Japanese brands

There are a lot of Japanese brands that I like but between the rising yen-dollar exchange rate, difficulty of finding stockists, and sizing, it has been very difficult to try anything out. Have been trying to pick up some kkattachment and dbss knits 2nd hand for a while. With Japanese brands it can be really hard to find larger sizes, the few stores in the country that do carry some of these brands tend to only stock smaller sizes since they sell faster. Would love to see some of this stuff become more popular on sf and the like just so that it would be easier to find.

Long Beach...California?

Fracap hiking boots. They have a great traditional boot if you're every looking for one.

The average American cares about quality of their clothing far less than the average Japanese. So there is not much of a marketplace for additional expensive clothing brands beyond what we already have available here. Your best bet for buying the larger sizes in Japanese brands is to pre-order your desired size from a Japanese retailer via a proxy. Many retailers are taking pre-orders right now for many designer's SS10 collections, but for many brands the pre-order period has already passed.

Hey do you have some Japanese proxies that you can recommend? I figured your pretty experienced in this based on your skew of recent purchases. I haven't taken the proxy plunge yet and have been intimidated to do so without further research. What someone else said about the Japanese caring more about their clothes than Americans is so true, they make Americans look like slobs (well even bigger slobs anyways).

SharpService
http://www.styleforum.net/showthread.php?t=120508

I've an excellent experiences with them and it seems that everyone else has also.

OP, I'd say a good way to research is to look in recent purchase threads for brands you're looking to carry, then pm the poster about where they got it, how easy it was, etc. You've probably already done that, though. And make sure that people are buying the brands, lol. Some of anoutcommune, facetasm, and undercoverism would be cool. btw the jap denim thing is too niche imo for more than a couple stores in the nation.

This is a generally stupid idea, but if you have tons of money, I'm sure you could find a way to make your idea work. It's got potential; like 1%, and the other 99% are likely different shades of potential failure; but it could be done. I know how I would do it.

The yen is too expensive (and rising) to make this worth it.... People on here are on the late train; KK Attachment, Julius, Mihara, anything that Atelier NY stocks, is late pass status now, and all of those brands would be insanely expensive to stock, each piece near or well over 4 figures. Bedwin, Nonnative, UC (doubtful you'd get an account for any of these), Waste Twice, etc, etc, these brands have more potential as they are less represented, but they'd still be insanely expensive to sell in the US. No one wants to pay $1500 for a Bedwin jacket. People who live in California and already know about this shit could buy a cheap plane ticket to Tokyo and pick all that shit up and buy 3X as much stuff in Japan as they'd pay at your store, and be back for work on Monday.

Just like others have said, I'd recommend SharpService too. Hide is extremely prompt, patient, and easy to deal with.

Other proxies would get annoyed with me for asking them to do something extra or because I kept changing my order multiple times. One of them even stopped responding to me-- not sure why, but probably because they decided I was not worth the hassle. But Hide is not like this at all. You could not ask for a better proxy.

^ you can't be changing your mind on that kind of stuff though du, I'd just put you on the freeze too man. They only make 10-15% on stuff, and most people don't go and drop $10K a day with them; it's hard to deal with that kind of shit from people for so little money. Remember that he has to pay his bank and cc fees, buy packaging materials, all that. Proxying stuff is not mega profitable. Plus that dude gives you like $5 of chocolate in your order and has to fill out your EMS form; writing those shipping labels out for that many things would drive me insane.

Great vid highlighting Japanese brands 'Deluxe' + 'Bedwin & The Heartbreakers' ...

 

OP -
As WilliamTell mentioned above, Japanese labels including denim are are very niche market. Sure, they seem extemely popular on the boards like SuFu, but that only represents a fraction of the population, and an even smaller fraction of Americans.
You mentioned Proper in the LBC...if you are talking about the sneaker store that is all they have, but if you are talking about their clothing venture, you have mistaken (they are my homies and I love them to death...but they stock some terrible stuff IMO ie The Hundreds, Acapulco Gold, Crooks & Castles, etc). The Academy and Seams never stocked Japanese labels.

IMO, if you were thinking of starting a store in the LBC I would be extremely wary. Those who know what they are looking for will make the trip to LA to Union and Self Edge, and or to OC to Blends...to more established and reputable stores.