{"id":283808,"date":"2026-07-16T13:42:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T09:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/?p=283808"},"modified":"2026-07-16T14:46:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T10:46:30","slug":"tokyo-eases-formal-dress-codes-at-work-to-reduce-air-conditioner-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/283808\/","title":{"rendered":"Tokyo eases formal dress codes at work to reduce air conditioner use"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On a hot and humid day in Tokyo, metropolitan government official Noboru Watanabe overcame embarrassment to come to work in shorts, an unusual choice in a country where formal business attire is still the norm, Euronews<\/a> writes.<\/p>\n

The loosening of a strict dress code, particularly for men, comes as Japanese offices strive to cut reliance on air conditioning due to high energy costs linked to the Middle East war.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, as temperatures in the capital soared to around 34C, at least five brave men at Watanabe’s office swapped their suits for shorts.<\/p>\n

The 50-year-old told AFP he initially found it “embarrassing” to bare his legs in the office.<\/p>\n

“But once you wear them [shorts], you realise just how comfortable they are,” he said.<\/p>\n

The shorts initiative was announced this spring by Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, citing a “challenging outlook for electricity supply.”<\/p>\n

Last year Japan sweltered through its hottest summer since records began in 1898, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.<\/p>\n

Temperatures rising to 40C and above have become so common that the agency in April unveiled<\/a> an official designation for these extreme weather events, labelling them “cruelly hot” or “kokusho” days.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a hot and humid day in Tokyo, metropolitan government official Noboru Watanabe overcame embarrassment to come to work in shorts, an unusual choice in a country where formal business attire is still the norm, Euronews writes. The loosening of a strict dress code, particularly for men, comes as Japanese offices strive to cut reliance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":283761,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,43,47,101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","category-society","category-economy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283808"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283809,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283808\/revisions\/283809"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}