[Music plays]
Annika: Helloooooo!
Oh, we just walked right into the sun.
Oh, we're so sunlit!
Luci: [singing] Into the Sun!
Annika: Ooooo!
There's a car behind us.
Oh no.
Luci: Hey. Annika: Hey.
Luci: We're in Shimokitazawa.
Annika: We're in Shimokitazawa!
Luci: It's the coolest suburb in the whole of Tokyo.
Annika: Mmhm!
Luci: It's where all the coolest people go.
Annika: Uh-huh! It's true.
Luci: I'm saying that like I'm being sarcastic, but it actually is.
Annika: It is.
[laughs] Luci: It's all vintage shops, cafes, live-houses...
Annika: Live-houses are places where you see bands -
Luci: Places where you - yeah.
Annika: But the - the thing that I'm going to show you all is the vintage stores, coz
- [gasps] Luci: They're amazing
Annika: - guys - it's amazing.
[Music plays]
Most of the thrift shops in Shimokitazawa, which are more commonly known as USED or RECYCLED
stores, are located on the NORTH and the SOUTH sides of the suburb, if you divide Shimokitazawa
up by its train lines.
I think that there are at least 100 thrift stores in Shimokitazawa.
I spent 2 and a half weeks staying at an AirB&B in this suburb, and I don’t think that I
even found all of the thrift stores.
Luckily, I also travelled to Japan with basically an empty suitcase, because I knew that I wouldn’t
be able to help myself at all of the thrift stores in this glorious suburb.
Luci: So, what Annika's demonstrating here is that if you get lost, you can come and
find this thing, which is the "Shimokitazawa Ichibangai Guide", which is like an interactive
- completely interactive - map of the town.
You can turn it into English, and it has a listing for pretty much every shop, every
pub, every everything - like, it lists all these categories of different things and you
press it and it goes to the map, and it gives you the opening hours and a description - it's
just - this, um, map is in a thing called the "i-park" which is just like a little parking
lot, which is just off Sakae-dori street, the south end of Sakae-dori street -
Annika: Good description Luci!
Thank you! [laughs] Luci: Annika was demonstrating like the person
on the game show who demonstrates the washing machine that you can win...
Annika: [laughs] thank you Luci for the description.
Now, because the sheer number of thrift stores in Shimokitazawa is pretty overwhelming, I
put together a little guide of all of my favourites stores.
If you only get a day in Shimokitazawa, these are the places you definitely should visit.
My number one recommendation to visit is a place called “The Garage”, located on
the North side of Shimokitazawa train station.
Shimokita garage is a collection of vintage and handmade stores run by small designers,
all located in this one large warehouse space.
My favourite shops in this garage are: number 1, the Marco Polo Thrift Shop.
This shop features high-quality, flattering, stylish and timeless pieces, for very reasonable
prices.
Another favourite is this store, where most of the items are 648Y – and this price hasn’t
changed since I was last here 5 years ago, either!
And lastly, I know this isn’t secondhand, but it’s worth mentioning because it’s
so cool – on the right-hand side when you enter the garage, there is a whole section
of handmade items, mostly jewellery, by hundreds of designers.
It’s like wandering through Etsy in real life, and it’s a great place to pick up
gifts.
Here’s just a couple of the items that I got from there!
Stick out is a store located on the South Side, and inside it, every item of clothing
is 700Y.
I wasn’t allowed to film inside, but visit this store on a weekday – it is extremely
crowded on the weekends!
Annika: [gasps] This place here!
Okay.
I need to show you guys this place.
This is called "Grand Bazaar Mega Store" and I know lots of you following my youtube channel
really like lolita fashion - it has a whole floor dedicated to secondhand lolita fashion,
um, brands like... where was it... brands like Jane Marple, Milk, Emily Temple Cute,
Angelic Pretty - and it's all secondhand so it's cheaper, um, yeah and it's like the whole
third floor of this place, is dedicated to that.
Luci: And that secondhand thing is a big deal, because lolita fashion is very expensive if
you buy it.
Annika: Yep.
[Music plays]
One of the trendiest thrift stores in Shimokitazawa, New York Joe exchange is a place where you
can bring in secondhand clothing, and you can get store credit for it.
You can also buy pieces without bringing in your old clothes.
I loved this store, and I visited it a couple of times.
Keep an eye on their Instagram page for weekend sales where everything is 50% off – although
beware, it becomes extremely crowded when these sales are on!
“Puchikoshon”, which google translate wants to translate to "Petit Coconut" in English,
is a gorgeous vintage store stuffed into a sliver of a building on the South side of
Shimokitazawa.
Definitely worth a visit.
Eco Wear is high on my list of recommendations, because it’s both very cheap and very well-curated.
For $5-$15, they sell high-quality used clothing, and I even saw pretty high-end Japanese brands
being sold for about 5% of what they originally would have cost.
This store is a great place to find retro toys!
Inside is a mix of vintage and new toys, and being right next to the station, it’s well
worth a visit.
Grapefruit Moon is a bit more on the expensive side, but it’s still worth a visit: because
even if you don’t buy anything, the interior decoration is just gorgeous – And it’ll
give you a lot of styling inspiration as well, with styles from the 70s being very prominent
when I visited this time!
Undoubtedly one of my favourite stores, because it exactly matches my current style, inside
is a mix of both vintage and new pieces that blend really seamlessly with each other.
I also found this one reaaaaally good, cheap thrift store called M’s Collection, but
sadly it was only a temporary pop-up store!
Most of the items here, apart from a couple of coats, were 400Y each, which is $4, including
this handpainted cardigan and cute white satchel backpack that I picked up.
The shop space, however, often holds pop-up stores like these, which is the reason I’ve
still included it on my guide.
A little tip for going clothes-shopping in Japan, to save you some embarrassment – you’ll
be expected to take your shoes off before entering any change-rooms.
In some places they also gave me this little baggie when entering the change-room, which
I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what it was supposed to be used for.
I mean, it's like, too small to hold my clothes...
So I’m coming to you, youtube.
What is this for?
There’s also a couple of other stores which I loved – but they are a bit more on the
pricey side, so I didn’t buy anything from them.
However, I’m putting them on my guide because they’re just SO pretty inside, you HAVE
to visit them and just look around.
These include the Flamingo stores, of which there are 3 in Shimokitazawa, and can be recognised
by their distinctive neon signs; the iconic Haight & Ashbury, which has been running in
this one place for almost 25 years now; and this one smaller vintage shop called Rainbow,
which is just opposite Haight & Ashbury, and it had some really gorgeous vintage pieces.
Another really cool thing about Shimokitazawa is that, um, if you like night-time shopping,
like I do, all of the vintage stores are open 'til 9 o'clock on a Monday night, or up to
midnight if it's the weekend - which is awesome, you can go out for some dinner and a drink,
and then go shopping.
Which is really cool!
I'm going to leave you with one last really important tip for shopping vintage in Shimokitazawa
– put your explorers cap on!
Make sure you’re looking in nooks and crannies, down tiny side-streets and also make sure
that you LOOK. UP.
Many of the thrift stores are located above street level, or up teeny tiny little staircases
like this one.
So that's it for part-one of my thrifting in Tokyo series!
The next videos in the series will include a lookbook and a haul of all the things that
I thrifted, AND a guide to thrifting in Harajuku!
If you can't wait to see what I thrifted, I've posted a couple of the items, styled
into outfits, to my instagram page which you can find here.
Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you all next time.
Bye!
Annika: Hey Luci.
Annika: Can you move out of the way.
Annika: [laughs] Thanks.
Thank you to all of my supporters on Patreon for making these videos possible.
To become my patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/annikavictoria!