Ametora

Men’s Wear, Sports Illustrated, the French magazine Adam, JC Penney and Sears Roebuck catalogs, and the ads in The New Yorker.

Hozumi secretly wrote the accompanying text, proclaiming the group to be “seven Ivy samurai.”

Toshiyuki Kurosu in gakuran school uniform (left) and first suit jacket (right). (Courtesy of Toshiyuki Kurosu)

Ishizu joined the editorial team, and the quarterly publication Otoko no Fukushoku (“Men’s Clothing”) debuted in late 1954. The magazine offered fashion photography and articles, but the editorial tone was pure instruction—a textbook introduction to semi-formal wear, business wear, sportswear, and golf wear. Ishizu and the other writers gave practi

Kensuke Ishizu in Ōsaka during the early years of VAN Jacket, 1954. (Courtesy of the Ishizu family)

Ishizu Shōten

Japanese youth tuned into Armed Forces Radio Service to hear jazz and American pop, and local language covers of standards like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” became hit songs. Newspapers syndicated the comic “Blondie,” giving Japanese readers a window into the material comforts of American middle-class suburban life.

In this fashion vacuum of garment shortages and rationing, the first group in Japan to adopt Western style were the Pan Pan Girls—streetwalking prostitutes who catered to American soldiers. As writer Kōsuke Mabuchi described, “The Pan Pan Girls were the de facto fashion leaders of the immediate postwar.” Pan Pan Girls wore brightly colored American

As part of this mobo ethos, Ishizu rejected the utilitarian gakuran school uniform and instead ordered a three-piece suit in brown-green tweed—at the cost of half a professor’s monthly salary.