• Brooks Bros. Japan telling Senken that they are seeing an increase in sales. Trad = safe? BTW Black Fleece is too pricey in yen compared to $. #
• Kitson Japan makes 13.6 million yen in first day. #

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調査リポート: カジュアルウェアショップでどんなモノを購入していますか？
(Survey Report: At which casual shops are you purchasing items?)

Japanese website Business Media has posted the results of an internet survey of 13,923 people (46% male, 54% female) on which casual-wear shops they frequent. The results were:

1. Uniqlo - 87.7%
2. Mujirushi Ryohin (MUJI) - 54.2%
3. The Gap - 39.7%
4. Shimamura - 37.8%
5. Right On - 35.7%
6. Comme ça Ism - 34.8%
7. Benetton - 25.9%
8. Jeans Mate - 16.6%
9. Eddie Bauer - 12.0%
10. Zara - 7.7%

Surprisingly low number for Zara. Unsurprisingly huge number for Uniqlo.

Yahoo! Japan Fashion/繊研新聞：お兄系ブランド09年春夏　来るか？！オラオラ系　上下黒スエットでワルな男
(Oniikei Brands for SS ‘09 - Coming soon? Ora-Ora-kei - Bad Boys in Sweatsuits)

Elastic: オラオラ系が流行る？
(Will Ora-Ora-kei Come into Style?)

Ora-Ora-kei is an offshoot of the O-nii-kei “Big Brother” yankii style that has been unexpectedly popular in recent years. Ora-ora is a gruff Japanese male word/sound used — mostly by delinquents and gangsters — to intimidate others. According to fashion blogger Dale of Elastic, there is a recent phrase “ora-nyan” used to describe guys who act tough in front of their friends, but show a soft side with their ladies. “Ora-Ora-kei” fashion, however, is 100% ora gruff and tough.

In the context of Oniikei fashion, Ora-Ora-kei seems to focus more around a foreboding black palette and a baggier silhouette, with the effect of looking somewhat terrifying. The idea is not to attract girls, but just look like a badass. Senken Shimbun says, “This is the style of guys outside of Tokyo, so it has a great possibility of reaching a wide audience.” I think this is being too kind. Ora-ora-kei is basically just celebrating the clothes already worn by rural and suburban working-class delinquents, squatting in front of a convenience store near you. The days of Tokyo effetes leading national fashion trends may be numbered.

Whatever the case, 2009 promises to be another year of “wild & sexy” lads in yankii-derived clothing, but this time around, much more angry and scary-looking. As Yonehara told us, “Things get much more yankii when the economy gets bad.” So expect both an increased number of delinquent guys in Ora-Ora-kei, and also, lots of middle-class guys who think the Ora-Ora-kei look is worth imitating.

The “Trad-loving Foreigner in Japan”-blog Heavy Tweed Jacket has a great post with photos from “Take Ivy ‘82, Sports Scene” — a special feature in the February 1982 issue of Men’s Club. As part of their decades-long research on Ivy League student fashion, the Men’s Club editors flew to Brown U. and Cornell U. to do some campus pictorials, with a special focus on game day. In the early 1980s — years before the Plaza Accord and the “DC Boom” obsession with designer European and avant-garde Japanese brands — East Coast trad style was still solidly at the heart of Japanese menswear.

Of course, Men’s Club — nominally Japan’s first men’s fashion magazine — has always been keen to the more dapper, dandy side of clean educated salarymen fashion. But if you look at Popeye from 1976-1983, the content shares a focus on sporty lifestyles and the United States. Contemporary Popeye would never ever visit an American university to gather any fashion wisdom. Perhaps that’s the students’ fault for all wearing sweatpants and flip-flops to class instead of Madras shorts and pennyloafers. But more critically, the Japanese industry reinvented fashion in the mid-1980s to mean “high-end European fashion,” making Ivy and American trad look like philistine rags compared to the sophisticated cuts of Dior Homme and Comme des Garçons.

Ivy, however, remains strong in the Japanese fashion DNA. Maybe so strong that youth are still rebelling against it now.

最近、トラッド系好き日本在住外国人の「ヘビー・ツイード・ジャケット」というブログの中に、82年2月号の【メンズクラブ】、“Take Ivy ‘82、Sports Scene”特集からの写真が見られる。長年に渡る「アイビー系ファッション」の研究の一つとして、その編集者はブラウン大学とコーネル大学を訪ねて、アメフトファンのファッションなどを撮ってきた。プラザ合意やDCブーム以前の1980年代初めは、アメリカ東海岸のトラッドスタイルがまだまだ日本のメンズファッションの核だった。

もちろん【メンズクラブ】にそのアイビーの影響が特に強かったのは確かだが、その時代の【POPEYE】を見ても、アメリカとスポーティーなライフスタイルに対する憧れにそう違いはない。今の【POPEYE】が、ファッション情報を集めるためにアメリカの大学へ行くなんてことはまずあり得ない。それはアメリカの大学生のせいかもしれない。というのも、昔はマドラスチェックの短パンとローファーというスタイルで授業に出ていたのが、今ではスエットパンツとビーサンに変わってしまった。しかしもっと決定的なのは、1985年ぐらいから「ファッション」という言葉の認識が「モード」に変わった、ということだ。その結果、コム・デ・ギャルソンやディオール・オムと比べると、アイビーが俗物的なボロ服に見えてしまう。

アイビーは日本のファッションDNAに溶け込んでいるが、過去の大ブームの反動で、今の若者はそれに対立しているのかもしれない。

Aha! I knew cutting-edge Japanese fashion was secretly an instrument of conservative propaganda!

I am browsing through the February issue of Men’s Nonno, when on page 53 (above), I spot a dapper half-Japanese model clutching a book. On closer inspection, he is reading Mark Royden Winchell’s 1984 hagiography of William F. Buckley, Jr. — the recently-deceased father of modern American conservatism. Is there something more political at heart of this “denim shirt mix up” style? Perhaps a plea for less government and more personal responsibility?

I suspect coincidence in the library selection, although Buckley’s ethos surely matches with the bow-ties and cardigans so central to Japanese styling at the moment. This is certainly less incongruous, however, than when I saw a hipster girl in Harajuku years back obliviously wearing a “Rush is Right” trucker hat.

やっぱり！日本の最先端ファッションは秘密に保守主義のプロパガンダだ！

２月号の『メンズノンノ』を読んでいて、５３ページでモデルが本を抱えているところを発見。よく見ると、去年亡くなった「アメリカの現代保守主義の重鎮」ウィリアム・Ｆ・バックリーの１９８４年に出版された伝記だ。『メンズノンノ』の「デニムシャツミックス」にもっと深い政治的なメッセージがあるのだろうか。政府の規模を小さくする説教かな。

まあ、本が偶然に選ばれた理由の方が適切だと思うが、確かに最近の蝶ネクタイとカーディガンの流行は、バックリーの精神に合っている。でも、今回の場合は、何年か前の原宿お洒落キッズの女性が「Rush is Right」（ラッシュ・リンボウは正しい！）という帽子を被っているほど不調和じゃない。

While home for Christmas, I discovered a yellowed copy of The Official Preppy Handbook in the darkest recesses of our attic. Although written as a parody, both this volume and the Sloan Ranger Handbook (which we also had up in the attic, for some strange reason) work as pretty swell manuals for learning to dress like old money types in the US and UK. (Unfortunately, a lot of those heritage companies no longer produce the featured items. L.L. Bean, why hath you stopped selling Norwegian sweaters???)

Many will argue that the Preppy style is little more than a subtle visual signifier for the privileged and wealthy elite, but viewed through the new lens of recessionary 2009, a lot of their fashion tenets feel somewhat post-materialist and prudent. Preppy fashion is essentially anti-fashion: classic styles and cuts that never change, clothes chosen for durability and functionality, re-using parents and grandparents’ wardrobes. (The duck-taped Weejun is suprisingly a classic of the genre.) Fine, individual expression is not a big part of the Preppy outlook, and I understand fully well why creative types rebelled against Ivy style when that was the hegemonic oppressor. (Personally speaking, I was relieved at 14 to move out of Bass suede bucks and into Doc Martens.) But Preppies definitely get some props for showing how to permanently invest into personal style rather than pursue throw-away fads. If you must continue to emulate the rich for the next few years, Old Money is clearly the better option.

クリスマスでアメリカの実家に帰ったけど、屋根裏の暗い隅で大変に黄ばんだ『オフィシャル・プレッピー・ハンドブック』を発見！パロディーとして書かれたのに、その本も(また屋根裏に偶然に発見した）『オフィシャル・スローンレインジャー・ハンドブック』も結構いい「トラッド・スタイル」の教科書になる。（残念だけど、本に載っているキーアイテムのいくつかがもう廃止。L.L. Bean様はどうしてノルウェイ風セーターをもう売っていないのかい？）

「プレッピーはお金持ちエリートの代名詞にすぎない！」という意見は分かるけど、現在の不況という視点で再考すると、プレッピーの「スタイル信念」は以外と「ポスト消費主義」的と倹約的。プレッピー系は「アンチファッション」である：流行に乗らない伝統的なスタイルとアイテム、機能性と耐久性として選ばれた洋服、父親と祖父のお下がりを再利用。（びっくりだけど、テープで継ぎはぎされたローファーはプレッピーの定番）。まあ、「個人の表現」はプレッピーにとってあまり重要じゃないし、なんでクリエティブな人々がそのスタイル嫌いかよく分かります。（個人的に言うと、１４歳でBASS BucksからDoc Martensまでの変動でほっとした）。でも、使い捨てファッションじゃなくて、洋服に長期的に投資するという考え方では、プレッピーをほめるべき。この不況でどうしてもお金持ちに憧れている人にアドバイスがある：成金よりもアメリカン・エリートのほうがましだ。