<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">An interesting article from today's <span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">New York Times</span> fashion section, on Japanese riffs of preppy style.<div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/fashion/18codes.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/fashion/18codes.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw</a></div><div><br></div><div>Interesting take, before a swerve into various samples of the preppy in the hip hop world (eg Andre 3000 and his label):</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;">What makes today’s prepidemic so fascinating is how it is, surprisingly enough, so Japanese. The look has its roots in the United States, to be sure. But the spirit, rigor and execution of today’s prep moment is as Japanese as Sony. One need only flip through the intriguing Japanese book “Take Ivy,” a collection of photographs taken in 1965 by Teruyoshi Hayashida on Eastern college campuses, to get the drift. </blockquote><div><br></div><div>It did make me wonder, tho, about the Ishihara and t<span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">aiyô-zoku</span> roots of all of this, the micro-climates of preppiness in Japan already on the ground in slightly earlier times--like the 50s and early 60s...</div><div><br></div><div>Any thoughts? (Given recent events, the association of Japan with the epidemiology of fashion--"prepidemic"-- is also an interesting twist...)</div><div><br></div><div>Anne</div></body></html>