047/ 50 Japanese Brands To Broaden Your Fashion Lexicon
Looking back at last month’s newsletter, I’m chuckling at my naiveté of describing Seoul’s shopping terrain as “overwhelming”. Yes, Seoul is a big city, and yes the retail options are vast and varied. But, I quickly discovered that Seoul’s offering is banchan (Korean: “side dish”) next to the juyori (Korean: “main course”) that is Tokyo.
It makes sense, though, because the retail sector serves the nearly 40 million people living in the Greater Tokyo Area — the same population as all of Canada. Let me help you visualize that:
Among the Japanese, there’s a plenty of appetite for many of the mass market and niche Western brands you’re familiar with and I came across a great deal of them in department stores, malls, boutiques, and consignment shops.
But since, y’know, I’m in Japan, I wanted to get to know style and design from a Japanese perspective. Who are the designers doing interesting things here, especially ones we don’t hear about — to borrow a phrase from
— outside the Occident?As a student of fashion, you will no doubt recognize some of the names on this list, and may even be on a first-name basis with Rei, Yohji, Junya, Kei and Issey (RIP). Others will be new to you.
I hope that the 50-odd brands featured will introduce you to a new corner of Japanese fashion, and give you ideas that will expand your fashion vocabulary — they did for me! I couldn’t possibly put the body of work of 50 brands in a single newsletter, but through links which lead to websites, WWD, Instagram and product pages, there’s so much inspiration to uncover here.
My suggestion is to take your time; grab a coffee and peruse through them like you would a beautiful coffee table book.
Interestingly, unlike most of the Korean brands I featured, relatively few are stocked at larger international (e-)retailers. To the extent that they are, Montreal-based SSENSE once again leads in scouting the best of established and emerging Japanese talent. New York-based La Garconne isn’t far behind. Internationally, I found a number of small boutiques stocking these brands, some of which you can access via websites like Farfetch. Lucky for me, Toronto-based Blue Button Shop is a hidden gem of all things Japanese.
I estimate that one-third of the brands can be found at major, globally-accessible (e-)retailers (read: straightforward shipping & returns); another one-third at smaller retailers and Japanese websites which ship worldwide; and the last one-third? I can’t figure out because my Japanese isn’t up to par — sumimasen (Japanese: “sorry”).
Like my pair of newsletters on Korea (ICYMI: here and here), this edition will focus on Japanese designers and brands, while my next newsletter will share the actual places I recommend to shop in Tokyo, including the incredible second-hand market, the likes of which I’ve never seen before! Many of them carry the brands I’m covering today, and they have websites from which you can browse online from the comfort of your own home.