ABSTRACT
Men's magazines offer several sartorial variations; there are a number of unofficial style categories, each with corresponding fashion magazines. This chapter outlines the history of contemporary Japanese men's fashion magazines and explain how they correspond with various subtly nuanced styles. It examines how magazines use male models to create an affinity with their readers. These models can represent a slender, boyish, and kawaii male aesthetic, which, along with more muscular male ideals found in other sectors of Japanese culture, may be indicative of Japanese popular culture's elastic approach to the representations of masculinity. The chapter explores the amalgam of three desires men's fashion magazines evoke in readers in relation to men's fashionability: to attract women's admiration, to compete with and emulate other men, and to simply indulge in their own pleasures. Because fashion media are constantly evolving, it is important to observe how these magazines respond to changing notions of masculinity and publishing.
