TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111389/11138900.077

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 5.3 KB | 106 lines

                                                                                LIVING, Page 106

American Casual Seizes Japan


Teenagers go for N.F.L. hats, Batman and the California look

By Barry Hillenbrand/TOKYO


    It's Sunday afternoon, and thousands of Japanese teenagers
jam the narrow streets of Tokyo's Harajuku district. They are
in search of a life-style that can be bought, often dearly, in
the dozens of stores crammed into the crowded area. Along
Takeshita-dori, a narrow street in the heart of the district,
are shops with curious names -- Octopus Army, Short Kiss, Good
Day House -- that offer a variety of identities. There are
button-down collars and plaid pants for the preppie look, floral
prints and batiks for the Third World ethnic look, tennis and
soccer equipment for the ultra-fit look. One store sells nothing
but Batman gear for the Caped Crusader look.

    For many Japanese teenagers, a look often has to suffice
for a life-style. Japan may be a wealthy nation, but its young
people remain restricted. The demands of a high-pressure
educational system allow little time for relaxation and leave
few opportunities to make a drastic change in life-style: to
spend a summer at the beach or hours learning hang gliding.

    Instead, the youngsters move from fad to fad, called bumu
(Japanese for boom). Last year it was retro bumu, which
elevated the bulky, prosperous look of the 1950s to a new art
form. Italian casual, inspired by Benetton, had its moment. So
did leather jackets and vests for the Hell's Angels mode. And
the prim little-girl look with button-up sweaters.

    The more diversity of styles, the better. Still, when the
youngsters get confused or the designers founder, the style
that always seems to endure and prosper is Amekaji, as the kids
call American casual. Says Tomohiro Ando, sales manager of
Octopus Army: "American design remains the base. Amekaji is
always such a comfortable and functional look." The labels of
Octopus Army shirts thoughtfully proclaim those virtues in the
fractured English beloved by Japanese teens: "Best in the field
of Spangled Stars, Americanized as hell as well as originality."
Exactly how that translates is not important; it's the feeling
and verve that convince the eager buyer.

    In recent years, American designers and manufacturers have
rushed to cash in on Amekaji. Designers like Ralph Lauren
prospered during the upscale preppie fad, or toraddo-bumu, but
interest in the traditional look has recently faltered -- though
it will never die out because of the Japanese partiality for
neat and tailored clothes. Interest in American sportswear is
strong, and the California influence is evident everywhere. Last
summer many teens were captivated by the surfer look, with
shirts and shorts in neon lime and fluorescent orange. The
University of California, Los Angeles, through its own licensees
in Japan, sells annually some $16 million worth of T shirts,
warm-up suits and jackets, all bold with the authentic UCLA
logo.

    Oshman's, a Houston-based sporting-goods chain, has a shop
in Harajuku that sells everything from $320 Eddie Bauer jackets
to Hawaiian surfboards at $785 each. Only about 30% of Oshman's
goods are made in the U.S., but the feeling in the store is as
relentlessly American as Beach Boys music and suntan lotion.

    Bold signs direct customers to the "surfin" department, and
the company motto, also in English, is pure yuppie: "We make
sure you're a winner." Says Isao Iwase, managing director of
Oshman's in Tokyo: "The comfortable American life-style is being
more widely accepted these days." With fall in the air, American
baseball gear has given way to N.F.L. hats and jackets.

    It's not difficult to understand why things American are
close to the center of young Japanese dreams. "America is
equated with freedom, openness, wide spaces," says Hikaru
Hayashi, senior research director of Hakuhodo Institute of Life
& Living, a research arm of one of Japan's largest advertising
companies. "Sharing in America can release Japanese teenagers
from the restraints they live with every day. Through fashion,
they can capture a bit of the life-style they can never hope to
live."

    Today's teenagers, says Hayashi, are especially prone to
America fixation because they are children of Japan's postwar
baby-boom generation. "The parents of today's teenagers," says
Hayashi, "grew up in a more internationalized, more open Japan.
They sang Beatles songs and dressed in Ivy League fashion. They
have passed those ideas on to their kids." Little wonder that
some favor the retro boom, based on a fascination with the
1950s, while others are enchanted with the 1960s. Vests and
jeans, the preferred accoutrements of the '60s, are making a
comeback. A funky boutique called the Chicago Thrift Shop not
only offers Levi's jeans in both 501 and 505 models but also
carries them used and tattered for that slightly disheveled look
now back in favor.

    Some kids have learned the lesson of American free thinking
and independence all too well, and that may eventually spell
trouble for Amekaji. "I like the casual look," admits Hikok
Asano, 19, but he quickly adds, "I really don't want to wear too
much Amekaji. Everybody who wears Amekaji looks the same." In
short, the ultimate way to look American may be not to look
American at all.