Popeye
Popeye launched in Tokyo in 1976 as “a magazine for city boys” and remains a touchstone of Japanese style, mixing streetwear, culture, food and long, generous interviews with a graphic sensibility all its own.
The Best of STYLE SAMPLE is Popeye’s second fully English-language special — a 132-page Magazine House mook compiling fashion snaps and features from the annual January Style Sample issues, 2020 to 2026. Street photography from 25 areas across 18 countries sits alongside pieces on the personal style of King Krule, Sampha and Blood Orange, plus campus tailoring, rainy London, teenage city boys and everyday snaps from New York to Berlin.
Issue 933 (January 2025) is the annual “Girlfriend ’25” special, a city boys’ guide to dating that favours imagination over spending — thirty date ideas, a gift catalogue and short-trip guides — with actress Mei Nagano on the cover and a winter-driving fashion story inside.
Issue 951 is Popeye’s 50th-anniversary special — “Whole City Boy Catalog: Everything We Envision as a City Boy” — a 260-page catalogue of what the magazine has meant by the term across five decades of fashion, culture and city life.
Issue 939 (July 2025), “My Good Vintage Guide”, is a city boys’ primer on vintage that fits just right — where to find it, how to wear it, and the shops and personalities shaping second-hand style in Tokyo and beyond.
“Hello, Tokyo!” is Popeye’s first fully English-language edition — a 124-page special that re-edits and translates the best of its Tokyo city guides from 2018 to 2025 into one reference, from Asakusa and Ginza to the city’s restaurants, shops and subcultures.