Hire your entire holiday wardrobe! Tourists can now travel luggage-free to Japan – with rented clothes ready on arrival. Our writer tests it out… and has a few trouser issues

What’s wrong with your pants? I’m in a small, closet-sized, six-seat bar in Tokyo. A fashionable, white-haired young woman stopped pouring me a drink to stare instead at my weathered ankles.

“It’s for the environment,” I explain.

‘the environment?’

‘Yes I say. “For safekeeping.”

She looks at my feet and all I can do is smile and pinpoint how and why wearing shorts that are too short for me is somehow good for the planet.

It looks like this: Japan Airlines has just launched a smart new service. Instead of taking a suitcase full of clothes with you when you visit the country, they will rent you a complete set of shirts and pants/skirts that were either purchased second-hand or from fashion outlets. You only need to take underwear and shoes.

There is a package of items waiting for you at your hotel, which you can leave to pick up upon departure. The cost is a very reasonable £34 for ten days.

There is some choice. You can choose sets of male or female, small, medium, large or XL; How many items you want; And whether they come from the Spring/Summer or Fall/Winter collections. There are clothes for children too.

Gareth says Japan Airlines’ new service “benefits the traveler who doesn’t need to carry a lot of stuff.”

Wrong pants? Gareth wearing his rented clothes in Tokyo

The service is branded as Any Wear Anywhere (Anywearanywhere. store), is useful for the traveler who does not need to transport a lot of things. The airline also significantly saves on fuel it would have spent on carrying an extra bag per person. The environment is better off too, as unused fuel is no longer converted into carbon dioxide.

At least that’s the theory. The practice seems to be that the pants do not reach the bottom.

I’m 6 feet tall and have a medium to large build, so I chose the “large” set, and it’s October, so I decided to go for the fall/winter season. Of the three pairs of pants, the first to come out of the bag were the light blue pants that I had on but didn’t reach my ankles.

I also have a pair of shiny, skin-tight silver disco-style pants that would probably split if I went dancing in them, and a pair of copper-brown trousers with a tie at the waist in peasant style that fit me, at least.

I can pair it with a long-sleeved checked shirt and it’s the only shirt that’s not so thick that I boil in 25 degree “autumn” weather. The result is that I have one complete set of clothes that I can wear without exposing my legs, splitting my seat, or fainting from the heat.

I have to say that this is not the ideal solution, even if I did, as Any Wear Anywhere calculates, 4.23kg of carbon emissions were saved during my travels.

Adding to the slight embarrassment is the fact that I was staying at The Groove Hotel, Tokyo’s newest and newest four-star hotel. As the name suggests, it’s a modern-style hotel (before checking in, I was sent an information packet about the artist who individually designed my room). And I can’t help but feel a little self-conscious in my rustic styling as I head out to dinner.

Gareth travels from Tokyo to Hakone, “a beautiful lake town (above) filled with boat trips, views of nearby Mount Fuji and plentiful hiking trails.”

But then, for the sake of research, I decided to wear three-quarter pants and headed to the ultra-trendy bars of Golden Gai, an area of ​​winding lanes in central Tokyo, where I ended up trying to explain it. All this down to the bleached blonde waitress rolling her eyes and going back to pouring the imported whiskey.

The next day, I escaped the city heat to nearby Hakone, a pretty town with a lake filled with boat trips, views of nearby Mount Fuji, and abundant hiking trails. I set off down a lane, partly because I wanted a bit of cool, refreshing air; But also because it means I won’t meet another stranger who will stare at what I’m wearing.

Oddly enough, my weird clothes make me want to hide. At least the ryokan – a traditional Japanese inn – where I was staying was set up to keep guests away from each other.

In Hakone, Gareth is staying at Kinotaki Sengokuhara (pictured), a traditional Japanese inn

In fact, Kinnotake Sengokuhara looks like a James Bond villain’s hideout – it’s all elegant, silent and dark corridors, and you actually have to call reception when you want to leave your room so they can make sure you don’t see another guest. Take the solitude to try on some other clothes – there’s a furry green Ralph Lauren T-shirt, a very tight black unbranded polo or a 70s-style brown velvet button-up shirt with quirky detailing on the shoulders. I’m spoiled for choice, really. But they all look bad. Not just bad, actually. terrible.

So back to the lumberjack shirt and peasant trousers.

As the sun sets behind the plumes of steam rising from the nearby volcano, I take stock of my new service and wardrobe. It’s a great idea, but it’s a bad outcome.