Are the Japanese slimming down?

There was a time when slimness was the absolute prerequisite for urban Japanese women, but that aesthetic went out of fashion when the health and exercise boom came in about seven years ago and the new Japanese woman became strong, robust, bursting with energy.

In stark contrast, it's the men who want to be slender, vulnerable and protected. Young males between the ages of 18 and 30 make up the slimmest segment of the population and the ideal fashion weight as decreed by the apparel industry is 57 kilograms, or about 125 pounds, for a height of 175 centimeters, or 5 feet 8 inches. Many men try to adhere to that figure and some claim they want to be even skinnier.

The trend now is for men to look like they want to be fed and/or devoured by women. One of the pioneering brands for that is Lad Musician, headed by the designer Yuichi Kuroda. Lad Musician burst onto the Tokyo fashion scene in 1995 in a glam-rock/low-slung-guitar kind of way, espousing an emaciated, tragic sexiness enhanced by clinging silhouetted tops and slim, revealing pants with no pockets and very little breathing space. Lad Musician aesthetics has grown thanks to the general weight loss among young men, and the silhouettes (especially for long-sleeved T-shirts, polo shirts and sweaters) are tighter than ever before. Young men will combine these tops with baggy jeans that are suspended 8 centimeters below the navel on terrifically flat stomachs, subconsciously channeling, perhaps, the Kate Moss look of the late 1990s. Kuroda's designs are famed for being extremely selective, shunning those who weigh more than 63 kilograms or are overly muscular.