He is best known for his first book Ametora: How Japan saved American style, published in 2015, through which he slowly developed the acclaim as one of the "leading writers in Japanese menswear.
In this environment, he grew up wearing what can be described as "American heritage clothing" including brands like Brooks Brothers and Ralph Lauren, and a uniform consisting of navy blazers, Oxford shirts, and khakis.
[7] After visiting Japan in late high school through an International Baccalaureate program,[9] Marx decided to study Japanese in college,[6] and enrolled in B.A.
I spent the next decade just obsessed with all the factors that would make this possible: that kids would line up like that and fork over so much money, the reseller economy, the degree the media was directing trends, etc.
"[13] On returning to Harvard, Marx explained his experience to his professors who encouraged him to study this phenomenon and write his senior thesis on the subject.
"[9] After graduating from Harvard, Marx worked at a bilingual English and Japanese "street culture" magazine in the Lower East Side.
[8] With this in mind, at 24 Marx moved to Japan, starting graduate school through a scholarship at Keio University where he studied his Master's degree in Business, specialising in Marketing and Consumer behaviour.
Upon Marx mentioning that he had recently written on the subject, the man introduced himself as an ex-employee of VAN Jacket, a seminal brand in the Ivy movement in Japan.
[7] After this series of interactions, in 2013 Marx started to write — on spec (without a buyer) — the history of Japan's obsession with this collegiate style of American menswear and the development of Japanese fashion up until modern streetwear.
"[4] In its final form, the book investigates "how our cultural tastes, demeanour, speech habits, and fashion choices transmit information to others about who we are and our social status.
Kaitlin Phillips for The New York Times noted that "Marx’s first book — an investigation of the Japanese influence on the global fashion industry — succeeded precisely because of his narrow approach."
"[19] However, the review reflects on how the book "stops short of providing any real sense of how a more egalitarian set of cultural semiotics contributes anything approaching greater equality."