There’s something wonderful about Japanese service. On the bustling island, it is said that the customer is King, and you really begin to feel it when some minimum wage server sprints from the kitchen to your table just to shave three seconds off your wait time. In Japan, everyone is working like hell for everyone else, and they always seem to find ways to serve the customer better. So when I s...

A lot of times, I look at the youth of Japan and wonder where they get their inspiration to look so outrageously defiant. There’s the ganguro and yamamba of yesteryear, and the many other tribal micro-cultures that flourish everyday amongst the country’s rebellious youth. Then I take a look at some of Japan’s traditional wear. On the right, we have some apprentice geishas (maiko) loitering ...

Ever wondered how distressed denim is made? Yea, me neither. So it came as a bit of a surprise to learn that Levi’s doesn’t loan their jeans out to impoverished Cambodian farm laborers, or hobos in LA, to get that realistic weathered look. No. The process is performed by a crack team of denim specialists delivering all kinds of abuse to the freshly dipped cotton. It’s kind of like an S...