W. David Marx

William David Marx, known professionally as W. David Marx, is an American fashion and culture writer who works and lives in Tokyo, Japan. He is the author of Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style and Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change (2022). Marx also publishes a newsletter titled Culture: An Owner's Manual. He previously worked at Google as part of the Asia-Pacific Team in Corporate and Product Communication.

Early life Marx was born in Oklahoma to a Jewish father and lived there until age 6, before moving to Oxford, Mississippi and later Pensacola, Florida.

In the early 1990s, Marx's parents began visiting Japan for work and brought back souvenirs including Gundam figurines and manga comics. Marx enrolled in a B.A. in East Asian Studies at Harvard University, where he became a member of The Harvard Lampoon.

Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style Following the 2010 English publication of Take Ivy, a Japanese photography book depicting Ivy League student attire from the 1960s, Marx began researching the history of Japan's adoption of American collegiate style. Through connections with former employees of VAN Jacket, Marx gained access to key figures in Japan's Americana fashion movement.

In 2013, Marx began writing Ametora: How Japan Saved American Style while working full-time at Google. The book traces the development of Japanese fashion from its adoption of American collegiate style to modern streetwear.

The book has sold over 50,000 copies in English and was later serialized in the Japanese fashion magazine Popeye.

Status and Culture Marx's second book, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change (2022), examines the relationship between social status and cultural trends.

The book received mixed reviews. Writing for The New York Times, Kaitlin Phillips praised Marx's previous narrow approach in Ametora but criticized Status and Culture for its broad scope, writing that its "comprehensiveness threatens to render 'Status and Culture' a dull but effective teaching text."

Personal life Marx has lived in Tokyo since the early 2000s.