The once-a-year annual shopping fest to Tokyo is best undertaken at Christmas. Those in the know head there not only for its one-of-a-kind offerings, but also to stock up on the latest from the Japanese designer firmament. I’ve been doing it for years, and while every year, the Tokyo retail scene churns up delightful new shops, my favourites are thankfully always around. Here are some of them.

A-POC
Even though Issey Miyake has handed over the reins of his other brands to apprentices, he still keeps a hands-on approach here. A Piece of Cloth has been revolutionary in garment technology, with their garments cut from tubes of material. Now part of a permanent MOMA exhibit, the clothes here do seem more like collectors’ items than fashion produce. The basic deal is that you buy a tube of cloth, then cut it up in marked places, so it can be worn as a skirt, top, hat or bag-all from the same piece of fabric. Available in beautiful shades, often with gradations and prints, APOC has always snubbed trends but remains superbly creative at very reasonable prices.
Address: 3-17-14, Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 5770 4500.

Comme des Garçons
Trailblazer and enfant terrible Rei Kawakubo’s avant garde clothes are not for the faint hearted. For her fans, this superb Future Systems designed shop is a shrine to anti-conservatism and extreme personal style with Comme des Garçons and the men’s collections. You will often find androgynous clothes in black, dark grey and white, with flashes of her favourite colour, red, and trimmings with velvet or stripes. Not all is extreme, though; there are black umbrella-cut dresses, to be paired with beautiful patent ballerinas in shocking red and black – and the most superbly tailored dark suits for men to be worn with military boots. Japanese fans of Kawakubo are known to sport the same hairstyle as the donna herself, with heavy bangs and shoulder length hair. Once they acquire a taste for her clothes, few ever buy anything else.
Address: 5-2-1 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 3406 3951.

Green
Green is the hottest new Japanese kid on the block. They are particularly good at Chesterfield coats, tuxedos and very manly silhouettes that look super stylish when worn. They might play around with a lot of lengths and volumes, but tailoring remains strict, classic, clean and monotoned. If you are looking for lace and frills, this is not the place to go. But if you are a power bomb, you can absolutely level with Green’s no-nonsense, deadly feminine trouser glam – just as our age wants it, a combination of Edwardian ruffles and urban chic.
Address: 2-9-8 Ebisu-nishi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 3780 1382.

Junya Watanabe
A product of the mentor-disciple tradition of Japanese culture, Junya Watanabe has gained as much fame as his mentor Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, where he started as a pattern cutter. Today he works both at Comme des Garçons with the Tricot line and at his own label. His staple is the biker’s jacket in calf leather, which sometimes comes with a washed stressed vibe. Adept at using wool gabardine, he uses it in dresses and gets away with surprising softness. Drapes feature, often to soften the appearance of tight black, shiny leather jackets. And he plays around with trompe l’oeil – like using different fabrics in one garment. A dress that is part knit on one side and jacquard satin on the other is an example of looks that are avant-garde, yet really wearable.
Address: 5-2-1 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 3405 3951.

Limi Feu
Limi is designer Yohji Yamamoto’s daughter and has taken the design world by storm with her neat girly collections. Check out the shirts with ruffles or short ties, great shorts and the beautifully tailored white blouses stitched around the body to fit like a glove. Feu also does some excellent tunics in a heavy gabardine fabric that can also be worn over jeans. In winter, there is usually a great collection of leg warmers and woollen versions of her creations – always stoic and sophisticated. A great charismatic collection, very independent from papa’s school of cool.
Address: 6-6-11 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 5464 1752

Mihara Yasuhiro
While their women’s theme is described in their own words as ‘twinkle conflict’, in reality, it is a great mixture of nostalgia and futuristic weaves. Feminine though far from girly – think short leather skirts with tight shirts, at once edgy and classic. For men, his most famous creation a while ago was half-sleeved jerseys with smileys. On a more serious note, he also did cyber chic, such as tie shirts and seer-sucker half-sleeved shirts with frills. But he became famous for the shoes – half sneakers that look like your average sneaker in front and a regular lace-up at the back, or the special Puma edition where the white rubber sole covers the top section in an ink splatter design or a zebra pattern or banana yellow combinations.
Address: B1F, 5-2-6 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 5778 0675.

Pleats Please
This gravity-defying fabric suits everybody perfectly, including expecting mothers, power women and all those in between. With a sharp clean look in an unending range of colours, each garment has a very delicate pleated surface. This is created by heat-setting the fabric in a finely pleated paper mould. Miyake holds the patent for this technique. Loads of prints and shapes are available every season in an impossible variety of colours. Travel-perfect, iron-free and very shapely, some local women are known to wear only this label. This shop not only stocks their largest and latest collection, but is the cheapest in the world, with a duty-free service.
Address: La Place de Minamiaoyama, 3-13-21, Minami Aoyama, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 5772 7750.

Sunao Kuwahara
Popular with Tokyo’s arty, articulate and sometimes nerdy types, Kuwahara is actually the designer of a really moody, sweet label, taking trends and cutting them up to suit his own tastes. In his beautifully laid out, spacious boutique with its wooden interior, he has, for example, taken the balloon trend and worked at it with great fervour, successfully disfiguring it into a double layered skirt with a jagged hemline, which keeps the volume but avoids the pumpkin look with pretty tulip shapes, at once arty and beautiful. His jackets and sweaters too are deconstructed, often in subdued plaid, but with surprises like chiffon detailing. His clothes have a vintage feel and never go out of fashion.
Address: LaFuente Daikanyama Main Bldg 1F, 11-1 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 5728 2897.

Roen
Hiromu Tahara’s world of skull and bones greets you as you step down the black and red stairs into his label’s flagship store. Dark brooding collections in black whisper from the shelves. Fantastical fans of this darling of the Tokyo Collection stock up on his long sleeved T-shirts with skulls and crossbones, nylon blousons, deerskin coats and Mickey sweats in black and white. The shop also stocks Roen jeans and reigning bad boys love his shoe line that has such stuff as python sneaks.
Address: B1F, 3-6-19 Kita Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo.
Tel: +81 3 5468 6871.

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