A morning that still belongs to the old season

The morning is still a little cold.

The wind has a sharp edge to it, and when you step into the shade, the previous season still seems to remain there.

And yet, inside the train, someone is already wearing short sleeves.

Next to a person in a coat, another person stands in a light shirt.

No one is wrong

Neither of them seems wrong.

The person in the coat is not mistaken. The person in the light shirt is not too early.

But somehow, they do not seem to be standing in exactly the same season.

By midday, that small sense of difference begins to spread.

Someone carries a jacket over one arm. Someone chooses a thinner fabric. Someone has already stopped dressing for the cold, even though the cold has not entirely disappeared.

Changing before it becomes necessary

In Japan, clothes do not always change after they become necessary.

Often, they begin to change before that.

There is no single clear signal. It is not only the weather forecast. It is not only the temperature. It is not even something that everyone says aloud.

Still, people begin to move.

The change does not happen all at once. One person moves first. Then another. The shift gathers quietly, little by little.

By the time you notice it, the city has already begun to stand in the next season.

If you're curious how Japanese expresses this kind of “moving before it becomes necessary,” you might find it in the way the language works.
→ Read: "-te oku" — Doing Before It Becomes Necessary

Koromogae, and what comes before it

There is a Japanese word, koromogae, often translated as the seasonal changing of clothes.

But the feeling behind it is not only about replacing one set of clothes with another.

It is also about sensing that the body should begin to move before the weather fully changes.

The season may not have arrived completely. The air may still hesitate. The morning may still feel cold.

And yet, the clothing begins to face forward.

Standing slightly ahead of time

Changing clothes while it is still cold is not simply a practical act.

It is not only preparation for warmer days. It is a quiet way of placing oneself slightly ahead of the present.

The weather changes later.

The body moves first.

Perhaps this is why the shift feels so natural in Japan. The season is not treated as something that suddenly arrives from outside. It is something people begin to receive before it fully appears.

Nothing dramatic happens.

A coat disappears from a shoulder. A shirt becomes lighter. A color becomes softer. A fabric becomes thinner.

And then, almost without announcement, the city has already changed.

Before the weather changes, clothes have already begun to do so.

May Series: Why Japanese Move Before the Season Changes

• 5/4 Why Japanese Move Before the Season Changes
• 5/7 Why Clothes Change Before the Weather Does (this article)
• 5/11 Why Windows Open Before the Air Changes
• 5/14 Why Everyone Moves at the Same Time — Before Anything Happens
• 5/18 Why the Rain Is Prepared For Before It Exists
• 5/22 Why Distance Changes Before the Moment Arrives
• 5/27 Living Ahead of Time — How Japan Moves with the Invisible

This May series follows the quiet ways Japan moves before change becomes visible.