Secondhand Is First Choice in Japan
For four months, Rina Ito lusted after a black, bamboo-handled Gucci bag. But the $820 status symbol was way out of reach for a 20-year-old college student working part time at a bar.
So Ito was ecstatic when she found the handbag in near-perfect condition at a Tokyo pawn shop. At a mere $484, it was a steal.
In the high-rolling 1980s, when Japan became a top consumer of luxury brand names, buying somebody’s old purse at a pawn shop was not just impossible, but unthinkable.
But the bubble burst, and a six-year economic hangover has sent many Japanese digging for good deals. Recession has helped banish the aversion to used things that sprang up in Japan after World War II. Neighborhood shops that sell used goods on consignment, known here as “recycle shops,” are popping up all over Tokyo.
“I used to think used stuff was gross,” Ito said, beaming and clutching her new acquisition. “I would definitely buy recycled things again, though, because they’re good quality and they’re cheap.”
Weekend flea markets abound in the city’s parks and parking lots. Yoyogi Park’s Sunday market, a bargain-hunting mecca for hip, young Tokyoites, attracts up to 30,000 customers over the weekend. And pawn shops have shaken off their seedy, back-alley image by redecorating and adding designer goods to their inventories. Their goal: to entice the group with the most spending power, twentysomething females.
“People simply can’t afford things like they could in the 1980s,” said Mariko Ikeda, a clerk at Boutique Claire, a small recycle shop in a Tokyo residential area. “They’ve become much more practical.”
Many Japanese are still slaves to fickle fashion, but the “use-and-toss” attitude of the past 15 years has disappeared, said Claire’s owner, Noriko Okada. Her year-old, one-room store now sells 50 to 100 pieces of ladies’ clothing and accessories a day--as much as a new-clothing boutique might sell in a month.
Customers check out the merchandise daily and drop off unneeded clothes, setting their own price and getting 60% of the return if the item sells. Okada, also an avid thrift-shopper, said it makes sense to get rid of old things, considering Japan’s cramped living space. “And it’s fun, because then for $10 or $30 you can get something someone bought for $200.”
On a Sunday afternoon, Chizuko Sawano, 50, one of about 60,000 bargain hunters at the flea market in Meiji Park, scanned the packed rows of display blankets and open car trunks, all piled with everything from clothing and appliances to dishes and toys. Already laden with four bags stuffed with suits, jackets, sweaters and coats, she was eyeing a $15 two-piece outfit.
“You come once and you get addicted,” said Sawano, who saw an ad for the flea market in a magazine. “I finally went, and I bought six months’ worth of stuff. I could barely carry it all home.”
The lure of deep discounts has pushed many Japanese to lose their loathing of secondhand goods.
“People thought using something that somebody else had used was disgusting,” said Hajime Atari, owner of a boutique-like pawn shop that stocks Gucci and Prada handbags. “Now, even if it’s a little old, people will buy it if it’s cheap.”
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Japan’s aversion to used things was not always just a money matter. A belief that a person’s “spirit” can haunt possessions has fostered negative feelings toward secondhand objects.
Japan’s obsession with cleanliness is also a factor, said Osaka professor Seiichi Washida. “Clothes are the closest thing to your body, so they are the most private.”
And many Japanese long held vivid memories of the poverty of the post-World War II era, when new clothes were out of the question, everyone’s belongings were threadbare and pawn shops were frequented by the desperate.
“I’ve heard stories of used clothing shops after the war where people stood in long lines waiting to sell their kimonos to put food on the table,” said Shoji Kikuchi, whose grandfather opened the pawn shop Kikuchi now runs 70 years ago.
So when Japan reached its economic zenith in the 1980s, few Japanese were willing to settle for less than the best.
But today’s young Japanese don’t remember the deprivation of the postwar era, and their thirst for bargains, especially on brand names, has overridden any lingering aversion to used goods. Even during the ‘80s, a vintage clothing boom among Japan’s youth helped to erode the idea that old clothing was a faux pas.
Vintage clothes, however, were never cheap. At the Monster--a vintage and used clothing shop in Tokyo that stocks used jeans, 1950s American high school varsity jackets and vintage U.S. Army clothing--a pair of 20-year-old gas-station coveralls with “Frank” embroidered on the breast pocket goes for $150.
Some say Japanese have tired of the relentless pursuit of the latest fads. “The ‘present’ comes to have no meaning if what you have today is going to be out of style tomorrow,” Washida said. But the threads of used clothes have a history of their own, giving people the comforting feeling that they have a grip on the present, he added.
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While Japanese may have rediscovered thrift, they certainly have not lost their taste for designer imports, said Kikuchi, who has turned his grandfather’s small shop into a three-building complex selling brand-name bags, clothing and watches.
“If they’re going to spend the money, Japanese would still rather pay $30,000 for a used [Mercedes] Benz than $20,000 for a new [Toyota],” he said. When banks and credit companies replaced pawn shops as the primary neighborhood money-lenders, many pawn shops turned to buying and selling status-laden luxury items.
Once considered dark places where proper women feared to tread, pawn shops have seen their female clientele rise from nearly zero to about half of all customers. Owners say large display windows, a bright atmosphere, almost-new designer merchandise and even music have made their shops more female-friendly, a vital ingredient for success.
“Young women are rich,” Kikuchi said. “It’s not how much money they make; it’s how much they can spend.” Many women in their 20s live with their parents and spend up to 90% of their income on luxury items.
Women bring in things they have gotten tired of, or gifts from a despised former flame, said Keitaro Seto, owner of Le Sept, a boutique-pawn shop hybrid. “One young woman came in with a small Louis Vuitton card case to sell and said, ‘I asked my boyfriend for a wallet and I got this,’ and threw it on the counter,” he said.
Even though the stigma against secondhand goods is fading, Yoshimi Katsuno, 26, probably will not tell her friends she picked up her “new” Gucci watch for $124 at a pawn shop.
“I don’t tell people I come to these places,” said Katsuno, who makes the rounds of her favorite recycle and pawn shops weekly. Besides, she doesn’t want competition: “If you don’t buy things quickly, someone else will.”
