What are they wearing, and what does that mean for me?

Mindful of the ongoing heat, the well dressed business man is wearing his dark suit and white shirt, but with no tie and an open collar.  More men are wearing short sleeved shirts, with or without a tie, and no jacket.

There is a serious energy shortage -- all but a couple of the nuclear  plants are turned off, and those remaining ones are going to be turned off in September for inspection.  The high cost of imported fuel is cancelling out the impact of the favorable exchange rate on exports.  So the air conditioning levels have been kept quite warm.  The implication might be that layers are not needed indoors or out.

What are the women wearing?  They are wearing layers, apparently for protection from the sun, and sometimes for modesty with short skirts or skimpy tops.  The leggings come in white, black, and black/white patterned, and in lengths from above the knee to full length.

Women often have a sweater or long sleeved cotton or linen shirt to protect their arms from the sun.  Sometimes a cotton scarf keeps the sun off the back of the neck.  Women also wear sleeve protectors (like I wore to keep warm running) in various lengths to keep off the sun.  Sometimes this takes the form of full length gloves, or fingerless elbow length gloves. 

For the head, many women are wearing a hat, and carrying a UV umbrella for portable shade.

And the styles vary, from eclectic mixes of prints, stripes and patterns to tailored clothes that seems to come right from Eileen Fisher.  Colors are muted: as a friend once described the fashions in New York, squirrel colors -- black, tan, grey.

I have looked for models of what professional women my age are wearing.  But, there are almost no professional women my age.......

Some days I feel defiant and wear a bright print skirt with an orange top.  In one shop I overheard them saying my print/orange outfit was cute!  Not my usual category.  Or I might wear a bright blue top or scarf with my wonderful going-away bright blue earrings.  Other days I am as muted as the Japanese.  I have been coveting, and so shopped.

I picked out a couple of things to try on, and was invited into a try-on-booth.  Immediately I was corrected for stepping onto the round rug in the middle of the booth with my shoes.  And I was asked to use the face cover when trying on -- presumably so that I would not get my makeup (?) all over the clothes.  The face cover was lightweight non-woven fabric more or less shaped like a bag.

I now have some of the proper accessories -- lightweight hat, grey cotton scarf, 100% cotton long sleeved shirt in off white, lightweight dark blue sweater, and UV umbrella with lace around the edge.  I will seek out more sun protection, even though I put sunscreen on my face and arms every morning.