Buying clothes is easy; buying inspiration is hard. So come shop with me. Not to Blue in Green or the Real McCoy’s — we’ll get to them later — but let’s start in Midtown, at Kinokuniya, hot spot for Japanese printed matter. Down in the basement, plop down in the bustling magazine section, right by the full rack devoted to the men’s wear bibles.

These aren’t your American men’s fashion magazines, which are 50 percent celebrity-dude-hangout-ery, 30 percent style tips, 10 percent National Magazine Award baiting and 10 percent actual style. These offerings — Lightning, Popeye, Free & Easy and so many more — are loving sartorial catalogs, atlases of fashions and microfashions, sprinkled with real-guy style porn.