Shirts
襯衫

A Japanese company called Kama-kura Shirts opened on Madison Avenue in Manhattan in 2012, just blocks from Brooks Brothers and J. Press, the icons of American preppy wear, what cognoscenti call "trad"and the Japanese call "Ivy style." (Never mind that Brooks Brothers is owned by the Italians, J. Press by the Japanese.) I track down Kamakura’s founder, Yoshio Sadasue, at his headquarters in Tokyo, above a Kamakura Shirts in Ebisu. He is sharply dressed in his trademark style: a button-down shirt with a distinctive collar roll, what Sadasue considers the essential feature of his design. I ask why a Japanese manufacturer opened a New York store to sell American-style shirts to Americans.
一家名為kamakura的生產襯衫的日本公司2012年在曼哈頓的麥迪遜廣場開業了。距離布魯克斯兄弟和普萊斯店面只有幾個街區之遠。這兩家公司是美國生產畢業生禮服的代表性企業，行家們把這種服裝稱為“傳統式”，而日本人稱作“艾維式”。（不用說布魯克斯兄弟公司老板是意大利人，而普萊斯的老板是日本人。）我在位于東京ebisu的公司總部找到了kamakura的創始人，sadasue。他筆挺地穿著該公司標志性產品，領尖帶有紐扣的襯衫以及獨特的領口設計——sadasue認為這是該公司產品的重要特征。我問到為何日本公司會在紐約開店，售賣美式的襯衫給美國人。

"This style originated in America, of course," Sadasue says. "But there was a period of time when Americans forgot their own style."
他說“這種式樣確實產生于美國，但美國人忘記了他們自己的這種樣式已經很久了。”

Kamakura Shirts are made in Japan. Sadasue doesn’t sell them through department stores or other retailers because he wants to keep prices low and profits high, particularly for the independent factories that produce for him. As with Tateno at Workers, there is an undercurrent of respect for what those factories do and a strong desire to make sure that they can keep doing it in Japan.
kamakura襯衫在日本制造。sadasue并沒有通過百貨商店或者其他零售商出售，因為他想保持低價，獲取高利潤，特別是要讓為他們生產產品的工廠獲得低價和高利潤。就像Workers品牌創始人Tateno一樣，這些企業家對日本工廠總是充滿敬意，并且強烈的希望這些日本工廠可以繼續堅持下去。

This movement of American style across the ocean to Japan and back to America with a Japanese twist is happening more frequently. The most famous example is probably Daiki Suzuki, who was design director for the quintessentially American brand Woolrich Woolen Mills and now produces his own menswear line—Engineered Garments, a Japanese-run American brand that manufactures its unique take on vintage Americana in New York and sells it in both Japan and the U.S. One of his former employees, Shinya Hasegawa, now has a Brooklyn-based line called Battenwear that offers his interpretation of American outdoor wear from the ’60s to the ’80s. I had never encountered the brand in the States, but I found it in Kyoto.
美國風格漂洋過海來到日本，再經過日本改造后返回美國，這樣的情景屢見不鮮。最著名的例子或許是suzki，他曾是經典的美國品牌Wolrich woolen mills的總設計師，目前建立了自己的男裝企業——工程用服裝公司——這是在紐約的一個日本人經營的美國企業，產品采用獨特的老款美國設計，向日本和美國出售。曾經的職員hasegawa現在也在布魯克林擁有了一家名為battenwear的工廠，對60到80年代的美國戶外服裝進行自己的詮釋和生產。我從未在美國見過這個品牌，但我在東京發現了它。

Part of what’s going on is simply the globalization of taste, culture, cuisine and the way that, in the modern world, you can get almost anything everywhere. But Japanese Americana is more than that. There’s a special way that the Japanese sensibility has focused on what is great, distinctive and worthy of protection in American culture, even when Americans have not realized the same thing. It isn’t a passing fad. It’s a long-standing part of Japanese culture, and, come to think of it, as more Americans are exposed to U.S. products revived or reinterpreted by Japanese designers, the aesthetic is becoming part of American culture, too. If you ever wonder which of the reigning American tastes, sounds, designs or styles will last into the future, there’s no better place to answer that question than in the stores and restaurants, the bars and studios of Japan. They often know us better than we know ourselves.
在現代，品味，文化，美食和烹飪方式正在發生全球化， 你幾乎可以在任何地方獲得任何東西。但是日本人對美國文化的應用并非如此而已。當美國人自身還未察覺的時候，日本人卻能憑借敏感的審美找到美國文化中那些好的，獨特的，有保護價值的精華。這并非是他們一時的興趣，而是一種長久以來就存在的日本文化。而且，想想看，當更多美國人接觸到了被日本設計師們復興并重新詮釋的的美國商品時，這種日本的審美也逐漸變成了美國文化的一部分。如果你還想知道哪些地方將會在未來引領美國人的味覺、聽覺、設計以及風格樣式的潮流， 那最好的答案就是日本的商店、餐館、酒吧和工作室，因為他們通常比我們更加了解我們自己。