SUNDAY BOOK MANIA - JAPAN JACKET BY TAILOR TOYO

Yesterday I received my copy of the very rare book called Japan Jacket by Tailor Toyo.

A Japan jacket is a reversible and embroidered tour jacket with either a map of Japan showing the major cities or a motif of a tiger, dragon or hawk and Mount Fuji. A Japan Jacket is known as SUKA JUN, abbreviation of two words. SUKA refers to the city of Yokosuka, just south of Tokyo and the home port of the U.S. Navy 7th Fleet. This is the largest naval base in the Far East. JUN refers to a jumper or a jacket. In short, the Japan Jacket is a tour jacket born in the city of Yokosuka.

The roots of its history could be credited to a serviceman who took his jacket to a tailor shop and had it embroidered with his name and decorated with colourful oriental designs while stationed there in the 1950s. The jackets soon became popular among the servicemen as a souvenir of their Japan tour or shore leave. These jackets were sold at gift shops in all towns or cities where men from the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines were stationed. Of course, military PXs and base concessionaires sold them as well. For the servicemen, it was an ideal gift to send home to family and friends. It became a shared clothing item for both the East and the West.

See also my other post about Souvenir Jackets.

THE SOUVENIR JACKET - EAST MEETS WEST

Party-time was at an end for young Americans in 1965. Soon huge numbers of American baby boomers had received draft notices from the government, due to escalation of the Vietnam War. By the mid 70's a total 8,766,00 American soldiers had been sent to "the hell on Earth" located in Vietnam and Cambodia. If they could survive and were able to return to their hometowns a few years later, many souvenir items bought in Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Vietnam were brought back home with them. Embroidered jackets were very popular souvenir. There have always been many souvenir shops around U.S. military bases in Japan. Okinawa-made tour jackets had been increasing especially since 1960s because huge numbers of American soldiers were staying at Okinawa bases before being shipped out to Vietnam. (input from Rin Tanaka)