Real People Wearing Japanese Clothes

Gerry Nelson/Gezza's Eyes (Cardigan - Beams +, Shirt - Engineered Garments)

I still remember looking through a 2014 lookbook for Kapital named "Peace Pilgrim." Staring back at me was a Mongolian man dressed in a weathered jacket and century denim with sharp chiseled features, piercing eyes, and a giant freaking hawk on his arm. The cover picture for the catalog was a striking nomadic girl perched atop a camel draped in a rainbow of tattered textiles. Now nobody said wearing this stuff was going to be easy, and lookbooks are frequently meant to be more inspiration than practical application, but it can be awful hard to relate to clothing often described in terms that include a mix of words like "post-apocalyptic cowboy gypsy."

From Kapital AW2017 Lookbook

As cool as some of these are and unique as they may be, going "full hawk" is a probably a little too outlandish for most guys I know, including myself. In cases like these, I've found it useful to find real world guys wearing a brand as a more practical reference. I discovered each of the men below over the last couple of years while I was trying to figure out my own tastes, and each of them has inspired me in their own interpretation and integration of "Japanese Americana" - a term that's become too small to contain the range of styles within. Looking outside the realm of cool-looking-Japanese-men or stunningly-handsome-models and finding "regular" down-to-earth guys like Man of Kent, Kamotejoe, and Gezza's Eyes has helped show guys in the West that Japanese clothing can be more accessible than we might have thought on first glance.

Coincidentally, each of them have also been featured in Styleforum's "Member Focus" column at some time or another. I'd highly recommend reading their interviews, which I've linked at the end of each section, where they talk about how they think about and approach style - an exercise we should all do more of.

Man of Kent

A few years ago, no one on the Western side of the world was really posting Kapital fits except Man of Kent. When I was starting to get interested in the brand, I actually saved all of his fits and put them into a folder for reference. He started out himself in the classically tailored side of the spectrum, as many of us do and have in the past, but really found a home for his personal style with Kapital in a way that's altogether different than fits you see from Kamotejoe or Gezza's Eyes, who we'll also take a look at below.

Man of Kent's Kapital styling blends in seamlessly with his semi-rural British town - a little bit English country, a touch of cowboy, and a lot of looks that seem familiar in a Western sense at the same time they are not. An apt description for the general impression you get from his looks might be "alternate reality cowboy badass." He's well-known for his long Kapital ring coat in particular, which appears almost imposing on his large frame, but he also likes to mix in different designers that fit his own brand of style.

Styleforum Member Focus

Kamotejoe

When you look at Marco, aka Kamotejoe, you get the feeling that maybe we should all be having more fun with our clothes. You'll often find him on his Instagram account dancing/wacking on his porch in some Kapital attire, something he does a lot it seems. Since he posted a first impressions review on Reddit for a denim ring coat he bought back in 2015 when he was just starting to test the waters, Kamotejoe's spent the last few years on a journey to dress more for himself. This means finding clothes that make him happy and serve as an extension of his own personality. I think he's done that wonderfully, and his brand of all-out styling suits him perfectly.

You see much more of the fanciful side of Kapital in Kamotejoe's fits - smiley faces and upside-down graphics, bold pattern mixing and plenty of oversized silhouettes. You'll also find a decent amount of other Japanese brands mixed in as well - ts(s), Engineered Garments, etc. but out of all the non-Japanese people I've seen wearing Japanese brands, no one fits the zany, off-the-wall vibe you find in a lot of Kapital's design more than Kamotejoe.

Styleforum Member Focus

Gezza's Eyes

When I grow up, I want to be Gerry Nelson, aka "Gezza's Eyes," aka "The Brown Samurai" (an alter ego he's taken on while traveling Japan recently). Gerry's been featured on multiple style sites and forums over the past few years for both his tailored and casual wear, showing how he's been able to walk a fine line balancing interesting pieces with a more conventional wardrobe. He shares my love of boro textiles, sashiko, and the increasingly blurred lines between Eastern and Western style. And though Kamotejoe's and Man of Kent's styles are both very well done and personally expressive, I connect the most with Gezza's Eyes' incorporation of Japanese brands into his daily wear, which is a bit more subtle and restrained. Gerry is also a cat person, but nobody's perfect.

I think what makes Gerry special, in addition to masterful layering and a firm command of an earthy color palette, is that he looks so natural in all of his outfits. My wife recently came across a popular style blogger in the city the other day, and he had a whole team with him snapping pictures and taking videos of him eating a pastry in his razor thin three-piece suit, looking vaguely into the distance as he pretended to fork a croissant or something. With many of the younger style bloggers you get a sense that they don't feel comfortable in their own clothes - almost as if they're playing "dress up" or some such act of theater for their audience. Gerry, on the other hand, just stands there, looking comfortable in his own clothes +/- cat. That might not sound like much, but it's rarer than you might think. In a time where you see frequently see style influencers peacocking about in clothes that were gifted to them in exchange for a quick shoutout, the relative permanence of a few pieces in Gezza's Eyes' closet is a refreshing counter to an age of disposable fashion.

Styleforum Member Focus