japan vintage shopping london secondhand polyesterzine polyester zine polyestermagazine magazine tokyo shopping katy cutbirth — There were two versions of shopping in Japan for me.
The first is the one I imagined before arriving: rails of immaculate Comme des Garçons blazers, Yohji coats, rare Issey dresses, every Vestiaire piece I've favourited over the years somehow waiting patiently for me. The second is the version I discovered somewhere around day four, when I had stopped trying to hunt for fashion unicorns and instead found myself buying a beautifully wrapped tea bowl from an unmanned pottery shop, or a decades-old fashion catalogue that I'll treasure more than another black blazer.
I spent ten days moving between Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka with one mission: to shop. Before leaving I'd interrogated every well-traveled fashion person I knew and surrendered more than a few evenings to TikTok rabbit holes. My Google Maps became a constellation of saved vintage stores, archives, bookstores and antiques shops. Some were every bit as wonderful as promised. Others felt sadly unremarkable.
Like most people who are interested in fashion, I arrived convinced Japan would be the place where I'd quietly rebuild my wardrobe. Junya Watanabe, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons, Undercover and Sacai all feel inherently linked to the country, so of course I packed comically light, imagining I'd return with an entirely different suitcase.
What surprised me was that the best things I bought weren't clothes at all. Designer fashion certainly exists in abundance, but unless you're looking for something particularly rare, the prices weren't dramatically different from what I'd expect to find through good vintage stores in London or online. I had plenty of moments standing in front of something beautiful, trying to persuade myself that buying it was somehow part of the experience. But I held strong and more often than not, I walked away.
Instead Japan redirected my attention elsewhere, towards independent bookshops, antique ceramics, old fashion memorabilia, pharmacies filled with skincare and tiny family run shops that would be impossible to recreate anywhere else.

The Shops:

10tow - Tokyo

If you've ever fallen down an internet rabbit hole looking at archival Comme des Garçons collections, this feels like stepping inside your browser history. The small shop specialises in Japanese designers, with rails full of vintage Issey, Yohji and the wider family of labels that have shaped contemporary fashion. I didn't buy anything but I left feeling inspired which can sometimes be just as satisfying.

Vintage Jimbocho - Tokyo

Jimbocho became one of my favourite corners of Tokyo. It's a neighbourhood devoted almost entirely to books, each shop with its own particular obsession: Cats. Pornography. Cinema. Fashion. Music. Architecture. You’ll end up wandering between them absent-mindedly until hours have disappeared.

Vintage Jimbocho was the place I wish I could carve out and bring back to London with me. Downstairs are shelves of old magazines and books devoted to sports, music and film. At the back were walls filled with folders chock-full of vintage Japanese film posters and cinema flyers. My friend bought a Japanese Bend It Like Beckham flyer for his sister - a souvenir that felt infinitely more personal than anything else we found.

Flotsam Books - Tokyo

If I could only recommend one bookshop from the entire trip, it would probably be Flotsam. It's one of those bookshops where every spine felt worth pulling from the shelf. Fashion lookbooks, out-of-print magazines, rare photography books that have long disappeared from circulation, it absolutely rewarded slow browsing.

I found an enormous Undercover AW12 printed lookbook while my friend unearthed a similar Yohji publication. None of us had planned to buy books or magazines, yet somehow all of us left carrying bags of oversized paper treasures through Tokyo that day.

Kendal - Everywhere

There are enough second-hand chains in Japan to make you feel as though you're permanently on the verge of finding something extraordinary. Kendal was the one I kept hoping we'd stumble across again.

Where some of the larger vintage stores can feel slightly exhausting, Kendal felt edited. Rails of Auralee appeared with surprising regularity alongside Tom Ford-era Gucci and old Prada.

In Osaka's Minamisenba store I scored a vintage Gucci belt from Tom Ford's era for less than £30. It had just enough wear to remind you it had already lived another life. I also spent an embarrassingly long time trying to convince myself that an immaculate '80s Versace skirt suit almost fit me, it didn't. Hey ho, some pieces are simply meant to haunt you.

2nd Street - Everywhere

Buyee had me convinced that 2nd Street would become my personality for these ten days. Instead, it became the place I kept popping into whenever I passed one, hopeful that this would be the branch not yet run through by the fashion girlies. I finally left with an X-Girl sweatshirt which I've already worn more times than I'd like to admit, but if time is precious I'd spend it elsewhere. Japan's smaller independent vintage stores have far more character, and that's ultimately what I found myself searching for.

Rogers - Kyoto

Japan's fascination with American vintage has produced something entirely its own. Being American, I spend plenty of time vintage shopping whenever I'm home and I'd always assumed nowhere could rival the endless thrift stores scattered across the States. Japan proved me wrong. The prices are closer to New York than Texas but the level of curation makes all the difference.

I found the perfect pair of vintage Levi's here, softened with age and somehow fitting better than most new jeans ever have.

Aoi Bazar - Kyoto

Sometimes the smallest shops stay with you the longest. Aoi Bazar sits just off the Philosopher's Path and is unlike anywhere else we visited. The little pottery shop was created by a young girl, with her parents helping her learn about running a business.

Inside are shelves lined with handmade ceramics, tea bowls, tiny vases and beautifully imperfect objects that feel as though they've been waiting patiently for someone to take them home.

Everything operates on trust. You wrap your own purchase, place it in a paper bag and leave your payment in a small honesty box. In a country already built on extraordinary politeness, it somehow felt like the purest expression of it.

Gallery Sumomo - Kyoto

Some of my favourite shopping moments happened completely by accident. We'd finished lunch and were wandering through Kyoto, drifting in and out of antique shops as we walked. Gallery Sumomo was the place I couldn't leave without taking something with me.

There were shelves of delicate glassware, handmade ceramics and beautifully stitched Korean pojagi textiles hanging from the ceilings. I came away with two Korean handmade silk purses, one for me and one for my niece. They weren't things I'd gone looking for, which made finding them even sweeter.

The Beauty Haul:

If fashion wasn't quite the revelation I'd expected, Japanese beauty absolutely was.

My advice is to begin at a local pharmacy before graduating to Don Quijote, which is equal parts department store and carnival and 100% sensory overload. By the time I finally walked into Don Quijote, I'd already picked up most of what I'd come for, making the experience considerably less overwhelming.

Between the two I left with enough skincare to justify an entirely separate suitcase. Japanese skincare has long fascinated me because it seems to prioritise products that promise healthier skin rather than miraculous transformation and after only a few weeks of using them I can understand the obsession.

I have melasma, so vitamin C serums and brightening products immediately found their way into my basket. I also stocked up on the viral rice sheet masks, which have become my favourite small luxury after keeping them in the fridge for ten minutes before using them on these particularly hot evenings we’ve been having.

Pair Acne Cream has become another staple, super gentle enough on my sensitive skin while helping calm the redness that always seems to linger long after a breakout has disappeared.

The Biore sunscreen deserves every bit of its cult status. Lightweight, hydrating and actually making my skin look better rather than simply protected, it's one of the few products I think I’ll have to reorder.

I left Japan with a suitcase filled with books, pottery, beauty products and a handful of unique objects that seem to hold the memories of the trip much more vividly than the designer finds of my TikTok feed could.

This is what I found so compelling about shopping in Japan. It was less about buying more and instead about noticing what's in front of you: the tiny bookshop hidden down a side street, the honesty-box pottery shop or an antique textile hanging in a broom-closet-sized shop.

London will always satisfy my appetite for vintage fashion, but Japan reminded me that the most memorable souvenirs are rarely the ones you set out to find. They're the objects that manage to carry the atmosphere of a place home with them.

The Polyester Guide to Shopping in Japan