Find it absolutely fascinating how Japanese kids got into the look. I say “got into” but their look is so precise that they seem to be just as obsessed as some Americans once were. And I would say some British Mods too – both then and nowadays.

I especially like the attention to detail in terms of trouser length / loafers. It takes a special kind of OCD (as I would say all Mods are slightly susceptible to) to so comprehensively achieve the look they’ve managed here in a country nearly 6,000 miles from the original source and with a culture so completely different.

The fact they never saw an original American wearing the style - save in pictures - is even more impressive. Probably a testament to the look’s enduring style and class. More on this in The Ivy Look, which you can find in my All-Mod Library here: https://www.areyoumod.co.uk/all-mod-library.html
 
Good on ya.

Only criticism here is the crumpled shirt. How much effort does it take to iron?
 
Otherwise, great seersucker jacket and knitted tie combo. Plus, cheeky tie bar peeking out between the lapels further down. Swag.

My other impression might be that these lapels are a touch long and wide for the Ivy Look but still. You get what you can nowadays.

There is a whole more detailed bit on this in Gaul and Marsh’s book The Ivy Look (which is in my All-Mod Library https://www.areyoumod.co.uk/all-mod-library.html if you wanted to find out more) but essentially there was a strong traction in Japan for the Ivy League style back in 1964.

The “Miyuki-Zoku” were inspired by a magazine called Heibon Punch – which exposed the Ivy Look to Japan’s teens and twenty-tings, among whom it was seen as cutting-edge and sophisticated. Something I think today’s British yoof could learn a thing or two about, frankly.
 
Sadly the authorities in Japan at the time disagreed, but that’s another ludicrous story which I’ll save for another post. My main point here is the great little detailed drawings in this obviously-not-English magazine page.

What with the news of US President Donald Trump allegedly about to lift the lid on over fifty years of conspiracy theories about JFK’s assassination, I thought it would make absolute and undeniable sense to re-examine the guy’s wardrobe too. JFK’s that is, not Trump’s.

Conspiracy theories have it that JFK was secretly a Mod, and I am a truther on this. Apart from being American, young (perpetually) and exceptionally well dressed, the man was straight up out of the Ivy League style playbook.* If he hadn’t been cruelly assassinated in ’63, it seems likely that the whole world would have become Mod by the end of his inevitable sixth term as president. As a historian I can state factually that this trend had clearly already begun and there is no conceivable way it could have been stopped other than the way it was.

I can only assume the reactionary forces of bad fashion could see this too and took the only action open to them at the time. Otherwise the globe might have been rid of bad fashion forever.

Anyway, although Kennedy made it to the highest office in the land, I think his greatest achievement was managing to look cool while doing it.
 
*I appreciate that Mod is slightly different to the Ivy Look, but you can probably tell this isn’t a serious post by now and I am taking liberties.

Love these old ads. Usually they look so Ivy League-stylish.

This guy probably not so much - he looks a bit dorky but his jacket's doing well. And what a price!