Will the 'Happi' coat make debut at APEC summit?
Will the 'Happi' coat make debut at APEC summit?
By Linda Sieg
OSAKA, Japan (Reuter): Japan, usually a stickler for formality, is allowing Asia-Pacific leaders to take off their coats and ties for the APEC summit this weekend.
They can even wear a happi coat.
"Dress will be casual, in keeping with the informality of the meeting," a Japanese official said on Tuesday.
Ministers and leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum arrive in this western Japanese city this week to thrash out a blueprint for how to scrap regional trade barriers over the next 25 years.
It is often described as an informal grouping and in the past leaders have followed this to the letter in their dress, avoiding the stiff, business-suit look usually associated with gatherings of world leaders.
The first APEC leaders' summit in 1993 set the sartorial tone for what has followed.
That year the leaders -- dressed in casual clothing -- met on chilly Blake Island off Seattle to endorse a broad vision of free trade in the dynamic Asia-Pacific region, which already accounts for half the world's population, nearly half of its trade and fully half of global economic output.
In their APEC fashion debut, some leaders looked a little awkward bereft of their usual business attire.
Japanese Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa stole the show at Seattle and won rave reviews for his casual jacket and dashing white scarf.
But despite the carefully cultivated fashion statement, Hosokawa was ousted from power less than one year later.
In 1994, APEC leaders -- this time dressed in matching batik shirts -- met in Bogor, Indonesia, where they signed a pact to free up regional trade and investment by the year 2010 for developed economies and 2020 for developing members.
The Bogor Declaration, however, did not define the goal or specify how to achieve it.
Japanese officials said there would be no attempt this year to coordinate leaders' summit-wear like in Bogor, despite some speculation that a casual kimono known as a yukata might be de rigeur.
APEC officials are having enough trouble trying to patch up serious disagreements over how to achieve free trade goals in the culturally and economically diverse region without worrying about fitting the figures of the 18 leaders.
Still, to lift the gloom, no one is ruling out the possibility that a leader or two just might turn up in a happi coat, a sort of half-kimono traditionally worn by Japanese at festivals.