KEISUKE HONDA
As a footballer in the pre-total-saturation era, Keisuke Honda was (and is, over at Melbourne Victory) a fascinating entity. As a set-piece specialist who entered the popular consciousness only during World Cups, he was endowed with an incredible glamour. He didn’t seem to do much tracking back or off-the-ball work, but that didn’t matter. He had a certain aura; an instant charisma that made you wonder if he wasn’t a footballer born in our time but an athlete pulled from some futureworld – a character from The Running Man, trying to win his way back into his own time, free-kick by free-kick.
The unusual sense of futurism that he radiated was compounded by his personal style, which was visible on and off the pitch. During a game, you could never lose him – he was instantly recognisable to the TV cameras, his shock of bottle-blonde hair contrasting perfectly with the dark blue of Japan’s home kit. That hair would become his trademark: one part Battle Royale, one part Gazza, it was a visual signifier of his inherent class. A lot of men bleached their barnets in that era, but few did it better than Honda.
In his downtime, his style was even more striking. He employed an aesthetic that no footballer before or since has really got close to. Honda’s looks weren’t flashy, regal or street, unlike those belonging to most other football style icons. His was clean, loose, effortless – but highly considered. Often seen in a suit, he seemed to prefer the deconstructed, breathable fits favoured by his compatriot designers, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto, and he often offset them with a kind of European riviera chic, adding shorts, shades, linen and loafers. This was a long way from the standard ‘footballer in court’ outfit of the time, all pinstripes, checks, fat ties and Base shoes.
It wasn’t always impeccable – there are some surviving photographs of Honda in some very dodgy outfits, and his habit of wearing two watches at the same time isn’t something anyone should try at home – but he remains the only footballer ever who you might just believe has a Fantastic Man subscription.
But Honda isn’t the only Japanese football style master. Just before him came Hidetoshi Nakata, another graduate of the J-league who made a name for himself in Italy and seemed to embrace the fashion culture there. Nakata was slightly flashier, gaudier, but he was truly embraced by the fashion industry in a way that didn’t seem tokenistic. He modelled for Calvin Klein, hangs out with Nicolas Ghesquiere and seems to live out of a Learjet. And before Nakata there was also Kazuyoshi ‘King Kazu’ Miura, currently best-known as the world’s oldest professional footballer but equally renowned back in his homeland for a stylistic fanaticism that has seen him wear bespoke suits to bed and obsess over his hair. Honda is just one part of a tradition among Japanese footballers.
Japan has long been underrated as a style nation but Honda, and Nakata and Miura before him, have done their very best to put it on the map of a football-fashion landscape which believes that growing a beard and buying some expensive luggage is the height of sophistication.