Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style

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Soon enough, they began to dress the artists they were inspired by, through collaborations with record labels and global brands, in turn transforming them into global brands themselves. High fashion began its comeback, and designers were able to establish new brands out of market confidence. Determined to stamp out these subversive youth, the police swarmed Ginza again the next Saturday night to pick up any stragglers. As blue jeans quickly became a staple in Japanese fashion, companies such as Lee and Wrangler began to establish importation deals with Japanese companies like Ishizu’s VAN Jacket. Most pieces from the collections have a story behind them, based on who they think might have worn a jacket like that.

These are the denim books from Blue Blooded’s list of references I consider must-reads for any denimhead. He notes in particular the fact that 'Japanese fashion' was never really a concept that existed prior to Ichizu's artificial incorporation of Ivy style into the Japanese cultural mindset. Bên cạnh các sản phẩm kể trên, Kensuke Ishizu còn tiếp tục tận dụng vị trí biên tập viên mảng thời trang Nam tại tạp chí Otoko no Fukushoku (sau này được đổi tên thành Men’s Club) đẩy mạnh các hoạt động truyền thông về các yếu tố thời trang hiện đại nói chung và phong cách Ivy nói riêng, với đỉnh điểm là chiến dịch Take Ivy cùng sự ra đời của cuốn sách ảnh cùng tên năm 1965.David Marx, tác giả của quyển Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style: “Ivy League chính là điểm khởi nguồn thật sự cho phong cách Ametora, hay nói rộng hơn là nền thời trang hiện đại hậu Thế chiến tại Nhật”. It’s stuff for the purists: painstakingly made clothes that have been in style since at least the 1950s, more often than not classic American designs reimagined and often bettered. I had the pleasure of meeting her at the Levi’s Archives in San Francisco back in 2013 where she gifted me a copy of her book about the Levi Strauss company. Others, like Visvim designer Hiroki Nakamura or former Popeye Editor-in-Chief Takahiro Kinoshita, are icons within specific niches of contemporary American menswear, too. Mặc dù chỉ chính thức trở nên phổ biến tại Nhật vào một thập kỉ sau Thế chiến thứ hai, tuy nhiên trên thực tế, phong cách Ametora đã được “thai nghén” trong xuyên suốt một đoạn lịch sử đầy biến động của đất nước này.

Today, Japan’s countless brands, publications, retailers and creatives are influencing the way American men dress. Lucky for you, we have compiled 200+ years of the most important and groundbreaking moments in Japanese menswear fashion that individually contributed to the fruition of ametora style into a crash course, if you will.A friend of mine is borrowing my copies of Ametora and Jeans at the time of publication, which is why I couldn’t photograph them myself for this blog post. Ametora không chỉ đơn thuần là một phong cách thời trang, mà còn là một bản khắc hoạ cho dòng chảy lịch sử đầy biến động của đất nước và con người Nhật Bản. In fact, fashion aficionados of the 21st century now know that you cannot possibly disentangle the geneneralised concept of 'fashion' from 'Japanese fashion', the most vibrant and diverse fashion industry in the world and home to the greatest number of men's fashion magazines per capita and a fashion-forward and hype-focused population like no other.

This interest in fashion started among youth from elite families, but spread to the masses in tandem with the country’s miraculous economic growth and explosion of mass media. Over time though, those American styles started to burrow into Japanese culture and now wearing a button-down collar on a shirt does not really say something about America. Japan wanted foreign visitors to get firsthand views of the country’s miraculous progress in reconstruction—not disobedient teens clogging up the streets.It was there that the foundations for brands like A Bathing Ape, WTAPS, Undercover, GOODENOUGH, Hysteric Glamour, Cav Empt and Head Porter were laid. Published in 2007, the book debunks some of the previously prevalent myths about the influential Californian jeans maker, including how the Bavarian immigrant, Levi Strauss, opened his wholesale dry goods warehouse on the San Francisco waterfront in 1853. Other high-end designers, like Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo, suddenly became trendy among a younger and more mainstream audience. Jeans of the Old West came out in 2010, just around the time I’d decided to start writing about denim, and it’s been very inspirational for me over the years. Similar brands are worn in both countries and the style codes are virtually the same: Suits are office-appropriate attire, T-shirts and jeans are casual, etc.