Harajuku Lovers Tee on HIMYM
Those of you who watch How I Met Your Mother probably remember that Lily (played by Alyson Hannigan) has a bit of a shopping addiction. She is supposed to be a bit of a fashion maniac. She does dress well but I guess it doesn’t take much to look good beside Marshall who is always wearing the same old jeans and retro style tees. Anyway I noticed one t-shirt she was wearing had some kanji on the top corner and, having an interest in things Japanese, I thought I would try find it.
Alyson Hannigan wearing Harajuku Lovers T-Shirt in How I Met Your Mother
It didn’t take very long for me to find out that it was a Harajuku Lovers piece. Quite a nice shirt too. Harajuku Lovers is Gwen Stefani’s Japan inspired clothing line. This shirt costs $45 from R&S Avenue which is a pretty decent price to pay for quality. I reckon it would cost much more in Harajuku if you could actually find it there. Ongaku means music for those who are curious.
Harajuku Lovers Blue Ongaku T-Shirt
Random Shirts in Yokohama’s Chinatown
The other day I had to go into Chinatown (Yokohama - I live in Yokohama) to take a few photos for one of my day jobs and while I was there I snapped a few tees as well. Being Chinatown of course you can expect a few Bruce Lee and a few panda tees and that among others is what I saw. Anyway, I thought I would share.
Bruce Lee T-Shirt in Chinatown
Two Bruce Lee T-Shirts and a Koi T-Shirt
The various emotions of a panda depicted on a shirt.
This shows pandas emotions indicated by the Chinese characters of which I can read but a few. The second from the right on the bottom is drunk panda.
This design, a spoof of Puma's logo was available on many many items. This photo is a hoodie.
This is of course a spoof of Lacoste. Loosely translated it means "turn me over".
I particularly like the chicken and egg t-shirt and how it makes us try to imagine what the chicken is feeling. The pink DOEM M t-shirt: M is for Masochist and the top three characters are the katakana for DO E M. Do means strong. I guess you could translate it as big time masochist. I saw an S t-shirt too.
Both of these tees, like the chicken one above I believe, are from an outfit called Gokigen FACTORY. The left one says O-Hime-sama which means princess and the one the right I am guessing is a very bad translation of In Vino Veritas - In wine is truth.
Yokohama Marathon T-Shirt
A couple of weeks ago I participated in the 28th Yokohama Marathon. To be fair though, the Yokohama Marathon is not really a marathon. They have a tendency in Japan to call anything longer than running to catch the train a marathon. The Yokohama Marathon is a half marathon but I didn’t even run in that race. I ran in the 10km race. I know that 10km isn’t very far and I didn’t run very fast but I was happy enough with my performance. I had never before in my life ran 10km in one day, as far as I know. I mean I played rugby and hockey in school and we had to do a lot of exercise in training and participate in other sporting events too but it is a little different from running. I finished the race in just under 56 minutes. I was hoping to finish in less than an hour so I was pretty pleased. I hope to get better time or perhaps participate in the 21km next year though.
T-Shirt for people who participated in the 2008 Yokohama Marathon
At the end of the race we all received t-shirts (pictured above). They are not something I would really wear when going out, or even to the shops for that matter and it is not because I don’t want to be seen as a braggart bcause that doesn’t bother me. I am proud of my achievement and I don’t mind telling you how great I am. It’s simply because it is not the coolest t-shirt. The design is nice enough but it simply looks like a Yokohama souvenir at first glance and I live in Yokohama so that would be pretty ridiculous.
The t-shirt is nice quality though, made by Adidas and has an Adidas logo embroidered on one sleeve with the Yokohama Port Opening 150 year Anniversary mascot printed on the other sleeve. (At least that’s what I think it is. Somebody told me what kind of animal it is supposed to be the other day and I would never have guessed. I have already forgotten what he told me it was.) The blue print on the front is a simple graphic containing recognizable depictions of Yokohama landmarks.
You probably can’t get your hands on one of these as I expect the tees change each year. I am a fan of souvenir tees and used to collect (and wear) band and event t-shirts but I have been trying fairly successfully to stop doing that recently. This though is a sign of my achievement though and I am happy to have it. Next year I will show it to my daughter (she is due in March) and she will look at it and poop her pants. There may be no connection between the pooping and the t-shirt though, but I have heard that babys poop their pants a lot.
UTGP 09 Wants You
UTGP 09 wants you to vote on your favorite t-shirts for their Grand Prix competition. It’s a little confusing over but I think they have narrowed down the 14,584 designs to just 1,000 and then to 200. I know what you are thinking. 14,584 designs is a hell of a lot of designs but the prize is pretty substantial at 3 million yen (about US$30,000) so that would naturally attract a lot of people.
■Evaluation 1st Pass
The UTGP selection committee elected 1000 applications.
Please log in this site and participate in the vote event.
We present UTGP2009 grand prix T-shirt to 100 people or less by lot.
You can vote on favorite T-shirt once on the first.
- The ranking of the vote event is not related to the examination of the Evaluation 2nd.
- The Evaluation 2nd. is executed in the UT selection committee.
- UTGP2009 grand prix T-shirt is decided in April, 2009.■Evaluation 2nd Pass
The UTGP selection committee elected 200 applications.
We will announce the 3rd selection (20 designs) on the web at February 2009.
Two New Tees from Tokyo Art Beat
Not only have Tokyo Art Beat released a couple of new shirts, they have reduced the prices too, by 500 yen (about $5). They are now sold for 3,500 yen. I still think they could drop the prices a little more but I understand the cost issues. From my own research it seems to be impossible to get tees printed as cheaply as in the US. Tokyo Art Beat uses Sweat Shop Union and while you can get tees printed for cheaper elsewhere you also have to look at the quality aspect.
The two new t-shirts are not bad. They have introduced the option of neutral colors for those of you like me, who wouldn’t don the bright pink and blues. I appreciate the concept and the detail in the designs of these shirts but as shirts they are definitely not a must have item for me. Although that might be different if I saw what they actually looked like. For those of you who want to stand out from the crowd with some limited edition fashion though it might be just what you are looking for.
Two New Graniph Stores
Japanese T-Shirt giant Graniph have two new stores. The first is in Sendai, northern Japan. It opened in August on the 5th floor of the Parco Building. It focuses on ladies tee apparently. The reasoning being that it is situated in the ladies department. Sorry guys.
The next is in Taiwan. It will open up Sept. 24th. Address for all you jetsetters: 1st Floor, No. 15 Nanjing W. Road, Taipei,Taiwan.
Of course you can always do your shopping online. Link: Graniph.
Fun Tees from Japan
I actually came across these t-shirts a while back in a t-shirt store in Shibuya. That store sold t-shirts from many designers but these were two of the funniest there. The first one is called Drunken Donuts which is a spoof of Dunkin’ Donuts of course. One bite makes you drunken’ happy! You’ll be shocked by the adult taste.
The other is a great M&Ms spoof called S&M’s featuring a fishnet stocking wearing, whip lashing, candy dominatrix. It’s a great one color design. Click the thumbnails below for a better view. You can check out the (pretty limited) selection of shirts online at Little Pirates. The site is in Japanese and it doesn’t look like they ship overseas either though. The shirts a little pricey too at 3570 yen.
Tokyo Art Beat T-Shirts
Fellow Japan ex-pat, Paul from Tokyo Art Beat (TAB) shot us an email to let us know about their new t-shirts.
Each year, TAB releases a collection of exclusive, limited-edition shirts. The designs are donated by both famous and up-and-coming international designers and artists living in Tokyo to share their love of this exciting city. Tokyo Art Beat is run by a non-profit organization so the proceeds of the sale are used to support our team of volunteers and paid staff.
They said that they are releasing 2 new tees every 2 months now. This year’s first 2 designs are by a Japanese designer, Ko-zou and his tattoo-style graphics and the second by Japanese illustrator (and semi-cult indies band: Kiiiiiiii’s singer) Tada Reiko.
¥4000 is a little pricey for a t-shirt but they are limited edition t-shirts by famous designers and there is not much chance of bumping into someone wearing the same top on a night out. The photo below was taken in a ’70s style love hotel.
Chloe Sevigny models UT T-Shirts
I picked up Uniqlo Paper No. 4 yesterday. It’s a free magazine produced by Uniqlo to showcase their wares. There are some interesting interviews including one by cover girl Chloe Sevigny, who is in my opinion, a very cute and talented actress. She is also well known for her fashion sense so I was a little surprised to see her modeling Uniqlo. It is surely a part of Uniqlo’s attempt to make their items seem more classy. Luckily they don’t make the prices more classy though. I scanned the Chloe Sevigny pictures from the magazine for your viewing pleasure. You can click the images for a larger view.
I had a look over the UT site and couldn’t see any of these particular t-shirts for sale. Though I saw several of the others from the magazine.
Uniqlock - Don’t Ask
I came across this on the Uniqlo site but I don’t really know what it is. On the other hand, if you are happy enough to watch videos of cute Japanese girls dancing then it doesn’t really matter what it is.
*Edit: OK, I did a quick check and found out a bit more info. I posted it below the video.
What is Uniqlock?
UNIQLO blog parts UNIQLOCK first appeared on our home page in June 2007 as part of our polo shirt campaign. UNIQLOCK are blog parts with an inbuilt clock function. A group of girls wearing UNIQLO clothes introduce their original dance with the screen changing in time with the clock. The overriding aim is to transmit UNIQLO’s global view to the world using our MUSIC×DANCE×CLOCK form of communication that can transcend any language barrier.
At the same time, our WORLD.UNIQLOCK has become increasingly well known in the Internet world. The WORLD.UNIQLOCK page on our website shows a world map displaying the number and location of users who incorporate UNIQLOCK parts into their own blogs.
When we launched our second cashmere version of UNIQLOCK in October 2007, we had 33,481 blog parts established in 73 countries around the world.
We launched our third version of UNIQLOCK blog parts, “20 COLOR T”, on April 28 in which we express a strange world where live pictures and animation merge.
UNIQLO is currently aggressively expanding its global operations in New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, South Korea and China. We will continue to design promotions focusing on our key ”global” theme.
■ UNIQLOCK awards
|
Award Title
|
Section
|
Prize
|
| One Show Interactive | Best of Show | |
| Microsite | Gold | |
| Integrated Branding | Gold | |
| NY ADC | Hybrid | Cube （First Prize） |
| Advertising Interactive | Intuitive Merit (Bronze) | |
| ANDY AWARDS | Interactive | Silver |
| AD FEST | INNOVA LOTUS | INNOVA LOTUS (Gold) |
| CYBER LOTUS | Silver | |
| TIAA （Tokyo Interactive Ad Awards） | Grand Prix | |
| Integrated Campaign | Gold | |
| Campaign Site | Gold | |
| Interactive Advertising | Gold |
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