With five years to go before he retires, Sakae Tajima has taken to shopping for Ermenegildo Zegna blazers and Issey Miyake T-shirts. He's among Japan's growing band of choiwaru oyaji, or "middle-aged men who are a bit bad."

"I used to wear suits when I was young," said Tajima, 55, a Tokyo magazine publisher and event planner, who spends about US$3,500 (HK$27,300) every few months to get the latest styles. "Now I like to look unique and different."

Japan's legions of monochrome- suited salarymen - the aging foot soldiers who underpinned the country's economic success and bore the brunt of its decline - are raising their sartorial sights. Fashion sales are soaring as about 3.5 million men from the postwar population boom spend in anticipation of receiving 25 trillion yen (HK$1.67 trillion) in pensions after they turn 60.

At Takashimaya, Daimaru and Isetan, three of Japan's four largest department-store chains, menswear sales climbed 5.5 percent on average last fiscal year. By comparison, total revenue increased 1.7 percent.

"The concept of choiwaru oyaji is all about men's desire to look attractive," said Ichiro Kishida, 55, an editor who coined the phrase in 2001 to introduce Leon, a magazine aimed at older men. "Before, Japanese men were too shy to look fashionable."

As a marketing tool, the term is working. Sales of male skin-care products at Shiseido, the largest cosmetics maker, rose 40 percent in 2005 from 2004, said Tokyo-based spokesman Shigesato Kobayashi.

The fashion phenomenon also is fueled by an economic recovery, and the government urging men to lighten up on formal work attire to help prune summer air-conditioning bills.

"Magazines these days are using the term choiwaru oyaji to describe an older guy who has something sexy about him," said Saburo Makino, a fashion industry worker in the capital, who wore tight black jeans, a chest-baring white shirt and gold jewelry, and declined to give his age. "I like that idea."

Retailers are vying to part seven million men and women born in 1947 to 1949 from their nest eggs. In addition to 50 trillion yen in pensions, they hold 11 percent of Japan's 1,506 trillion yen in individual assets, according to CLSA, an Asian unit of Credit Agricole.

"The postwar generation is basically very rich," said Yasuyuki Sasaki, a retail analyst at Lehman Brothers Japan in Tokyo. "They are probably the first generation in Japan who have a chance to become leaders of the fashion world."

As the first Japanese leader to talk about his wave of permed hair, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also is doing his bit to get older men spending.

Koizumi, 63, in June 2005 led the government's campaign to raise office temperatures in summer. He urged workers to relax their suit-and-tie uniform, and took to modeling the so- called cool biz look with open-necked shirts at parliamentary committee meetings.

"Koizumi became a fashion icon after the cool biz campaign," said Fumio Iwadate, 50, a general manager at Takashimaya's menswear department. "Salarymen followed suit."

The new styles are achieving the desired effect. "Older men are becoming sexier," said Keiko Yamamoto, 34, spokeswoman for Fast Retailing, Japan's largest maker of casual clothing.

Akira Asayama said he doesn't describe himself as a salaryman anymore. He visits Isetan's designer menswear store every 10 days, spending as much as 600,000 yen a year on everything from Calvin Klein underwear to Cerruti suits.

"Dressing up is to cheer myself up and make myself feel free," said Asayama, 59, who develops new outlets for Clover, a craft materials and tools company in Tokyo.

Profit at Isetan's menswear store in Tokyo has risen an average of 10 percent each year since it opened in September 2003, said Tetsuya Konnai, the general manager.

"Wives or girlfriends used to drag their husbands or boyfriends to shop," said Konnai, 47. "Now, male customers come by themselves."

Japan's economic recovery is helping liberate salarymen, said Kazutaka Wakui, an analyst at T&D Asset Management in Tokyo. Men's clothing needs, which had been relegated to the bottom of household budget lists, are staging a comeback, he said.

The economy grew at an annual 3.1 percent pace in the first quarter, buoyed by the second biggest increase in corporate spending since 1990. Wages rose for a fifth month in June, the longest streak since 1997. Compensation, including overtime and bonuses, gained 1 percent to 474,541 yen from a year earlier.

Sociologist Masahiro Yamada said vanity plays a part, too. An increase in women in the workplace is shaming men into casting aside their blue or gray suits, he said.

"The typical salaryman outfit is tacky: It lacks individuality and is a careless style," said Yamada, 48.

Minoru Miyashita, 55, said he's determined to stand out from the salaryman crowd. The car salesman, clad in black slacks, white shirt and a blue Giorgio Armani tie, was driving to Omotesando, one of Tokyo's most fashionable shopping districts, in a red Ferrari Dino 246 GT.

"I want to do things a little differently," Miyashita said. "People tell me I'm a little bit bad." BLOOMBERG