is the $30 issey miyake in the room with us right now?
vintage shopping in japan
This is what I imagined vintage shopping in Japan would be like:
I would walk into the pearly gates of a vintage store.
It would be loaded the likes of Issey Miyake, Yohji, CDG, Margiela. Cream of the crop 2000s pieces. That one girl posted a TikTok about scoring a $30 Pleats Please top, so I’ll probably find one too…
Somehow everything I wanted would magically fit me. It would be affordable. There are other people in the stores but they are more like NPCs. No one else is competing for the same items as me, there are no awkward moments where we are browsing the rack from opposite sides and decide whether to make contact in the middle.
I would leave the store with two crisp paper bags full of secondhand designer clothes wrapped in tissue paper, one dangling off each wrist. Then I would go to a cute little kakigori cafe and scarf down a mountain of sugar ice, red bean flecks stuck between my teeth, beaming from the post-shopping high. I wouldn’t be able to wait until I got back to the hotel to look at the clothes. On the train ride, I’d be too giddy and rip a little bit of the neat tissue paper to get a glimpse of what I bought.
It’s as romantic as retail gets.
The reality:
Stores were crowded. Racks were picked through.
Sizing runs small compared to America, so I didn’t fit any of the pants I tried on and was too demoralized to go back and look for bigger sizes. My face felt swollen from the heat and travel stress. The overhead lighting felt so bright. I had an analgesic patch on my lower back, which felt pinched and achey from all the walking and standing in lines. It took me all of 3 minutes to finish pawing through the limited women’s section before wandering to the men’s section to find Danni and tell him I was done. Already? Yeah. That happened a lot. I was confused…where were people finding these alleged troves of vintage gems???? This was not Japanese eBay IRL, I thought. This is not the image I had of Shimokitazawa, the highly-praised vintage destination everyone talked about.
I didn’t find any wild deals. I didn’t buy a single thing from the aforementioned “cool brands.” Nothing was really speaking to me. So many men’s Levi’s, inseams too long for me, hips too narrow. Striped Ralph Lauren polos. A San Francisco graphic tee, something you’d find at a Fisherman’s Wharf souvenir shop. A Minnesota State crewneck sweater. Red Wing boots. Some Coldwater Creek cardigans. At a Kindal, a Margiela trench that looked shockingly frumpy on me. A Jil Sander knit tank I could find on TRR for less. At another Kindal, the exact vintage Coach bag I have, for $80 more. In general, the vintage shops tend to stock a lot of menswear and clothing sourced from American Goodwills (part of a fascinating cultural history I elaborate on later).
The first few days I told myself it was normal that I wasn’t buying anything. It meant I was being an ~intentional~ shopper. But every item was a pass, and with each store I left empty-handed I felt increasing underwhelmed and antsy. I wanted my $30 Issey Miyake moment. By Day 4 of our trip, I felt an insatiable hunger to buy something just to fulfill the fantasy I had of *shopping in Japan.* I honestly did not give a shit about intentionality. I wanted to SHOP.
This expectation v. reality bubble burst is not specific to Japan. Last year, the days leading up to our visit to New Mexico, Ethaney and I were certain we’d buy tons of cool silver jewelry and cowboy boots. We left with neither. (I bought overalls which lowkey would have been much cheaper on eBay). And I think a lot of us can relate to the desire of buying nice things on vacation. In Substack fashion chats, lots of people ask some variation of “headed to XYZ. vintage/shopping recs?”
So what is it about traveling that makes shopping—especially for vintage—so intoxicating?
Much like the rise of tattoo tourism where people plan their travels around getting inked with a specific artist, it seems like there’s been a rise in vintage shopping tourism…
I think we can trace these approaches to the same archetype of modern tourist.
She doesn’t want to visit landmarks or sightsee in the traditional sense. She does not join a tour group. She wants to experience a more ephemeral, “real” version of the place she is visiting through the perceived “local-ness” of things like vintage shopping, dinner party pop-ups, tattoo studios. She’ll skip the global brand stores: why buy something here you can buy in your home city?
Heavy emphasis on the pursuit of ephemerality. The tattoo artist is guesting at the studio. The nasturium-cake-pop-up is only happening this weekend. This vintage Junya dress is 1/50 samples. In this aspirational version of travel, bringing a vintage grail home is ultimate souvenir.
Shopping secondhand/vintage online has never been more accessible and widespread than it is now. So how and where you source your items has increasingly become a status marker. Here’s an example…
Buying Ann Demeulemeester boots on eBay? More accessible than buying Ann D boots on a trip to Berlin. Which is the cost of the boots and the plane and hotel and implication that you’re able to take time off work to travel. (Or, your work pays for you to go shopping in Berlin lol). It’s a potent mix of all the wealthy leisure class signifiers. Sometimes I see TikToks of people with vague job titles in fashion talk about their travel hauls and they just have the most jaw-dropping vintage collections sourced from all the places they visit. I can’t even fathom how much it costs to travel that often PLUS have budget for “fun” spending.
But that’s why it’s a fantasy and so intoxicating. Of course I’m envious of their vintage collections and at the same time, aware of the globetrotting nepo baby dynamics at play.
In Shimokitazawa, I perused a vintage shop with more of the same American college sweatshirts and Levi’s. However, this shop did have a slightly bigger women’s section. I flipped around the racks and decided to try on this peachy Paloma Woolish looking jacket and deadstock patchwork pants. When I took this photo in the changing room, I laughed and thought to myself how I came all the way to Japan all to try on an outfit that looked like a Brady Brunch x Lisa Says Gah collection.
The store employee who helped me to the fitting room was chatty. He said the jacket would be a great fit on me (I felt like a matronly rancher’s wife in it). We talked about America briefly and he said he loved Texas and all the clothes in the store were sourced on trips there. I asked him what he loved about Texas and he grinned and said the burgers.
Fashion and travel has this funny relationship where “cool” is wherever isn’t home. I noticed a lot of Trader Joe’s tote bags worn as fashion items in Tokyo. As a Californian, Trader Joe’s is so mundane to me because I grew up around them and I definitely don’t associate it with anything special or interesting.
But it’s funny because I would definitely think a FamilyMart tote bag was cool. Or konbini merch. Or the uniforms of the Yamoto luggage deliverymen I saw everywhere in the city (the cat logo is sooooo clever and cute).
I’m sure to someone from Japan, these are the most un-noteworthy things to obsess over! Cool is where home is not.
Japan and America also have a unique history of cultural exchange through fashion. W. David Marx, an American fashion historian, is perhaps the most prominent voice on the topic. In this Huckberry article, he describes how the Japanese assimilation of American fashion started in the postwar period and by the late 80s, Japanese stockists had begun bulk importing American vintage and deadstock. By the 90s, American vintage was a staple of the style-conscious Japanese youth.
Marx is also keen to point out that the admiration Japanese culture holds towards American style is disconnected from the reality of America: “They're not looking at the actual United States—they're dreaming of America as a concept.”
I didn’t leave Japan with the vintage haul of my fantasies. I did buy two pairs of jeans, but they were more practical purchases than anything. I didn’t see any vintage Miu Miu or Prada, which is what I would have really gone batshit over.
But I loved soaking in the little observations about style and shopping culture here. I learned a lot and engaged my “fashion brain” in an earnest way during my trip. The newfound perspectives help me appreciate fashion at home more. To me that is truly the best part of traveling…humbly observing the environment around you and following the sparks of curiosity.
xoxo
viv
I love this honest perspective on travel. I felt the same way when I went to Aix En Provence many years ago, but my fantasies were about food and French markets a la “A Year In Provence”. I learnt very quickly that travel was ultimately less rewarding when I “demanded” a specific experience, and social media is really the worst when it comes to misleading expectations.
I travel within the US and like to go to thrift stores in new cities. It’s hit or miss just like regular thrifting, but it is fun that the items I do find are like souvenirs. I also totally relate to wanting to pretend to be a local, which is pretentious but I’ll own it. I try to see it as “what do I like to do normally? How can I do that here?” So it might be like just reading in a park or eating at a diner.