Japan at first drawn to American fashion due to amazement of how wealthy American Middle class was at first Why do you think it is that the Japanese, arguably, do American and British style better than the Americans and Brits? A strange thing has happened over the last two decades: the world has come to believe that the most “authentic” American garments are those made in Japan. From high-end denim to oxford button-downs, Japanese brands such as UNIQLO, Kamakura Shirts, Beams, and Kapital have built their global businesses by creating the highest-quality versions of classic American casual garments-a style known in Japan as ametora, or “American traditional.”

Throughout its history, Japan has always adopted foreign cultures and mixed them with local cultures to make a new hybrid. Take ramen, which in Japan is considered a Chinese dish, but everyone knows it globally as Japanese. Ametora is a bit like ramen or tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) – it’s a unique thing that Japan provides to the world based originally on foreign models but is unmistakably Japanese. A fascinating book that sheds light on the genesis of what most have come to know as modern Japanese fashion from the early years of IVY to more recent brands like UNIQLO, BAPE, and Engineered Garments. And we’re not talking about Uniqlo. The cult of Japanese menswear centres more on a nerdy, expensive strain of men’s fashion. 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. They call it Ametora. I'm not reading the entire book because I'm not that interested in fashion. I got this from the library because it is literally THE ONLY book my system had on modern Japanese culture. How is that?

Modern Rocker

James Sullivan’s book, Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon, was one of the books I hadn’t read before I began working on Blue Blooded. And, boy, was I missing out! It’s never been easier to get information. With the tap of a finger, you can find the answer to virtually any question you have. And with video becoming ever more present as it gets easier to create, learning is getting even more accessible. Additionally, Marx writes about the impact on the creation of streetwear such as BAPE and Japanese avant-garde brands such as Comme des Garcons (Junya Watanabe), Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake and others managed to evoke on the Western fashion consciousness, representing a genuine two-way communication in style. He connects this to the explosion of Harajuku as THE most dynamic fashion location in the world ... a change that happened practically overnight. Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style is a MUST for anyone with any interest in fashion, particularly Japanese fashion. 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. But it wasn't always this way, which was the central message the book tried to convey. I got the idea for Blue Blooded in February 2015 while I was on my way to our annual skiing holiday in the Italian Alps with my family. The day before we left, my mother-in-law had gifted me the Danish version of Bernhard Roetzel’s book, Gentleman, which covers everything you need to know about gentlemen’s attire. Reading it while we were cruising through Germany, I decided I wanted to write a book about denim!

Just a few short months after Ishizu’s documentation of East Coast campuses in Take Ivy, those same campuses began to transform into radical nerve centers of “cultural experimentation and anti-war demonstrations”, as Marx puts it. The students who were previously so avid about looking clean-cut and sleek with button-downs and khakis began experimenting with frayed jeans, unkempt hair, and T-shirts that featured political slogans and graphics. It was the 60s….so, self-explanatory.. But, at the same time, the Japanese youth were going through similar social changes. As a constitutional ban on war was implemented to prevent assistance to US in the Vietnam war, young men began to disobey the work-obsessed lifestyle and adopted much more casual ones, challenging any and all right-wing adults. The only flaw is, as I said, the subtitle doesn't really apply. The last chapter is about Americans looking to Japan's sense of style as a guide for how to be fashionable, and about finding old copies of Ivy Tribe and using them as a sartorial guide, but I would have preferred at least a couple chapters about it. Most of the book is historical, and I would liked a bit more of a modern focus.The idea that the Japanese adopt American styles without adopting American lifestyles. This is due to the fact that these styles are non-native to Japan. As Marx writes “By virtue of their foreign origin, any corresponding lifestyle must follow from the clothing rather than vice versa.” I actually like this idea of fashion as one component of a lifestyle, because I find that quite a few people have adopted one thing and made it their identity, which is a bit extreme (or maybe it’s ‘American’?)