TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/111389/11138900.077

Text File | 1990-09-19 | 5KB | 95 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.