I was lucky enough to be featured in Mens Club magazine a couple of months ago.
Celebrating their 70th anniversary this year, Men's Club is one of the heavyweight style magazines in Japan.
Some might say it's also one of the most influential men's magazine's globally, since, along with Van Jacket it gave birth to the book Take Ivy. Published in 1965, as most of us are aware it introduced American Ivy style to Japan
Although I knew of Men's Club before, it wasn't until Tintin posted scanned pages of the book on his blog The Trad in 2008 that I had any clue Take Ivy existed. He had purchased the book online, cost him about $200.
Judging by the huge buzz that followed Tintin's post back then, I think very few people outside of Japan, even the experts had seen this publication before.
Its (re)discovery marked a huge watershed moment for the entire menswear scene.
Soon after the book was made known, I discovered that there was also a short film made too. Kind of in a similar vein to the skits in Jazz On A Summers Day, the film combines documentary with a little humour in places.
Like the book, it turns out that the film was in fact a promotional tool conceived of by Japanese menswear brand Van Jacket to introduce American menswear to the youth of Japan.
Like most people, I only understood this when I read Ametora: How Japan Saved American StyleTruth is, Take Ivy's origins and the books enormous impact on Japanese menswear remained a total mystery until W. David Marx published Ametora in 2015.
Ametora is one of those before-and-after books where once you've read it, you see things - in this case Japan's style culture and its impact on menswear the world over - in a totally new way.
Such an important book!
It gives context and meaning to so much - including the significance of the role played by Men's Club and its ongoing legacy.
David actually published a revised version of the book last year and I was lucky enough to host the London launch of the book at Clutch Cafe London in Central London.
If you can get a copy of the interview, it's worth it, David is possibly one of the most insightful and perceptive people writing about menswear and contemporary culture today.
All that is to say, you can imagine, this shoot was a pretty big deal for me.
The theme of the issue was the relationship and differences between the current British and American interpretation of Ivy style.
Both the interview and photographs were done by Aiko Yangida I'd met here a little while ago through Sebago and have been a huge fan of her work ever since.
Her style of photography really does have some of what makes Take Ivy's imagery so impactful - she has the ability to frame natural, everyday settings in a way that gives them a kind of drama, a specialness.
Truth is that anyone reading this, probably anyone into menswear to day, whether we know it or not have been influenced by some degree by Take Ivy, and as a result, we're all part of the club.
Wearing:
