In menswear, America-by-way-of-Japan is a well-traveled route. (If there was a literal pipeline funneling vintage clothing straight from US closets to Japanese brands, it probably wouldn’t make the process any more efficient.) What hasn’t always been all that efficient, though, is buying those gems once they hit the shelves in the US—especially the newer stuff.

And while most of the heavy hitters—OrSlow, Kapital, Blue Blue Japan, et al.—are still crushing as hard as ever, there’s an entirely new class that’s matriculated over the course of the past decade. For instance, A.Presse is making some of the sickest workwear homages you can find, sticking true to the source material but not the source materials. Or Auralee, which is the kind of brand you could wear exclusively and never tire of and, on a piece-by-piece basis, will work with any existing wardrobe I can fathom. Or Kaptain Sunshine, which has been an S-tier IYKYK pick for over a decade, but recently got a foothold in the US. Or Ssstein, which makes baggy pants better than just about any brand out there.

It might look and sound like all of these brands have an air of familiarity to them, but that’s by design: they’re playing with canonical styles in American menswear, but unlike a lot of the venerable reproduction brands, each of these Japanese brands has torn it all down to the studs and rebuilt it as something new. Here are four we can’t stop thinking about right now.

A.Presse

In a way, each piece from A.Presse exists in a wonderfully-proportioned uncanny valley, in that nothing is quite as it seems. For instance, its crinkly, swishy taffeta jacket isn’t made out of nylon—as virtually every crinkly, swishy taffeta jacket is—it’s made out of a nearly 2:1 silk:cotton blend fabric. Same goes for its canvas trousers, which look like a pair of worn-in Carhartts, only that wear isn’t wear at all, it’s a diabolical cotton-silk-hemp blend. If you ever wondered what a mad scientist would do with some good ol’ fashioned Americana, this is it.

A.Presse

Straight Leg Jeans

A.Presse

Washed Silk Polo Shirt