The recruit suit

No early record

We found no early record of the recruit suit, and it does not need one: it is a modern dress for a modern job hunt, and its story begins in the 1970s. What we can show is how it began, told in the next layer.

From student uniform to suit

A 1971 job magazine noted students calling on firms in Tokyo’s Marunouchi in their seldom-worn student uniforms. In 1976 or 1977 a university co-op began special sales of job-hunting suits with the Isetan department store, and department stores followed the next year. By 1980 a trading-company recruiter put students still in uniform at one in ten, and a co-op survey found most suits were navy and bought new for the job hunt. Isetan sold a women’s version in 1983, and after Japan’s 1986 equal employment law women too wore dark navy.

To verify: Whether the first co-op suit sale was in 1976 or 1977: the organiser and the 1996 study give different years

Black for everyone

Today the recruit suit is plain black for men and women alike, worn to company information sessions and through shūkatsu, the student job hunt. Its strictness, with rules on hair and even on how to sit, has been criticised as sexist and as leaving no room for non-binary and transgender jobseekers. Wishlore note: this is not a charm; we show what hoping for a first job looks like.