The Dos and Don'ts of What to Wear in Japan in the Summer

Tokyo Weekender

17 hours ago

Japan in July and August (and even into September) feels like a sauna. Daytime highs hover in the mid-30s and humidity is brutal. Dressing for such intense heat is always a bit of a challenge, but for tourists and transplants it raises an additional quandary: How much skin is OK to show?
Here's how to stay cool while respecting social cues and ignoring unwanted attention, with tips that locals use to stay crisp and composed even on sweltering days.
List of Contents:
Sun Protection
Revealing Clothing in Japan: How Much Skin is Too Much?
Body Hair and Grooming
Dressing for Cultural and Sacred Spaces
Bottom Line
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Sun Protection
While southern Europe answers the sun with bare shoulders, Japan fights back with technology. UV avoidance is practically civic duty, bound up with two motives: an old aesthetic ideal that equates pale skin with refinement, and a modern fear of skin cancer.
Arm covers, neck gaiters, UPF hoodies and parasols are everywhere. Sun umbrellas are a great way to avoid sunburn and stay cool, and carrying one won't get you any weird looks — a 2025 survey found that nearly
65 percen
t of men have recently seen other men carrying a sun umbrella. Style blogs list dark-colored accessories as the most effective at blocking rays, and Uniqlo's UV-cut line sells out each summer.
Revealing Clothing in Japan: How Much Skin is Too Much?
When it comes to showing skin, legs are the least controversial body part you can display. Tokyo has treated the miniskirt as ambient decor since the late 1990s, so most people tend not to bat an eye when faced with one.
Cleavage and midriff, however, are a different story. Some link the reaction to bowing culture, where leaning forward while baring your chest feels inadvertently intimate. Crop tops are becoming more common in youth-heavy districts like Shibuya and Harajuku, but they still turn heads in smaller cities. Bare shoulders, too, can be seen as inappropriate — most women tend to cover them even in the height of summer.
For men, the eternal question is shorts. Yes, you can wear them. But they tend to read more casual, and often more touristy, especially when paired with graphic tees or flip-flops. Tokyo locals who do wear shorts usually stick to tailored cuts that fall just above the knee, and gym shorts tend to stay in gyms.
Indoors, you'll encounter the paradox of Japanese climate control. Office towers and commuter trains often
overshoot
their own Cool Biz guidelines, chilling cars to twenty-six degrees or lower. Many seasoned commuters keep a light cardigan or shawl stashed in their bag or draped over their shoulders year-round. It may seem laughable at street level, but that extra layer is often the only thing standing between you and an unseasonal case of goosebumps.
Body Hair and Grooming
Grooming norms in Japan lean noticeably toward the hairless. The domestic laser hair removal market is projected to reach around
$126 million
by 2030, with men now the
fastest-growing
clientele. This attitude runs deep enough that the word for body hair,
mudage
, translates literally to 'unwanted hair.'
That said, times are shifting. Body hair positivity is beginning to gain traction. One major razor brand recently
announced
it would stop using the term 'unwanted hair' in its advertising. So no, no one will be handing you a razor — and no one should. But just be aware that visible body hair, especially when more of your skin is exposed in the summer, tends to stand out more here than it might elsewhere.
Dressing for Cultural and Sacred Spaces
There are no official dress codes posted at the gates of most Japanese temples and shrines — no long lists of banned items, no robed monks measuring skirt length with a ruler. But that doesn't mean there aren't expectations. What you wear to Meiji Jingu or Fushimi Inari may not get you turned away, but it will shape how you're perceived. Dressing appropriately isn't just about respecting the people around you — it's also about respecting the sacred spaces themselves. In general, it's best to keep a quiet and calibrated presence in a temple or shrine. In practice, this means keeping your shirt on, avoiding ultra-short shorts or sheer tops, and skipping anything that reads as aggressively beach-coded. Just use your judgment and be respectful.
And one final note — socks. If you visit temples with interior tatami flooring (think: Ginkakuji, Tofukuji, or any temple where you remove your shoes), your socks effectively become your shoes. It's often more practical to wear shoes that require socks instead of sandals, especially if your day includes multiple temple stops.
Bottom Line
Bottom line: Wear whatever you like. Japan isn't a fashion police state — far from it. This is a country where avant-garde designers have redefined what clothing can be, and where street style can range from minimalist to maximalist in the space of a single train car. Many locals dress with intention: to outsmart the sun, to avoid friction, to move fluidly through crowded public spaces. If you're wearing something that's atypical or unusually revealing, it's highly unlikely that anyone is going to call you out for it or treat you unpleasantly, although you're much more likely to attract looks.
Use this guide if you want to blend in a little more, to dodge heatstroke and sidelong stares. Or don't. The point isn't to conform, it's to be conscious — to understand what signals you're sending, and to send them on purpose. It's your body, your wardrobe, your call.
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