For decades, Tokyo’s fashion scene has held a certain cultural cachet among sartorial enthusiasts. Yohji Yamamoto, Issey Miyake, Comme des Garcons, Kenzo, Sacai and Junya Watanabe — innumerable brands have helped define Japan’s global fashion identity, but so, too, have Harajuku-inspired subcultures, avant-garde streetwear aesthetics and an overall ethos of impeccable craftsmanship.
However, accelerated by social media, an increasingly weakening yen, a record-breaking tourism boom and the rise of online resale platforms, Japan’s secondhand fashion industry — where many valuable pieces of apparel could once be had for a fraction of their retail prices — is no longer a market for domestic consumers alone.
It’s a global one.
Chicago native Brooke Crum, lead fashion stylist at Tokyo-based personal styling service The Foreign Finds, has watched interest in Japan’s vintage scene surge since the country’s borders reopened after the pandemic.
“TikTok especially has brought in this whole algorithm of ‘You’ve got to go here, you’ve got to shop there,’” she says. “People are obviously very enamored with what they can access based on where the yen is right now.”
Professional stylist Brooke Crum believes the weak yen makes shopping for vintage fashion an incredibly attractive prospect for visiting tourists. | CARL STRYCHARSKE
For many visitors, Japan offers access to brands and garments that can be difficult or prohibitively expensive to find elsewhere. Isabelle Truman, a Los Angeles-based freelance fashion editor, says she arrived for a trip in April with high expectations for Japan’s shopping culture and still found herself surprised.
“I’d heard the shopping was good, but I actually hadn’t understood simply how good it could be,” says Truman, who picked up a Comme des Garcons cardigan for $50 and a dress for $180, along with an Issey Miyake pencil skirt for $80. “It definitely helped in terms of the amount I ended up buying — that and the immediate (tax-free benefit).
“My one splurge was a vintage Chanel tweed skirt suit from Vintage Brand Tokyo in Ginza,” Truman says of the piece she bought for $2,200. “I tried to leave it behind, but knew that in the U.S. it would be double the price.”
While tourists may view Japan as a bargain, local sellers are facing mounting pressures of their own.
On her trip to Japan, Los Angeles-based fashion editor Isabelle Truman, says she found a Chanel suit in a secondhand fashion shop in Tokyo that would have been double the price in the United States. | COURTESY OF ISABELLE TRUMAN
“The impact has been enormous,” says Seiya Amano, founder of ‘Bout, a vintage apparel store in Tokyo’s Taito Ward that stocks American and European military and workwear. “When the cost of acquiring products rises this much, you have no choice but to increase prices.”
The growing visibility of Japanese fashion extends far beyond Tokyo. In New York, Jacques Noel Manuel, co-owner of Livebait NYC, a store specializing in secondhand Harajuku-inspired goth and Lolita-style fashion, has seen interest in Japanese streetwear steadily grow over the past decade.
“People can discover things much more easily now,” Manuel says. “Our younger customers come in because of things like manga, anime, gaming or something they saw online. I think a lot of Westerners think of Japan as a shopping vacation. They want to see things, eat at cool restaurants and shop.”
Despite the favorable exchange rate, she says overseas buyers like herself are facing new challenges.
“It was less expensive to shop online five years ago than it is now, even though technically there’s a more favorable exchange rate for me now,” Manuel explains, adding that shipping costs have also risen dramatically while tariffs and import duties have become an increasing concern for buyers in the United States.
At Brooklyn's Livebait NYC, a shop specializing in secondhand Harajuku-inspired apparel, says social media has driven a marked increase in general interest in Japanese fashion in the United States. | LIVEBAIT NYC
The globalization of Japan’s secondhand market is also being felt in more traditional forms of dress. In London, kimono specialist Sonoe Sugawara has spent nearly two decades sourcing vintage kimono and textiles from Japan for her store, Furuki Yo-Kimono. While many of her customers are drawn to the garments because of an interest in Japanese culture, others simply see them as “a beautiful fashion item.”
“Many of our customers don’t necessarily start with a deep knowledge of Japanese culture,” she says.
Like other sellers, Sugawara has seen costs increase despite the weak yen.
“Shipping costs have doubled or even tripled over the last five years,” she says. “I’ve also noticed that some shops in Japan have increased prices because they know kimonos are selling well to international buyers and tourists.”
The rise of online resale platforms has further complicated the industry. Platforms such as Mercari and Depop have made Japanese fashion more accessible than ever before, allowing buyers around the world to purchase directly from Japanese sellers. According to Manuel, accessibility has helped fuel demand, but it has also intensified competition.
“A lot of people are now treating secondhand fashion as a business,” she says. “That creates an environment where more people are sourcing specifically to resell.”
A bigger challenge, according to both sellers and buyers, may be preserving the culture that made Japan’s secondhand fashion scene so influential in the first place. For Manuel, growing mainstream recognition brings both opportunities and tensions.
“There’s definitely a tension there,” she says. “People get into these styles because they want to feel unique, and then something becomes more mainstream.”
She also acknowledges that greater visibility has helped Japanese fashion communities flourish overseas. Dedicated fashion events, conventions and markets attract thousands of participants in New York and other cities, resulting in subcultures abroad that barely existed two decades ago.
From her London shop, kimono specialist Sonoe Sugawara says many customers come to Japanese fashion from an interest in its aesthetics, not necessarily its cultural underpinnings. | COURTESY OF SONOE SUGAWARA
In Tokyo, stores that once catered primarily to locals and dedicated enthusiasts now regularly welcome international shoppers following recommendations from social media. Naoki Kajiwara is the owner of Leave Me Alone, a secondhand fashion shop in Niigata, and LVMY LND, a store he opened in Tokyo’s Nakano Ward last year. He says the contrast with his regional shop was immediately noticeable: While customers there were primarily domestic, at his Tokyo location he now sees a steady flow of international visitors, many of whom discover stores through social media, Google Maps and multilingual online guides.
“The distance between tourists and clothing stores has narrowed thanks to TikTok, YouTube videos and websites created in their native languages specifically for tourists looking for clothing stores,” Kajiwara says. “As a result, I’ve noticed an increase in trips where the primary purpose is to buy vintage clothing.”
With popular shops in Japan’s big cities drawing significant foot traffic, though, some dedicated bargain hunters are venturing further afield.
“Recently I’ve noticed that more and more people are visiting independent shops in regional cities in search of a more unique selection, rather than just the famous shops in Tokyo or Osaka,” Kajiwara says.
No matter where a shop may be, Kajiwara suggests that Japan’s vintage market is distinguished by its vast array of stores with highly individualized stock, elevated by the hyperspecific knowledge of those who curate it.
“That diversity has allowed Japan’s vintage market to cultivate a distinctive culture,” he says. “While historical value and rarity are often prioritized in the West, in Japan, the focus is on subtle details, practicality in styling, the story revealed through the garment and items that defy any of these categories.”
The weak yen may have accelerated international attention, and social media may have broadened the audience. But what continues to draw shoppers from around the world is a secondhand fashion culture built on curation, preservation and a depth of knowledge that is difficult to replicate elsewhere — and, for now, is still alive and well across Japan.
