Last edited by Armchaired (2013-01-18 10:21:45)

Was she wearing a jumper like Leer's, by any chance?

This just isn't funny chaps!
Some poor soul being throttled because of knitwear,pointless and unnecessary.
Now those green boots 0f his i could understand and even agree.

Ditto AC, right dump. I've been in a few rough boozers in my time, seen it go off a few times. We were once in a boozer called The Griffin in Leicester (now called The Village I think) and my mate tried to get into the toilet which you had to walk down bit of a corridor to get at the back of the bar. The landlord had a rottweiler and it growled at him when he tried to get down the corridor. My mate told the doorman (who just got out of jail after being found not guilty of killing his wife) who just walked upto the dog to move it, it growled at him, he pulled a knife out and stuck it straight into the poor fuckers neck. Blood was just spewing out. Mental pub.

Thanks for the pleasant feedback guys. Regarding follow-up questions.

"do you ever see random hardcore ivyists around?  Or is it more a case of seeing people wearing the updated Brooks style?  And is Brooks Japan more traditional than the crap Brooks sells in the US/Europe?  And does ivy appear to be just for the wealthy in Japan?"

The basic Japanese male consumer has probably more choice available to him than any other bloke in the world. The Japanese equivalents of GQ magazine are actually closer to a vast Sears catalogue with each new shoe, coat etc on the market dutifully listed and displayed. The fashion could be Ivy, Italian or British style but the format is always the same. Out of this vast glut of imported menswear, (Italian menswear is by far the biggest seller) the average punter then assembles his wardrobe du jour. The menswear market in Japan has (like pretty much everywhere else) been experiencing tough times in the post-Lehman Brothers world, and Brooks despite having several big stores is doing little business out here. Their clientele is mostly late middle aged business guys interested in the "comfy" aspects of slightly formal WASP dressing. Nice people but nothing to set the Ivyist pulse racing. The Black Fleece sub-brand has its main store in Omotesando, a young fashionable area, but realistically the average punter will just be some young rich kid (relatively rare as a species out here compared to NY or London) who will buy something on a whim before heading off to Ralph Lauren down the road. Or Prada or wherever. But again business at Black Fleece is slim pickings at the moment. (I work as a brand consultant in Japan, so I have a good basic idea of the ebb and flow of retail trends out here.)

J.Press, despite being Japanese owned is sold through department store concessions in Japan. Possibly their main concession is in the Hankyu Department store (http://www.hankyu-dept.co.jp/mens-tokyo/index.html) a company that I sometimes work with. Again, an ageing middle-of-the-road clientele verging on the professorial rather than the collegiate (which is much the same whenever I visit J.Press in New York) and business is nothing special. The J.Press brand is much less developed than Brooks, and presently they are not really pushing their York Street variant out here.

There are young lads one sees about town wearing some nice purist Ivy stuff but this does not seem to be a massive movement or anything. Again I am no Ivy expert and so as events unfold I will keep you posted. Certainly there are tons of the bastard hipster variants that one sees everywhere else wearing anything that takes their fancy. Not very inspiring. On the other hand, classic elements of Ivy style infuse many different aspects of Japanese culture so in terms of detail people do tend to wear silk-knit ties marginally more to the office than they would in the US or UK, and sack tweed jackets are a standard in staid Old Men's outfitters, the same way hacking jackets are in the UK. One interesting trend that can be seen quite frequently amongst older male dressers in Japan, is the phenomenon of them sticking to wearing whatever was the fashion during their youth. So the really old guys resemble Slim Whitman, sporting the popover shirts and bootlace ties worn by the original US GIs who occupied Japan in the 1940s. Moving on, the same applies to the early 60s ivy generation of Japanese, who are the most likely people to be seen wearing the "look." Then things move on to the 70s and a more Italianate disco style etc, and so on.

The question of pricing is generally that most stuff is over priced if it has a foreign name attached to it. But the demographic of people who could actually afford to buy the stuff and buzz off it in a significant way is really very small, and that is then in turn reduced further by whether they actually want to buy Ivy instead of Brit, French or Italian menswear.

For me it would be just as illuminating to know what kind of Brits buy Ivy. Is it a big scene? Are they well off or just scraping the funds together? Mostly creative types or working in finance? As an ex-pat that would be interesting to know.

Yes, the BB in Japan is more traditionally ivy than the US/Europe offerings in my opinion. Just go to BB.jp and look how may more 3/2 sacks are available.