remember when I said to look at your “closest peer teachers”? The obvious exception is P.E. teachers, who are always dressed down. You probably won’t be able to get away with this, except during the vacations (like summer!)

You’ll want to wear a suit the first day (ick) and probably on “special days”– that is, open/observations classes and formal events like graduation. Conversely, I found that when I arrived, ALL of my school’s teachers were dressed down because classes were not in session. Actually, on my first day, we had a Big Cleaning– and it kind of sucked to be in a suit doing dirty work, but I think my teachers appreciated that I was game enough to do it.

Many teachers change during the day (especially before club activities). I do not like hauling clothes around and I really don’t like changing clothes gratuitously. So I don’t do this.

For men,
I usually wear khakis and polos (solids, not patterned) on shougakkou days.

For non-shou days, a short sleeved shirt in the summer or a broadcloth, button-up oxford shirt in the winter/fall/spring. I sometimes wear a tie–but never on a day when I’m around elementary school kids. It’s dangerous!

I the winter, I throw a sweater over the shirt, collar out English style). I justify this because I teach in unheated classrooms. And, honestly, the other teachers wear coats and things as well. The sweater thing has the added sneaky benefit of making ironing unnecessary, which makes my mornings happier.

You don’t have to spend a crazy amount on your work wardrobe. With the exception of the suit, everything I wear to work comes from either UNIQLO or Old Navy.

Shoes are a funny thing here. Your workhorse “outside” shoes need to be the kind that slip off and on. I have some brown ones that have a little elastic on the sides so they are easy to slip off and on. And slip them off and on you will. I think I must change shoes about 6 times a day–so the easy on/off thing is of utmost importance.

Inside your school, you will wear sandals or slippers. The most important thing here is that they never have been worn outside. Outside shoes and Inside Shoes are delimited in certain (but oddly, not all) places in Japan (read: schools). I see a lot of shower shoe style here. It’s really bizarre to see men in suits wearing these super casual sandals, but whatever. I wear birkenstock knockoffs. Note that the slippers are what you will actuallybe wearing throughout the day. Also note that they are not worn barefooted (pantyhose is okay for ladies). So thongs are not a good idea, unless you have toed socks.

Speaking of socks, I usually just wear white or black cotton ones. It’s not too big of a deal. But they DO need to be in good condition (no holes!) because you will sometimes be in your stocking feet when you go to special rooms like the gym or computer lab.

I have two pairs of slippers: one for my base school, and one I keep in my car for whenever I’m doing an outreach school. If you somehow forget your slippers, you will have to wear the narsty plastic ones that guests wear and they won’t fit well and they will be ugly. But probably not as ugly as the slippers your kids will be wearing as part of their uniform. Don’t worry about a second pair of slippers if you aren’t sure that you will need them: I was able to pick up my second pair here in Japan for about 9 bucks.

That’s about it. I hate wearing dressy clothes, but I think that dressing at least somewhat professionally is important if you want to be taken seriously. However, elementary schools tend to let the teachers dress more casually, and I know of JETs who wear jeans and t-shirts to elementary. It’s probably best to start out on the conservative end and gradually loosen up as you figure out what you can get away with.

Jesse