American Casual Seizes Japan

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.

With reporting by Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles