The Japanese men who collect Ralph Lauren Ralph Lauren spawned an industry 7,000 miles away from his New York base. Meet Tokyo's most avid collectors of his brand of Americana. The United States is the most culturally influential superpower on the planet - and Ralph Lauren is the largest luxury fashion brand in the United States. So it follows that the brand begun by Lauren as a modest line of ties now has enormous influence well beyond its borders. His pony logo can be seen on chests from Azerbaijan to Zambia, and his Purple Label suits are desired by successful men from Birm­ingham to Beijing. Yet until the company started work on RL Vintage - a new online-only project dedicated to unearthing classic pieces of Ralph Lauren vintage, dusting them down, and offering them to customers afresh - it was not aware of the passion of the brand's international diaspora of fans. Particularly in Japan. 'There is a cult of Ralph Lauren that is kind of amazing,' admitted David Lauren, the executive vice president of the company his father founded, as he launched RL Vintage. Lauren senior's inspirational idiom is Americana. From the gritty glamour of the Wild West to the wide-lapelled, expansive tailoring of 1920s New York, his clothes touch on the most revered and mythicised periods in his nation's history. Some 7,000 miles away in Japan, a masculine cult of Ralph has grown around these clothes, and dedicated itself to both selling them and celebrating them. So if you're ever looking for that perfect suede field jacket, you'd probably be better off bypassing the thrift stores of Brooklyn and heading directly to Tokyo. Masaru Kondo (pictured above) Butchly-buckled rodeo belts, Fair Isle sleeveless jumpers, tartan braces, ski-scene silk ties and baker-boy caps aplenty are some of the most treasured items in Masaru Kondo's impressive collection of vintage Ralph Lauren. Kondo first caught the Ralph bug decades ago, when he travelled to Los Angeles as a fashion buyer. On that trip, he popped into one of Lauren's earliest-established stores, on Rodeo Drive. ' It was a small store,' he says, 'but it was beautiful. I'd never seen anything like it.' Although a fan of the brand ever since, he says he never intended to become a collector. 'But all my life, that's what I've worn. And over the years, my purchases - the ones that have lasted - have been Ralph Lauren. Tez Saito Of all this portfolio of Japanese Ralph Lauren fanatics, Tez Saito is arguably the most evangelical. His enormous archive includes towels and a tartan mug from Ralph Lauren's first Home collection in 1983, which Saito describes as 'a revelation', adding, 'I love them so much I'll never sell them.' Nor will he ever sell his Polo marque Western Canyon cowboy hat, the purchase that sparked his addiction in Lauren's flagship Tokyo store 30 years ago. 'All of a sudden we could experience the atmosphere of the Adirondack mountains,' he recalls, 'but we were still in Japan!' Now Saito runs Reflex, a Lauren-specialist vintage store, and does a roaring trade. Just don't ask him how much for that hat. Hiroyuki Yagisawa As the manager of Cassidy Home Grown, a vintage fashion shop in Shibuya - Tokyo's extroverts' epicentre - Hiroyuki Yagisawa has a professional interest in collecting fine old clothes. Yet he says his job stems from a childhood infatuation with American style that ignited when he first visited the United States for himself. I remember buying things in Los Angeles 30 years ago that have since become vintage. When asked which are his most-prized pieces, this long-time specialist collector of vintage Ralph Lauren picks a 1980s Rugby shirt unusually made in seersucker, a beautiful aubergine and cream jacket in dogtooth, and a rough plaid shirt with a leather shooting patch at its right shoulder. Hiroyuki Katayama When Hiroyuki Katayama had his life-defining moment, he was a school teacher. Between terms and on holiday in New York he wandered into that city's prime temple of all things Lauren, the store on Madison Avenue, and underwent a sudden, Damascene conversion from education to vintage fashion - specifically vintage Ralph. Now an ex-teacher, Katayama runs Country Pie, another Lauren-only vintage store. He says, 'As long as Ralph Lauren continues to reflect his vision of America, he will always have my admiration. I think that many of his items are more than just clothes. They are like paintings, literature and music, and have the feel of art. Yoshihito Murayama 'Ralph Lauren is one of the reasons I started my company,' says estate agent turned fashion entrepreneur Yoshihito Murayama. 'You could say he's a role model of mine.' So it's unsurprising that one of Murayama's stores, Safari, is dedicated to selling vintage Lauren designs. Its stock suggests an emphasis on the more weathered side of Ralph Lauren's all-American output; there are piles of artfully beaten-up RL jeans, hand-painted leather jackets, western-inspired silver-and-stone jewellery, and even pristine crockery and cutlery sets. 'I loved his clothes and wanted them all,' is how Murayama describes his first reaction to Lauren. He seems to have succeeded in that ambition.