New work wear for convenience and style

Respected work wear brand Toraichi has teamed up with 7/11 to offer a line of clothing and accessories that will be available exclusively at the convenience store. Just when we thought that the convenience store had stocked everything we could possibly want (cosmetics, stationary, fresh green tea), they come up with something new that we didn’t even know we could need.

The very reasonably priced “Red Ear” series features t-shirts (¥750), hand towels (¥399), boxer briefs (¥780), work gloves (¥350), and a durable multi-use case (¥580) for clipping your mobile phone or cigarettes to your belt. All items are styled to match Toraichi’s “Fighting spirit for working” motto that sums up the general construction worker aesthetic of traditional tobi pants and tabi shoes in dark monotone.

Meanwhile manufacturer Marugen is working to change the throwaway image of work wear through its new website Tobikakumei (Work wear Revolution). The one-month-old site specializes in top quality 100% Japanese-made apparel of the kind traditionally worn by construction workers.

With images of stylish young men in ballooning tobi pants, the site also features advice from the resident “work up coordinator.” With prices starting at ¥4,500 and reaching upwards of ¥8,000, these items are significantly more expensive than the usual work gear, but the fashion and quality element means that their appeal has the potential to extent beyond those who actually need the clothes for work.

For a more in-depth look at construction worker fashion, check out PingMag’s excellent article on the subject.

Tags: Convenience Stores, Fashion

Real models for real fashion

The “real fashion” movement, characterized by a devoted following to the fast fashion of Shibuya 109 and the pages of magazines like Vivi, has gotten a bit more real. In addition to their stable of popular professional models, fashion magazines often use “reader models,” non-professional, non-agency wanna-be models who, in response to ads in the magazine or website, send in photos and an applications.

These “regular girls” inspire readers to personally connect with the publications and are, of course, a whole lot cheaper. Recently, however, these readers turned models have been striking out on their own.

Dokumo Girls is a fashion and beauty website penned by five reader models who had their first 15 minutes of fame in the pages of Vivi, JJ and the like. The site, which features blog-style articles on hair cuts and shopping trips, is part of the larger Dokumo Style site that contains online shops, brand tie-ins, street photo reports, and extensive advertorial all featuring reader models.

In similar style, free magazine Venus, created by a group of college women and now three issues strong, is also positioning itself as a reader model publication.

On pages interspersed with ads and advertorial, the amateur model editors strike poses and weigh in on the season’s fashion trends. They also hold twice yearly fashion shows put on by reader models and manage a website, girlsfashion.jp, that contains event and audition information.

Last month, Venus held a pop-up office on the first floor of the iconic LaForet department store in Harajuku, which served as a make-shift reader model studio. Shoppers were invited to stop by to shoot a mini-session with the hopes that the jury of peers would select their picture for the pages of the magazine.

Fashion watchers in Japan have been begging for the latest fashion revolution, and while the ultra-mainstream girlie girl looks featured in these reader model publications are hardly cutting-edge, even the purists among them have to admit that these girls are shaking things up a bit.

Tags: Fashion, LaForet, magazines, Models

Big haired big brothers take over Shibuya 109-2

An unlikely fashion revolution is taking place on the top floors of the Shibuya 109-2 shopping complex. While 109-2 is typically considered to be the younger sister of popular teen fashion center Shibuya 109, with junior high-school girl friendly fashions, two years ago the top floors became home to 109 Men’s, the base camp of the increasingly popular onii-kei fashion movement.

Last month, 109 Men’s underwent a major renovation, taking over an additional floor that had previously housed a cosmetic emporium for the girls who shop downstairs.

Mood-lit shops with names like Kingdom and Buffalo Bobs are decked out with the latest tight t-shirts and jeans, flannel shirts, and black leather jackets.

Onii-kei, or “big brother style” is the male version of the sexy gyaru (”gal”) style popular among teenage girls who hang out in Shibuya. However as the gyaru (think dark tanned skin, teased and bleached hair, heavy make-up, and impossibly short skirts) have been cleaning up their act recently, the men are picking up the slack. For the past year onii-kei guys, with their extreme “wolf hair,” have been on the rise.

Big belt buckles, loud hats, heavy silver jewelry, and pointy shoes are key accessories for the onii-kei look.

This purikura print club arcade is the only remnant of the 7th floor’s previous incarnation as a girl gathering spot. Though, in an weird twist, it gives the girlfriends a place to hang-out while the boys do their shopping.

Tags: Fashion, Onii-kei, Shibuya

Awaseba, the virtual fitting room

Online shoppers have been waiting for this: a software application that allows users to virtually try-on clothing and accessories on their personal computer. Now Avielon Co. is debuting one, called Awaseba.

The product is being marketed to online retailers, who can then feature the Awaseba service on their sites. A one-year rental fee for the program costs ¥630,000 (about $6,000).

In exchange, the service is free for the online shoppers, who create an account with an email address and password login. First-time users simply upload a photo of themselves onto the Awaseba server that will function as their virtual self inside the virtual fitting room.

Luxy Coordinate Collection, a junior ladies fast fashion retail site, and Upsold.com, a general “design goods” online shop, have already signed on to make the service live in the near future.

Some online sites, like stylewalker.com have avatar components for their own sites that users can dress, experimenting with different outfit combinations.

A program like Awaseba, however would not only allow users to use a real image of themselves but also maintain only one profile image for multiple shops.

We can hope (and expect) that this will catch on soon!

Posted by Rebecca Milner

Tags: Fashion, Retail, Web 2.0

Beams shops now selling iPods next to rotating T-Shirts

Fashionable retailer Beams has now entered into an agreement with Apple which will make them the first non-electronics store sales point for iPods in Japan. While only available at a few Beams shops from the onset, this means that shoppers can now buy iPods alongside their favorite Beams clothes (both static and rotating), and even pick up some special Beams iPod accessories while they’re at it.

The new collaboration began on April 26th at select Beams stores and is planned to expand nationwide.

Tags: Apple, Beams, Fashion, iPod

Hello Kitty classes up your car, Victoria Couture

We knew that it was only a matter of time before Hello Kitty started to grow up and we should have known she would turn into a high class, Ginza sort of girl. Sanrio has announced a limited edition collaboration with French brand Victoria Couture, resulting in one of Kitty Chan’s more upscale (and expensive) ventures yet.

A total of 80 items, such as tops and purses (starting from about $80 for a white t-shirt) will be available from this week for two weeks exclusively at Sanrio’s Questina Ginza store and Osaka’s Hankyu department store.

Meanwhile, for customers who aren’t quite ready for this new sophisticated Kitty there are still plenty of ultra-cute new Kitty products arriving on the market daily, like this new series of products for car interiors.

Deck your whole car out in Kitty regalia or choose key items like the drink holder or steering wheel cover. I actually really like the rear view mirror.

Tags: car, Fashion, Hello Kitty

Japan’s best sellers (so far) for 2008

With 2008 already a quarter over (gasp!) the Nikkei Marketing Journal gives us a round-up of a few of the hit products so far this year. First up is the “Shower Clean Suits” from men’s apparel company Konaka. This wool suit is designed to be cleaned with just a hosing from the shower head, no detergent or ironing needed. The fabric is made from a special fiber with minute holes designed for quick evaporation, allowing it too dry quickly in a shaded corner of your room.

Not only is this suit incredibly convenient, but also cost effective, saving on pricey dry cleaning fees (which, due to the rising cost of oil, have increased 5-10% recently). Since the suit debuted in February, sales have doubled expectations and would-be Shower Clean Suit owners have been waiting listed.

Next on the list are food staples, of the non-prepackaged variety like meat and vegetables (or more specifically pork and cabbage). Following a health scare earlier this year, when a shipment of pre-packaged gyoza from China was discovered to contain unhealthy amount of pesticides, the idea of eating organic and home made food has jumped from the pages of earth mama magazines into the mass media and is making, at least for now, a real impact in what consumers are buying at major grocery chains around the country.

Compared to this time last year, the purchasing of (relatively) natural foodstuffs is up 3.7%.

We were hardly surprised by the next product, sugar-free beer, since hardly a conversation goes by without someone dropping the word “metabo,” the trendy contraction for metabolic syndrome that has become a catch-all phrase for anyone who could use a little trimming around the waste.

Kirin Zero, which was released this February sold one million cases in just 20 days, a number equivalent to a quarter of the projected sales for the whole year. Likewise Suntory Zero Nama has sold 700,000 cases in the first month since its March debut, exceeding expectations by 20%.

Rounding out the list is the NTT Docomo P905i model mobile phone, which has the capacity to stream a “One Seg” digital television signal to the handset’s three-inch screen.

From Panasonic Mobile Communications, the mobile phone wing of the company behind the popular Vieja TVs, the P905i has been Docomo’s best-selling phone for four months in a row.

Any predictions for the next three months?

Tags: beverage, Fashion, food, health, Mobile

Favorite Meiji snack food immortalized in gold

On the subject of convenience store nostalgia, every child of the 80’s is familiar with Meiji Confectionery’s “Kinoko no Yama” mushroom-shaped biscuits. From this month, the favorite after school snack, which debuted in 1975, will also be available in silver and 18K gold coating instead of the usual chocolate.

Ease Design has released an accessory line in collaboration with Meiji that includes pendants and rings inspired by the bite-size snack that start at ¥10,000 and go up to ¥25,000, allowing fans of Kinoko no Yama to wear their devotion around their neck.

The cute accessories will be sold at select boutiques like United Arrows.

Not long after the press release went out, I spotted these mushroom-themed accessories at teen fashion center Shibuya 109.

Could mushrooms (snack-food inspired or not) be the next big fashion statement?

Tags: Convenience Stores, Fashion, food, nostalgia

Elle Plus anticipates aging Japan

CanCam, which released its big-sister version AneCan last year, is not the only magazine anticipating Japan’s ageing population: this month Elle Japon released Elle Plus, a supplementary insert for the 40 plus demographic. While both regular Elle and Elle Girl feature Hillary Duff on their April covers, Elle Plus has Carla Bruni on the front and interviews with other 40 and fabulous women inside.

There is no question that more and more women in Japan are reaching 40 (then, say, 20) so we are beginning to see a lot more media targeted at this age group. With the few other magazines targeting middle aged women, like Hers and Croissant, portraying classical (read: conservative) images of beauty along with the usual articles on yoga and vitamin supplements, Elle Plus stands out for showing forty year old women in mini-skirts.

Elle, by far the most successful of the foreign glossy franchises (with a respectable 100,000+ circulation), also seems to be tapping into the success of the CanCam “senzoku” strategy of establishing a stable of models who appear exclusively and regularly in the magazine. A feature in the April issue introduces 30 new faces for the magazine. Each of the spindly young blonds is caught on camera looking “fresh and innocent” making cute poses more in the style of Ebi-chan than Kate Moss.

Tags: Fashion, magazines

Brand name kimono at United Arrows

Kimono designers, despite their traditional credibility and long family history in the fashion industry, hardly have the name recognition of, say, Christian Dior, even in their native country. Recently, however, popular mid-level clothing chain United Arrows began working together with top of the line Kyoto-based kimono makers to create a line of limited edition men’s and women’s kimono from Yamaishi and yukata (lightweight summer kimono) from Kondaya, available this month.

The fashionable shop, with outlets all over Tokyo and Japan held a kimono fashion show during Japan Fashion Week, and will reprise the event this month in its Harajuku flagship. The kimonos themselves are billed as traditional and innovative and likened to couture fashion for the discerning customer, as an alternative, but no less stylish, option to the Balenciaga numbers on the adjacent rack.

This move draws on both the recent interest in returning to traditional craft and manufacturing processes and the established cult of the brand name fashion designer in Japan.

While United Arrows has been selling kimono since 2004, this is their first attempt to brand the designers as fashion icons in their own right alongside the other famous makers of western apparel that United Arrows sells. From their brief experience in the kimono business, United Arrows claims that customers (especially younger ones) are more likely to consider buying traditional Japanese clothes if they are sold in the same context and space as the Western style ones they are accustomed to purchasing. And so long as they are, we will likely continue to see more of the “back to Japan” trend in mainstream retail.

Tags: Back to Japan, Fashion, Kimono, United Arrows