One thing I spaced on before my last Japan trip was the possibility of visiting a thrift store in Japan. I'd like to avoid that this next time around and would love to hear seagull stories. Talking points:
>Stores to check out. I've been bookmarking Okoku or Purchase Kingdom
>Selling clothes. Anons have mentioned that bringing a suitcase of ridiculous retro American clothes can fetch a pretty penny
>Stories and finds
I had a really...werid thrifting experience in Japan. I'm not even sure if it was thrift store to be honest, it was just a small store across the street from ... I think it was Abeno Belta. There were no duplicate items and nothing had tags so it seemed like they were all donated, but I'm not sure. I was carrying all my groceries but I decided to take a look inside and I was greeted by a super sweaty old man who had a heavy kansai accent and was stuttering and was almost impossible to understand. He talked to me for like 30 minutes before I could get started shopping. I managed to find a weird zip up sleeveless hoody made out of some kind of chiffony material and then this shirt/dress with the most adorable engrish on it. It says like "Ranning souls I go with the wave" or something. I have a pic somewhere.
????/10 don't know if recommend.
So yeah if you're even in Osaka, give it a go I guess. Personally I avoided it after that first time but that's just me lol
Most "thrifting" in Japan is expensive, and they won't give you much cash for anything you bring in
>>8742244
>ridiculous retro American clothes
But that stuff is great, and if you have any that's usuable in Jfashion you might have better luck/make more money selling things like that on EBay or something, especially if >>8742260 is right.
Off topic, but years ago, for a brief moment in London, a big American thrift store opened up selling loads of imported retro American stuff for cheap; it was great, I still have a few items. If the same thing happened today all or any of those items would be expensive as fuck now, I just know it.
I probably would not reccomend selling unless you're sure it'll work out. It's probably not worth it.
I was around Nagoya and got some cheap cute lolita burando shit from Otakara shops, as well as some UFO catcher figures. I can't remember the specific names right now. I also went to Violet Blue, I would totally reccomend that for basics like blouses and headbows and socks.
For regular Japanese clothes, I got some pretty cheap stuff new from a generic Aeon mall. My favorite thrift store by far was a 2nd Street store. I got a lot of cute shit, including some Liz Lisa for under 500 yen each. I think the contents of the store really depend on the location, and I've noticed that the closer to the city, the higher the prices. So keep that in mind.
My favorite finds are clothes that are obviously from taobao or the like but even cheaper since they're second hand.
I can take some pics of my thrift finds if anyone's interested. I'm really passionate about this.
>>8742539
I'd love pics and stories. I've been watching youtube ids and drooling over the amazing cheap anime and clothes finds in japan thrift stores.
>>8742539
I'd really like some pics and stories too, this sounds great. Were the clothes in good quality?
>>8742260
Nah, man. Second Street was my favorite thirft shop, I would frequently buy basically brand new/unworn clothes for $3 - 7 per item. The best was finding an unworn condition UNIQLO shirt for $5 that was in the stores for $25.
I also started buying figures when I found huge Cardcaptor ones for 8 bucks.
So it's >>8742539, I had kind of a bad day so I'm going to self-indulgently post some of my favorite japanese thrift finds. I'm also adding the prices/brand, because let's be real, that's the best part. I did guess on a few, though. I got these all at various shops in the Gifu/Nagoya area.
Starting with blouses!
>1 Liz Lisa, ¥900
I love the cut and design of this blouse, but I'm iffy on the light brown gingham print. Somedays I love it, some days I hate it.
>2 Offbrand, ¥500
You can pull the ribbon to gather the neckline to make it lower or higher. This one's so versatile! I had to change the lace on the sleeves since the original sleeve lace was gross and scratchy.
>3 Offbrand, ¥800
Easily my most worn blouse. I wear it with daily fashion and lolita fashion alike.
>4 Offbrand, ¥800
Fun gyaruish blouse.
>5 Axes Femme, ¥300 (!!)
Ivory, almost beige. Very light yet detailed. I love this one for lolita in the summer.
>6 Offbrand, ¥500
The same blouse as 6, down to the same exact size and buttons. The omly difference is this one is a peachy color and has longer sleeves.
>7 Offbrand, ¥600
Very natural looking cotton with cute cotton lace. I call it my japanese mom blouse. I would wear it more if I was into mori.
>8 Liz Lisa, ¥500
My favorite blouse. It's a soft knit with a fake chiffon collar thing. It matches all my btssb ivory socks perfectly, so I wear them together a lot! The photo doesn't do it justice, to be honest.
>>8747083
nice
The background color changes a lot, I'm sorry.
Dresses
>1 Offbrand, ¥200
I still don't know why it was ¥200, it's so cute. It's actually a pretty dark navy, idk what my camera was doing
>2 Offbrand, ¥500
Actually has a chinese label, hah. It's pretty bad quality in the collar and hem area, actually. I wear it a lot anyways.
>3 Axes Femme, ¥900
I love this dress, but it looks terrible without a blouse, thanks to armpit cleavage. I can't seem to find a blouse that would look good with it, either...
>4 Liz Lisa, ¥1500
I got this one at a more expensive place, but it's so worth it. It's the perfect summertime I-forgot-to-shave-my-legs dress.
>5 Offbrand, ¥300
Quality and wearable light denim
>6 Offbrand, ¥500
The tag says "Blahpuccino: made in Korea" and it looks significant, but it might just be nothing.
I find with a lot of my casual dresses, there's not a lot of fabric or gathering in the skirt compared to lolita. Probably because they're cheap af. I wear little mini pettis with them to keep the from geting caught between my legs and create a bit of a silhouette.
Here are my lolita finds!
>1 BTSSB, ¥500, Book Off Bazaar
I think I posted here about this when I got it. It might be from a mook or something because the quality is kind of terrible, yet it's my most use lolita bag. It's just so large and versatile.
>2 AP+AP+BTSSB, ¥500+¥800+¥1500, Violet Blue
I don't even own Wonder Queen, but someday. The bow on the beret is removable and has a cute baby logo chain so I put it on everything.
>3 AP, ¥3000, Treasure something or another
My best find by far. It's my only AP bag, but it's so soft and high quality that I want more.
>4 BTSSB, ¥2000, Violet Blue
It was marked down thanks to a small black dot on one of the ruffles. It was hiding amongst the bodyline lace monsters in the cheapass rack, lol.
I also got a AatP cutesew that had been marked down to ¥1100 since it had small light brown splatters on it, it looked like someone had slurped ramen with it on. I stuck it in the wash, and they all came out, funnily enough. I gave it to a friend, though, it wasn't really my style.
I think thrift shopping is really good if you're looking for Japanese brands. Relatively new stuff tends to be pretty cheap. I've picked up good deals on liz lisa, dazzlin, lowry's farm and other brands for a fraction of the price. Places like jumble store/second street and Don don down are really good for that.
On the other hand more curated thrift/vintage stores tend to sell American things at a higher price point than Japanese brands. Clothes are super expensive where I live, so some of the items still seemed like a good deal to me. Of course your mileage will vary.
More suburban areas with larger stores tend to have the best finds if you're looking for Japanese brands. Trendier and more youth orientated places have more picked over stock, but it's pretty fast moving and they tend to have a nice selection of trendy items.
If you're looking to buy second hand brand name items like comme des garcons, chanel or whatever there's also some good deals to be found in some stores like ragtag. Especially if you don't mind a bit of damage.
>>8747402
Well, this isn't all of it, I still have all my skirts and the blouses that are in the wash now. I basically combed the whole store everytime I went in, and maybe found 4-6 things that were what I wanted. Some places I found nothing or just 1-2 things. So yeah, there was definitely a lot of things I didn't care for.
You also want to be pretty small. I'm 34-26-34 and 5'8" and most things fit, but I had problems with shorts looking bad and a few shirts not buttoning all the way. Pretty much everything is free-size.
>>8747499
Wew, nice finds anon! Your measurements give me hope, they're almost identical to mine. Having said that, I have fairly broadish shoulders (38 cm) and I'm going to have to assume I would run into trouble there.
>>8747499
Well damn. I guess I'm stuck then, I have man shoulders...
Still, it'd be worth it, if only to resell, because there is no way you wouldn't make a profit. Even selling the LL and AF at twice the price would be cheaper than most ebay sellers.
