And a potential Chinese ambassador for traditional style has emerged: illustrator Fei Wang, better known as Mr. Slowboy. During his time living in London, Wang fell in love with classic menswear, and his illustrations of the style have appeared in magazines such as Monocle and in advertising campaigns for Barbour, Mackintosh, Dunhill, and Drake’s.

Harajuku Cowboy

This interplay between Japanese designers and their celebrity fans has been important for taking Japanese brands to new heights—especially the relationship between the late Ghanaian American designer Virgil Abloh and A Bathing Ape founder and former creative director, Nigo®. Abloh had taken early inspiration in his career from the Harajuku

Rapper A$AP Rocky’s creative agency, AWGE, collaborated with vintage reconstruction line Needles in 2019 to offer a limited-edition version of the brand’s iconic track pants. John Mayer was once known for “dressing like an overgrown teen in rare Nikes, cargo pants, and V-neck tees” but soared to menswear-god status in his conspicuous embrace of

Justin Bieber and Timothée Chalamet—by shifting toward the cheekier side of 1980s preppy: for example, lysergic patchwork rugby shirts cut from various patterns and recreations of sweaters worn by Princess Diana.

Beyond just preserving American styles, Japanese companies have also rescued forgotten American brands. The Tokyo-based company 35Summers—which successfully brought Paris menswear store Anatomica to Japan—resuscitated the 1960s’ Wyoming cowboy-inflected down-vest label Rocky Mountain Featherbed. Topwin, a company run by Japanese men in Torrance,

“If you want a 1960s styled American suit made in the most faithful way possible, you would not go to an American tailor. Instead you would go to Japan’s Tailor Caid.” The man behind Caid, Yuhei Yamamoto, fell in love with the “clean and sharp” look of American men in early 1960s TV shows such as Bewitched.

Browsing Popeye no longer requires a trip to Kinokuniya in Manhattan but simply following the magazine’s Instagram account. And the excitement in 2010 over Take Ivy was no momentary fluke: the Japanese photobook is now considered the canonical text for the classic Ivy League look, and perhaps, the fundamental prism for understanding “American”

Japan will have to rely on its own heritage for new fashion ideas, but thankfully the country has the richest, most diverse contemporary fashion scene in the world. As Japan provides its versions of American traditional style to the globe, we now must wait to see how Japan reacts when other countries start exporting their own versions of Ametora