On December 16, 1932, shortly before the Shirokiya Department Store in Tokyo opened for its Christmas sale, an electrical spark from a light bulb on a decorated Christmas tree ignited highly flammable celluloid toys in the toy department. The eight-story building's open staircase acted as both an oxygen channel and a chimney, carrying flames and smoke upward through floors four to eight. Fire ladders and hoses could not reach the fifth floor, leaving employees and shoppers trapped above the blaze. Saleswomen climbed toward the roof, jumped into nets held by firefighters, or improvised ropes from clothing and curtains; approximately 80 people reportedly descended in this way, while others lost their grip and fell. The disaster killed 14 people and injured 67.
The fire became attached to one of fashion history's most persistent legends: that kimono-clad saleswomen, traditionally said not to wear Western-style underwear, refused to leap into safety nets because they feared being seen from below, and consequently died rather than expose themselves. The story was repeated in Japanese and European accounts and was later presented as a catalyst for Japanese women adopting panties or other short undergarments beneath the kimono. However, there is no substantiating evidence that modesty caused the deaths or that the department-store management imposed such a rule afterward. Shoichi Inoue of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies argued that the tale was fabricated or embellished for Western audiences; contemporary accounts indicate that many people were rescued by firefighters. The verified catastrophe therefore produced a striking piece of fashion folklore, but not a demonstrable underwear revolution.
