You will not have experienced true Japanese shopping if you have not visited the many “select shops” that dot the cities of Japan. What are select shops? According to wikipedia, this is a Japaneseified label, probably only understood in Japan. Basically, select shops are brands that purchase various clothing items from various other brands across the world and sell them at their shops. The most famous I think is BEAMS, but you may have come across Baycrews, United Arrows, and SHIPS. They are the top 4 and so much fun to shop at! Skirts, tops, blouses, shoes, flip-flops, face creams, pouches, bags, luxury items, hats, camping goods, gloves, anything sartorial (and some not even) they will most likely have in one of their stores. As they say, choosing from a curated set is much more enjoyable than having to select something from the entire universe.

Top 3 places to go:

1. Lumine – Yurakucho or Shinjuku. — okay I think I have expounded my love for the Lumine chains in my earlier blog but they are fantastic in that they have a collection of the select shops and you will be able to visit all of them at one go.
2. Marunouchi Building + Shinmarunouchi Building — okay, so these are technically two buildings but these buildings are right next to each other and are connected underground like tree roots so if you’re in one, you might as well visit the other. They are located literallly (literally) right outside Tokyo Station. If you leave from the Marunouchi side exits (Marunochi Central, Marunouchi South, Marunouchi North), it is right outside. They have the United Arrows, the Beams, the Baycrews brands and a few more.
3. Toranomon Hills – so this is a relatively new building village area with fancy new office buildings. They have a few floors in Station Tower that house the select shop brands. Honestly, they kind of appear out of nowhere from the second floor of Station Tower. There are no walls or easy-to-see banners that boldly state their shop. If you are shy, it may be a bit awkward to shop here, but the attendees kind of leave you alone so if you are not into chitchat with random shopkeepers, this may turn out to be much suitable for you. This is right outside of the Hibiya Line Toranomon Hills Station.

I will do another article focusing more on the history, nature, general styles of the select shops.