For years I spent
one Saturday afternoon per month at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in Costa Mesa,
California reading the latest issue of Nylon Japan. I had a subscription
through my local Kinokuniya store, so the magazine was shipped directly form
Japan to my local bookstore. When I moved to Portland I resumed my subscription
with Kinokuniya in Beaverton, OR, and took up reading the magazine at Insomnia
Café nearby.
When I lived in Japan, even in the rural mountains of
Shimane, I would drive 40 minutes to Oda city and pick up the magazine at a
“Just Books” store, then I usually preferred to read it at Starbucks in
Hiroshima, specifically the one in Hondori, where the view from the
second-floor window provided a great show of the fashionable shoppers on the
streets below.
Now I am here in Chiang Mai, where I have picked up a copy
of Nylon Thailand, and am enjoying reading it in the shaded patio of Impresso,
one of Nimman’s many fashionable cafes. As I thumb through the glossy pages, I
am struck by how location –specific the magazine is. I always loved Nylon Japan
more than Nylon America because of it’s specific focus on Japanese brands and
designers, Japanese photoshoots, and Japanese style and travel. In the Thailand
issue, I am seeing similar signs of cultural specificity. One fashion
photoshoot features EST, a Thai brand of soda. Another photoshoot features
styles that I have only seem on the streets of Bangkok. A short travel guide
has a series on fashionable places in Chiang Mai, very fitting, considering
that I am here right now. Well, it’s looks like I’ve got my schedule figured
out for tomorrow.
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