Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style

The story of how Japan adopted and ultimately revived traditional American fashion Look closely at any typically “American” article of clothing these days and you may be surprised to see a Japanese label inside. From high-end denim to oxford button-downs Japanese designers have taken the classic American lookknown as ametora or “American traditional”and turned it into a huge business for companies like Uniqlo Kamakura Shirts Evisu and Kapital. This phenomenon is part of a long dialogue between Japanese and American fashion; in fact many of the basic items and traditions of the modern American wardrobe are alive and well today thanks to the stewardship of Japanese consumers and fashion cognoscenti who ritualized and preserved these American styles during periods when they were out of vogue in their native land. In Ametora cultural historian W. David Marx traces the Japanese assimilation of American fashion over the past hundred and fifty years showing how Japanese trendsetters and entrepreneurs mimicked adapted imported and ultimately perfected American style dramatically reshaping not only Japans culture but also our own in the process.