photo by Jamandfix

These are penny loafers from "Johnston & Murphy" (founded in 1880), not the beefroll (stitching at both ends of the coin strap) type. I bought them because I liked the champagne gold color, but I hardly ever wear them. I felt I had to buy them when I saw them at Beams F. Back then, what we called the "French Ivy style" was a preppy look, dressed down with a blazer and jeans or flannel pants and loafers.

In junior high, "TAKE IVY" from "Men's Club" was my bible. The fact that I couldn't buy the clothes featured in TAKE IVY at VAN was essentially the beginning of Beams. This is because when I was in high school, my sister, who lived in Hawaii, would buy clothes and send them to me, and they were clearly different from VAN's items. One day, I was stunned when my sister brought back a sweatshirt from Harvard University, made by "Champion," which she had bought in Boston. It was incredibly well-made. Wonderful. A '65 Champion sweatshirt was exactly like America in the 60s.

But those kinds of things would get taken. "I heard that guy Shigematsu from Zushi is wearing a really cool sweatshirt," and bad guys from Yokosuka would come to my house and threaten me to take it (laughs). Well, on my end, I had American school kids go to the PX at the US military base to buy shoes for me (laughs). Those were the days.
"Johnmar" was top-of-the-line in America, a shoe only the wealthy could afford. We would buy cheaper shoes like "Sebago" or "Bostonian" for around 10,000 yen. I also owned the "Bicentennial Model" from the US Bicentennial for "Johnmar," but I can't find it anywhere now. It was a beautiful shoe, fully handmade with a spade sole and a sharp, pointed toe...

At the end of November last year, I went to Los Angeles to sign an exclusive license agreement for the opening and operation of Chrome Hearts stores in major cities across Japan as an authorized distributor, and then, on my way back, I revisited Las Vegas for the first time in eight years.
All the good stores in America are independent, making direct comparison difficult when looking at them individually. However, Las Vegas is all about shopping malls, housing all the major brands, which makes comparison easy. And what I realized was that America is the worst (laughs). The crowds were immense, the energy was incredible, but the products were terrible. I couldn't understand why "Abercrombie & Fitch" sells so well. Abercrombie is visually appealing and inexpensive. And the other major chain brands are sickeningly bad. I returned with the strong conviction that there are no longer any places in America that focus on craftsmanship like Chrome Hearts.
(1983 / ¥28,000)