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Hey!
Welcome to my second thrifting in Tokyo guide.
Today’s guide will be about the vintage stores in the suburb of Harajuku.
And it's not going to be as comprehensive as my last video, the Shimokitazawa guide,
because I was actually living in that suburb for 2 and a half weeks – but I still have
some really good tips for shopping for used and secondhand clothing in Harajuku.
So, let's go!
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Okay, so although the main street of Harajuku and the tourist hot-spot - Takeshita street
- is amazing, and you should experience it at least once in your lifetime, it’s also
a pretty crappy hyper-commercialised street crammed full of fast fashion.
I don't recommend actually buying stuff from here.
Apart from crepes.
If you’re looking for longer-lasting and more sustainable, secondhand and vintage options,
you pretty much wanna avoid Takeshita street altogether.
In fact, you can avoid Harajuku train station itself, because all of the vintage stores
are actually a lot closer to the station called Meiji Jingumae – and you wanna hop out at
the Meiji Street exit.
Along with there being some really cool vintage stores along Meiji Street itself, it will
also bring you closer to Harajuku street – which is a much calmer, more chilled out and, in
my opinion, cooler part of Harajuku.
So here’s a couple of the vintage and thrift stores that I visited while I was in Harajuku.
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Sooo I’ve been trying to devise some kind of plan where I hide in-between the clothes
racks inside Kinji, get myself locked inside all night, and then take over the store – we’ll
work out the details of how I take over the store later – and then have Kinji become
my own personal wardrobe.
Far out guys - Kinji is thrifting HEAVEN.
There are styles from fairy-kei, 80s styles...
LOTS of 80s styles, this awesome dog blazer – no I didn’t buy it, why didn’t I buy
it – REGRETS! - all the plaid you could wish for, varsity jackets and a very healthy
helping of vintage skirts.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that I nearly hyperventilated the first time that I walked
through this Kinji store.
Now, this may have just been a temporary store while I was in Japan – I wasn’t quite
sure – but god damn was it cool.
Wego is a chain store that has a lot of new clothing, but even the main stores often carry
“USED” items as well, mixed in with the new stuff.
This “wego vintage” store, on Meiji Street, was almost entirely secondhand pieces.
And a quick tip - you can usually tell if it’s secondhand because it’ll have USED
on the tag, usually in English.
I saw these upcycled sweaters while I was there, and I’m definitely going to be trying
to recreate this for myself, because it seemed like a really easy way to turn an old ugly
sweater into a really cute one!
Chicago is an iconic vintage store in Japan, and there are at least two of them in Harajuku.
The vibe in Chicago is very “Japan-does-80s-does-50s-Americana” – and I know that sounds like a very specific
style, but, trust me, it’s a wide-reaching aesthetic in Tokyo – anyway, it also happens
to be my favourite aesthetic of all time.
SPINNS is again one of those iconic Harajuku stores, and it also carries a mix of vintage
and new pieces.
Again, the way to tell if it’s secondhand or not is to check that TAG.
I didn’t get anything from Spinns myself, but it was still cool having a look around
and seeing what’s in style – and apparently velour is really coming back in a big way
– I saw tonnes of cute girls in Japan wearing these pants!
There’s also a tonne of vintage stores along Harajuku street, and on the streets surrounding
it – some are definitely more on the expensive side, but are also very iconic to Harajuku,
so they're well worth a visit.
I visited both Kinsella and Pin Nap while I was in Harajuku, and the pieces inside are
SO gorgeous, but also soooo out of my price range!
So the one thing that I really appreciated about Japanese thrift stores, that I don’t
experience in Australian thrift shops, is that all the items of clothing and accessories
in each of the stores… go together.
What I mean by that is there’s not just a jumble of random out-of-season styles all
thrown in together, you know: men’s, women’s, kids clothes, pyjamas, costumes, just all
in one place, all thrown in together – each store, and this is regardless of whether it’s
an expensive or a cheap thrift store, is… curated… to some extent.
In both Shimokitazawa and Harajuku I experienced this – regardless of the fact that many
of the pieces are decades old, every item that they choose to display in the store is
extremely on-trend.
I don’t know what it’s like in the rest of the world, but that is always something
that I appreciate when I come to Japan.
The last place where you can thrift in Harajuku, that I’m going to mention because it’s
not completely obvious at first: is Thank You Mart.
Now most of the stuff in Thank You Mart is just cheaply-made knick knacks – in fact,
the store's whole gimmick is that every item inside is 390Y, which is about $3.50 – BUT
a lot of the Thank You Mart stores also have a USED clothing section.
These used clothing sections are much more like the thrift stores that I’m used to
in Australia – it’s not super high quality, styled stuff, it’s much more random – BUT
you can still find the occasional gem.
Like this sweater that I got.
I frickken love this sweater, and I wore it when I met Simon and Martina in Tokyo.
Did I mention that I met Simon and Martina in Tokyo?
Yeah.
That was really cool.
Anyway – check out a Thank You Mart or two if you go to Japan – they’re not only
found in Harajuku, but I know there's a lot of stores all over Tokyo, and Osaka and I
have to assume elsewhere too.
Alright, so in my NEXT video in this mini-series, I will be doing a haul/lookbook of all the
items that I picked up thrifting in Tokyo.
I’m also going to answer a lot of the questions that you’ve been asking about sizing, other
places to visit for vintage, and what it’s like being in Japan if you don’t speak much
Japanese – so, if you’re interested in the answers to those questions, make sure
you check out my next video!
Thank you so much for watching, subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already AND
I’ll see you next time.
Bye!
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