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.