Review | How Japan adopted, adapted and improved American fashion
There has long been a cultural flow between the United States and Japan, not least when it comes to clothing, argues author W. David Marx in his book, Ametora.
Non-fiction
Ametora by W. David Marx, Basic Books. 4.5/5 stars
The Japanese have long been excellent reverse engineers, imitating and improving everything from cars to electronics to pop music. As W. David Marx shows, they have done the same with American fashion, assimilating and making it their own. Ametora unpicks the cultural seams of “American traditional” garb, embroidering it to suit Japanese sensibilities, and in the process, shaping culture for the rest of the world.
The story begins just before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, when Japan was preparing to wow foreign visitors. Staining the city’s perfect image, however, were hundreds of teenage men hanging out in the capital’s glitzy Ginza district wearing “strange clothing”: shrunken chinos, extraneously buttoned suit jackets and John F. Kennedy haircuts.
Their Ivy League style, Marx writes, could be traced to Kensuke Ishizu, founder of an influential company called Van Jacket. Following a visit to Princeton University in the US, Ishizu returned home knowing what he wanted Japanese youth to copy. Marx examines Japanese counterculture through a parade of the different fashion tribes that have strutted their stuff in Harajuku and other voguish hot spots. He explains, for example, why blue jeans (GI pants, or “jiipan”) became desirable – and so expensive.
Nevertheless She Wore It by Ann Shen, Chronicle Books. 4/5 stars
Nevertheless She Wore It shows how clothes have been used as political statements throughout time. Opening our wardrobes, Ann Shen pulls out everyday pieces that remain popular (jeans, miniskirts). Then there are occasional items, for some of us, once worn as symbols of protest (tuxedo suits, red lipstick).