NTY article on "preppiness" and Japanese images of it

[Anne McKnight]

An interesting article from today's New York Times fashion section, on  
Japanese riffs of preppy style.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/fashion/18codes.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw

Interesting take, before a swerve into various samples of the preppy  
in the hip hop world (eg Andre 3000 and his label):

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.

It did make me wonder, tho, about the Ishihara and taiyô-zoku 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...

Any thoughts? (Given recent events, the association of Japan with the  
epidemiology of fashion--"prepidemic"-- is also an interesting twist...)

Anne
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