Japan is a nation of reinterpretation. It’s a country with a long-standing fascination for taking traditional items, objects, and concepts and reimagining them in a distinctly Japanese manner – one that places function at the forefront and meticulous attention to detail close behind. There’s a national knack for spotting something made overseas and finding ways to improve it, often through minimalist refinement. Everything touched by Japanese hands somehow ends up looking, tasting, and feeling better.
Nowhere is this more prominent than in the realm of fashion, specifically, the enduring Japanese obsession with classic Americana style. Or, to give it its proper name, Ametora – a portmanteau of “American traditional” – which has not only reshaped Japanese fashion but also influenced global perceptions of Americana.
When you first think of Japanese Americana, your mind will instantly jump to exciting brands, retailers and publications, but the country’s initial foray with American clothing came long before anyone was reading Popeye or wearing Kapital…
This article and its contents have been directly influenced by the fantastic book ‘Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style’ by W. David Marx – the book charts the full history on Japan’s relationship with Americana and is available to be purchased here.
1920s – MOBOs & MOGAs
Japan’s initial encounter with Western fabric came in the 1920s – a time when traditional art and aesthetics were beginning to merge with European life and culture. The result was a bubbling era of Japanese modernism and the creation of Asian Art Deco architecture, paintings, prints, design and fashion. Spearheading this cultural shift were two groups, the MOBOs & MOGAs, or simply Modern Boys and Modern Girls.
These groups symbolised a seismic shift in youth culture, rejecting rigid traditions and embracing style as rebellion. They filled cafés and dance halls in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe, dressed in garments inspired by Western trends. MOGAs adopted dropped waists, shorter hemlines, and bobbed hair – all scandalous by Japanese standards. MOBOs ditched kimonos for suits, fedoras, and wide-legged trousers. It was unadulterated counterculture, something Japan had never been confronted with before.
But this wave of modernism was short-lived. WWII brought a return to conservative politics and traditional values. Japan, once again, reverted to its most serious self.
1940s – Post-war influence
Japan’s surrender to the Allied forces in 1945 would leave America right on their doorstep, but not in the way the MOBOs & MOGAs could have ever envisaged. U.S. troops occupied the streets of all of Japan’s major cities, maintaining a somewhat amicable relationship with the locals, with reports of soldiers helping and playing with children in the street.
The positive relationship led the soldiers to introduce locals to Western imports – khaki trousers, linen shirts, baseball caps and, importantly, American culture and fashion magazines. It was an exciting new world of function, fabric and colour, and a small subset of Japanese aficionados started to develop around the fascination with the new U.S. commodities.
A scramble amongst this niche ensued, and right at the front of it was a man called Kensuke Ishizu, a soldier who had served in WWII, and was now working as a menswear designer for his own retail company, Ishizu Shōten (Ishizu Store)
Deeply inspired by the glimpses of Americana he’d witnessed through befriended U.S. soldiers, Ishizu was determined to make his store the focal point for the wave, and chose to focus on classic Americana garments such as cotton flannel work shirts and indigo work pants, all produced under a faux American brand called Kentucky.
Ishizu Shōten became popular with a tiny niche of discerning Japanese citizens, but the market was too small. Ishizu was far too early of an adopter and noticed the majority of his income derived from the sale of high-end sports jackets for wealthy suburban families. He subsequently rebranded the company to VAN Jacket, to focus on the garments.
1950s – The birth of Ivy
There was an issue, though. It was taboo for Japanese men to be at all interested in fashion. Before Ishizu could sell any of his products, he had to educate his neighbours. To do so, he became the face of a new menswear magazine titled Otoko no Fukushoku. The magazine debuted in 1954 and was designed to function as a textbook for semi-formal and business wear, but Ishizu had other ideas. He used it as a vehicle to inform young Japanese men about VAN products and his intrigue with Western collegiate style he had seen from U.S. fashion magazines, which was now coined ‘Ivy.’
Still, despite his best efforts, Ishizu was struggling to shift product. VAN was not designed for, or affordable enough for, the niche student crowd who read Otoko no Fukushoku. So, in search of true Ivy enlightenment, in 1959, Ishizu headed for the West.
Immediately upon arriving in the U.S.A., he headed on a tour of all the country’s prestigious universities, and it was Princeton where he found the fabled version of Ivy style he had been dreaming of. Students effortlessly wearing neckties, chino pants, wool sweaters and flannel blazers. It was everything Ishizu had wanted the Japanese youth to imitate, and when he arrived home, he set to work designing an ‘Ivy model’ suit, modelled on the Brooks Brother’s famed Number One Sack Suit.
After slowly developing VAN & Ivy awareness through Otoko no Fukushoku (now named ‘Men’s Club‘) Ishizu unveiled the brand’s first complete Ivy line in 1962. But once again, the colourful blend of blazers and chinos was not well received, particularly by retailers who refused to stock it for fear it was too niche.
1960s – Take Ivy
In Spring 1963, Ishizu would connect with another Ivy fanatic and Men’s Club writer – Toshiyuki Kurosu. The two would both spend hours writing & speaking of Ivy style, and Kurosu would go on to create a column titled ‘Ivy Leaguers on the Street‘, which was supplemented with images he had taken on the streets of Ginza of those that were adopting the new look.
These editorial efforts, alongside a hugely influential photobook detailing American students wearing Ivy League style titled ‘Take Ivy‘ by photographer Teruyoshi Hayashida, resulted in the popularisation of the style in Japan.
Soon, the streets of Ginza were flooded with individuals wearing a Japanese interpretation of American prep, and one brand everyone wanted, was VAN.
Throughout the 1960s and 70s, the groundwork that Ishizu, VAN and Kurusou laid was starting to snowball.
American Ivy Leaguers had switched from sweater vests and chinos to torn denim & T-shirts. Civil rights movements, the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis had conjured up an air of counterculture in the U.S., and it was directly assimilated on the streets of Japan. Young men were beginning to reject the work-first lifestyle and began adopting a more casual one, and it manifested through a certain fabric…
Denim.
Denim represented everything about America that Japan loved – it was the symbol for freedom, for rebels, for those who did as they pleased, and went about it in a way that didn’t please others. Wearing a pair of jeans was a statement of counter-culture, and it quickly became translated into Japanese. The blue legwear flooded the streets of Japan, covering the country’s youth like a great denim wave off Kanagawa.
1970s – The birth of POPEYE
Japan in the ’70s was moving faster than it ever had. Stylistically, more had been said in the last ten years than it had the previous fifty. It was a melting pot of music, fashion and print, and one of the most important publications of all would spread its wings in 1976 – POPEYE Magazine.
POPEYE, now a cult magazine even among those who can’t read it, was originally founded when two editors, Yoshihisa Kinameri & Jirō Ishikawa, were working on two American-inspired publications titled ‘Ski Life‘ & ‘Made in U.S.A.’ The two publications were so well received by the new Americana-obsessed population that their publisher, Heibon, made them an offer to produce their own magazine…
The pair leapt at the chance and were convinced that the next big thing in Japan was to be West Coast culture. So, they grabbed the first flight to L.A. to study first-hand the Californian surf & skate culture.
Ishikawa wanted to name the new magazine ‘City Boys‘, a popular term associated with Japan’s new urban youth, but Kinimeri wanted ‘POPEYE’, inspired by the American cartoon character, but also because it meant having an ‘eye’ on ‘pop.’ So, it was settled, the magazine would be called ‘POPEYE – Magazine for City Boys’
The magazine functioned differently from those at the time, opting to show hundreds of products across its pages with corresponding prices and retailers. Opening an issue of POPEYE was a portal to a world of the latest Japanese-American style; it was a manual for getting whatever City Boy look you wanted, and it spread like wildfire on the streets of Tokyo.
1980s – Japanese streetwear
By the late ’80s, Japan had transitioned from one of the most stylistically uniform countries to one of the most stylistically diverse. Each day, people were trying new things and reinterpreting Western trends as their own, but it was POPEYE’s fascination with West Coast Culture combined with a certain individual, Hiroshi Fujiwara, that held the key to Japan’s next style evolution.
Fujiwara was one of the main heads in Tokyo’s music & design scene at the time and by all accounts, potentially one of Japan’s first influencers. People looked to him for anything fashion and music-related, a status that would earn him the title of ‘best dressed‘ at an underground party called ‘London Nite‘ and as a token of recognition, he received a free trip to London to meet Vivienne Westwood & her partner Malcolm McLaren.
Fujiwara’s time in London was hugely influential, largely thanks to his introduction to New York hip-hop by McLaren. He returned to Tokyo with a crate of records and a mission to spread the addictive sound among the city’s youth.
For the same reasons they had fallen in love with Ivy League & denim, Japan fell in love with hip-hop. It was against the grain and unapologetically American. Japanese rap groups began to surface, and one of them was Fujiwara’s seminal group, ‘Tinnie Pax’.
The new hip-hop scene would bring together creatives in a new way, with names such as Jun “Jonio” Takahashi and Nigo attending Fujiwara’s famed hip-hop nights at Tokyo’s nightclubs. Turned on by the loose-fitting, relaxed garb donned by Wu-Tang Clan, Run DMC & De La Soul, Fujiwara & co. found themselves competing against one another to acquire the latest American streetwear labels, predominantly Stussy.
This new infatuation would segue to the first Japanese streetwear brands, with Nigo creating A Bathing Ape, Takahashi and Undercover & Fujiwara’s Good Enough. The designs were bold – you’ve only got to look towards A Bathing Ape’s catalogue of loud camouflage jackets and neon Bapestas to understand that Japanese streetwear was here to be heard.
1990s – Americana reproduction
By the 1990s, the foundations laid by VAN, Men’s Club, and POPEYE had evolved into something far bolder. Good Enough, Undercover, and A Bathing Ape were not just brands; they were cultural catalysts. Each represented a new era of Japanese streetwear that would define global fashion for decades to come. Fujiwara’s Good Enough introduced the notion of limited drops. Nigo’s A Bathing Ape commercialised streetwear with spectacle camo patterns and cartoon graphics. Takahashi’s Undercover blurred the lines between punk, fashion, and conceptual art, bridging Harajuku and Paris.
The brands became blueprints – not only for how to build streetwear labels but how to root them in subculture and elevate them into cultural institutions. Their success opened doors for countless others: WTAPS, Neighborhood, Visvim, White Mountaineering, and more. They proved that Japan wasn’t just part of the global fashion conversation – it was leading it.
And while one thread of Ametora led toward futuristic silhouettes and streetwise rebellion, another doubled down on reverence for the past. Brands like The Real McCoy’s, Buzz Rickson’s, and Freewheelers operate with near-obsessive historical accuracy, reproducing military garments, denim, and workwear with a level of craftsmanship that often surpasses the originals. At the other end of the spectrum sits Kapital – a brand that manages to honour tradition while blending it into something artful, unexpected, and unmistakably Japanese.
Together, these opposing but interconnected forces form the full picture of Ametora. On one side – reproduction & preservation; on the other, innovation and disruption. Both are rooted in an enduring admiration for Americana.
In the world of Ametora, America may have provided the raw material, but Japan reshaped it, refined it, and ultimately redefined it. From Ivy to indigo, prep to punk, camo to cut-and-sew – the story of Ametora is proof that style, when filtered through a lens of precision, passion, and cultural sensitivity, can transcend its origins. In doing so, it becomes something greater: a language not of imitation, but of transformation.
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