Harajuku Chicago Shimokitazawa

The storefront is covered in a dense, chaotic patchwork of vintage American denim, band shirts, and racks of colorful patterned sweaters that spill out onto the street. This building functions as a vast archive of twentieth-century mass-produced fashion, imported from the United States to serve as a massive, affordable supply for Japanese collectors. Founder Hideaki Sato started the operation in the late nineteen seventies, sourcing clothes by the container load from American thrift warehouses back when nobody else wanted them.