Nostalgia in Satin: The Souvenir Trade Before and Around the Sukajan

The sukajan did not appear from nowhere. It was one product among many in a busy postwar trade: the business of turning a soldier's or sailor's time in Japan into something he could carry home. Silk portraits, embroidered handkerchiefs, painted scarves, decorated luggage, kimono and obi all came before or beside the jacket, and each tells us something about why the jacket took the form it did. This article looks at that wider world of souvenirs, and at the nostalgia that still clings to all of it.

A trade in memories

When American forces arrived in 1945, they brought with them men far from home, with pay to spend and, often, a strong wish to remember where they had been. Japanese merchants, short of almost everything after the war, saw the opportunity at once. Street stalls sprang up in the busiest parts of the cities. In Tokyo's Ginza they clustered near the Hattori building, the department store with the clock tower, which the occupation authorities had taken over as a store for their own personnel. In port towns such as Yokosuka, shops lined the streets nearest the base gates. Our timeline of the sukajan follows the trade decade by decade.

What did they sell? At first, Japan itself, in portable form: kimono, obi, dolls, lacquer and ceramics, the traditional objects that seemed most exotic to visitors. Soon, though, a different kind of souvenir took over: objects made for this customer, combining a Japanese look with a personal record of time and place.

Souvenirs before the jacket

Silk portraits

In the late 1940s and 1950s colour photography was expensive and uncommon, so painted portraits on silk became a popular alternative. A serviceman could bring in a black-and-white photograph of himself, his sweetheart or his family and have it painted in colour on silk, sometimes with Mount Fuji or a pagoda in the background. These portraits travelled home in their thousands.

Handkerchiefs and scarves

Printed and embroidered handkerchiefs and scarves were cheap, light and easy to post. Many carried a place name, a year and a few emblems of Japan. One surviving scarf from 1946, decorated with caricatures and the words "Yokosuka Japan", shows the wry humour the trade could have.

Decorated luggage and gear

Servicemen had long customised their kit, painting names, units and pictures on bags and footlockers and adding hidden embroidery inside uniforms. Japanese painters and embroiderers offered the same service, and decorated suitcases and kit bags became souvenirs in their own right.

Embroidered patches and pillow covers

Small embroidered patches with unit insignia, ships and slogans were sold in quantity, as were satin pillow covers with sentimental messages for mothers and sweethearts. These pieces trained buyers to think of embroidery on satin as the natural language of a souvenir.

Then came the jacket

Put all of those habits together and the jacket almost designs itself. Take a garment the customer already knows, the American baseball or flight jacket. Make it in a shiny fabric that feels luxurious, rayon or acetate satin. Embroider it with the images of Japan the customer wants to remember, plus his name, ship or unit if he asks. Sell it from the stalls and the base exchanges. The result was the souvenir jacket, made by trading companies such as Kōshō & Co. and by the shops of the base towns, with embroidery from the workshops of Kiryu and Ashikaga. It became the most successful souvenir of them all because it combined everything that had worked before: personal, pictorial, Japanese and wearable.

Motifs from both sides

Because the customers were American, the imagery was never purely Japanese. American eagles, flags, cars, pin-up girls and cartoon characters appear on souvenir jackets alongside dragons and tigers, and some designs set them side by side on purpose. Ship and unit jackets carried American insignia in Japanese thread. The mix is part of the charm, and it is a precise record of a time when two cultures were learning to read each other. Our guide How to Read a Sukajan explains what the commonest images mean.

Where to see the wider souvenir world

The jacket's cousins are harder to find than the jacket. Silk portraits, handkerchiefs and scarves survive mostly in family collections and in local archives, and they occasionally appear in exhibitions. The Yokosuka Museum of Art's 2022 exhibition PRIDE OF YOKOSUKA displayed several of them alongside the jackets, with loans from local libraries and museums, and it was a rare chance to see the whole trade at once.

For collectors, these objects make wonderful companions to a vintage jacket. A silk portrait or a souvenir scarf from the same years shows the world the jacket came from, and together they tell a fuller story than either can alone. If you are looking for a particular kind of postwar souvenir, our Hunting Salon™ can search for it in Japan, and our sukajan collection holds vintage jackets from the same era.

Nostalgia and the souvenir jacket

Few garments carry as many layers of memory as the sukajan. For the American servicemen who first bought them, the jackets recorded a posting far from home. For Japanese teenagers of the 1970s and 1980s, they were badges of rebellion. For today's wearers, they evoke a romantic postwar world of ports, neon and dance halls that most never knew. That layered nostalgia is part of why the jacket keeps returning: each generation finds its own past in it.

Collectors respond to the same layers. A jacket stitched with a ship's name and a year speaks of one person's journey; a 1980s velveteen reversible speaks of a youth culture; a heritage reproduction speaks of the care taken to keep the craft alive. Each is worth keeping for different reasons.

Questions readers ask

Why does the sukajan feel nostalgic even to young people?

Its imagery of dragons, tigers, maps and ports belongs to a specific postwar moment, and its craftsmanship contrasts with today's fast fashion. Wearing one connects the wearer to a story larger than a trend.

Are vintage or reproduction jackets better?

Neither is better in itself. Vintage jackets carry authentic history; good reproductions carry the craft and are easier to wear daily. Many collectors own both.

The sukajan reading path

This article is one of a series on the souvenir jacket. Each takes a different angle; together they form the most complete account we know of.

• What Is a Sukajan?: the starting point: materials, motifs and how to choose one.
• History and Origins of the Sukajan: from postwar Yokosuka to global icon.
• Dobuita Street, Birthplace of the Sukajan: visiting the street where it began.
• Kiryu and Sukajan: the embroidery town behind the jacket.
• How to Read a Sukajan: what the dragons, tigers and maps mean.
• The sukajan collection: vintage, modern and collector pieces, each examined in Japan.
• PRIDE OF YOKOSUKA: inside the museum's sukajan exhibition.
• Sukajan Jacket Meaning: the name, the symbols and the decades.