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Uniqlo Coming To San Francisco via Refinery29
Ok, I am not a religious person, but I must say “Hallelujah!” Yes, yes, yes! My wishes have been fulfilled! My absolute, most favorite clothing brand of all time, UNIQLO, will be opening several new store locations throughout the world within the near future, & guess what?! My local city San Francisco is on this list of locations!!! Yes, that means that my all-time favorite clothing brand from Japan will be opening a new store near me, sometime in the future.
For those of you who have never heard of this brand, UNIQLO is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer & retailer with affordable prices. UNIQLO’s fashion style has been compared to GAP clothing, but with the retail price tag equivalent of H&M. What started as an affordable unique clothing brand only sold in Japan (as are most Japanese clothing brands), UNIQLO has expanded its International branches & now have retail stores all around the world including: Hong Kong, mainland China, Thailand, Russia, Taiwan, etc. with it’s only U.S. retail store residing in New York.
Right now the very famous Japanese clothing brand UNIQLO is conducting a major expansion project & is expecting to open more flagship stores & smaller shops in various cities around the world including: New York (Manhattan), Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Connecticut, New Jersey & London. Some, or most of these stores will most likely not open any time in the near future, as UNIQLO is also geared to create a new clothing collection with Lady Gaga’s stylist: Nicola Formichetti (which will probably debut first).
Here are some of my quick thoughts on UNIQLO’s expansion project:
- More retail stores are scheduled to open in New York, especially in the Manhattan district. I personally, don’t understand why this should or needs to be done, since Manhattan already has a 5-level flagship store that is more than capable of meeting consumer demand.
- I’m not quite sure how the New Jersey store will come to be, since most New Jersey-ites schlep themselves across the Hudson river all the way to New York to do most of their major retail shopping.
- Connecticut? Really?! Well, I guess if that’s what you want, but I don’t really see the point. (Please refer back to my New Jersey comment.)
- I don’t have much to say about the “windy city” Chicago, since I don’t know much about that city itself…but I’ve heard it’s a growing fashion hotspot, so I can kind of see how a UNIQLO retail store might work out there. We will have to see after its first year’s sales stats.
Last but not least…
- I heard about the rumor of UNIQLO planning on opening a California retail location since last year, & my immediate (instant) thought was that Los Angeles would be the first California city to have a retail store. I think I am on track with the correct prediction. I just have a gut feeling about this. Los Angeles has a larger Japanese population compared to any Bay Area city near San Francisco, including S.F. (not that ethnicity should matter). Also, Los Angeles is considered to be one of the largest fashion capitals in the world. So, I really wouldn’t be surprised if Los Angeles opened up a retail store first. It would make more sense. In fact, I would be more surprised if San Francisco opened up a retail store before Los Angeles.
It doesn’t matter if it’s not anytime soon, just as long as they do actually open a store location in my local city. I just can’t believe that this rumor is now confirmed to be a fact. I have visited the New York Manhattan flagship location, & the various retail locations around Shanghai, China. Also, I often shop at the various retail stores scattered around Tokyo (in Japan), including their exclusive t-shirt shop in Harajuku called UT UNIQLO…& I can definitely say that…being one of UNIQLO’s biggest fans…I am so overjoyed to hear this exciting news!!
Original article via Tokyo Hive: PUFFY to release best album to celebrate their 15th anniversary.
I’m really excited that PUFFY will be celebrating their 15 year anniversary (& I’m a bit stunned that it’s been 15 years already). I’ve been a long time fan of the band & I have already been to 3 of their concerts in the U.S. (as well as collecting as many of their CDs as I can).
I must say that these 2 ladies are an amazing pair. Being able to balance work & family life is not an easy task, but Ami Onuki & Yumi Yoshimura are able to make it look so effortless, & I applaud these strong women.
You know what else? This is a little-known fact about myself: PUFFY was one of my “gateway” / “bait” bands into the Japanese Pop music scene. Around the time I had just learned about Japanese Pop music (a.k.a. JPop), Japanese anime was just becoming hugely popular in America. I had previously known about anime & such, but I had no clue what Japanese Pop music was like. I had no idea that Japanese Pop music was so modern & popular all around the world. I first learned about this amazing music genre when I was given some Japanese Pop CDs from my older cousin who resides in Japan as a gift. He had given me one CD by Morning Musume & one by BoA. I really had no idea what was going on or what the lyrics meant, but I had immediately fallen in love.
After that first experience, I dove head first into the world of Japanese Pop music & pop-culture. I spent many weekends at the one music shop in the local Japantown, browsing all the aisles, marveling at all of the beautiful & shiny CD covers. I was lucky that I had a friend that knew about Japanese Pop music long before I had even heard of it, & she recommended a few artists for me to listen to…one of which was PUFFY! This friend was great. Not only did she know a few things about Japanese music, but she could also read some Japanese text, so she was able to translate a few CD names for me at the time. (Thanks friend!)
Once I had immersed myself into the Japanese Pop music scene, I was utterly obsessed! To this very day, I am still crazy about Japanese Pop music…probably more now than I ever have before… But now I have branched out my musical ears into other genres of Japanese music…also listening to: JRock (i.e.: LUNA SEA, Judy And Mary, Orange Range, the Pillows, etc.), JSoul a.k.a. R&B (i.e.: Ken Hirai, Namie Amuro, Emi Hinouchi, Kato Miliyah, etc.), JRap (i.e.: m-flo, Teriyaki Boyz, Rip Slyme, Rhymester, etc.), & JSka/JJazz (i.e.: orange pekoe, Crazy Ken Band, Jazztronik, OreSkaBand, etc.) among many others. If you browse through my iTunes music folder, you’d probably notice that 80% of my music is Japanese, 10% Western Top 40/Pop, 8% Jazz/Bossa Nova, & 2% World/International.
Overall, I’d definitely say that PUFFY has influenced me in exploring other genres & (languages) of music. Thank you PUFFY & Congratulations on celebrating 15 years & many more!
Ame Warashi approved!
So, I got this idea from randomly surfing around on You Tube yesterday. I had recently subscribed to the Vlog of a YouTuber who posted a video response to the question “What are 5 recent things you are obsessed/in love with?”, and I got the idea to post my answers as well. But…..I’m totally lazy & I am absolutely not motivated to make a low-budget YouTube video of myself. Instead, I’m much more inclined to type this out. So, here it goes:
5 Recent Things I’m Obsessed With:
1. Pinky Street vinyl dolls:
Created by the Japanese company Vance Project, these little 8-inch cuties are hard to resist! They are so much fun to collect because they aren’t just any typical Barbie-type plastic doll. With these dolls, the customization is practically endless. All the dolls have removable snap-on hair (so you can mix & match the front & back hair pieces) & interchangeable clothes. In the original sets, each package included: 1 dressed up doll + 1 extra outfit (to mix & match) + 1 accessory item (that you can snap onto its hand) + 1 hair accessory item (i.e. extra set of bangs, ribbons, or a hat). There are also many tutorials & DIY books you can find online about how to customize your own Pinky dolls by painting them & using sculpy clay. My Pinky dolls collection has reached over 60+ dolls (plus 1 model car, 1 comic book, 1 accessories kit, 1 military weapons kit, 2 postcard sets, 1 diorama making book & 2 DIY books). For me, it’s not really an expensive hobby since each doll costs around $12USD a piece (including all the little accessories that come with it).
2. Stickers:
I’m absolutely obsessed with stickers & I love to collect them. My fiancee thinks I’m nuts & also thinks that collecting stickers is a stupid hobby, but I can assure you that I am not like some coin collector or stamp collector. I actually use my stickers. Yes, I do. I love to use my stickers to personalize & decorate greeting cards & handwritten letters (yes, I do still write snail mail!).
3. Calendars:
I love calendars, especially decorative ones that you can hang on the wall because those can double as cute wall art. I often like to save my old calendars & use them as posters or framed pictures. You just cut off the bottom edge where the dates are & voila! You can use the upper picture as a poster or wall art!
4. Diary (a.k.a. schedule notebook):
In Japan they are often called a “diary”. For the rest of us, it’s just a glorified schedule notebook. I love using these notebooks to keep track of what’s going on in my life. However, I don’t really use them for the purpose they were intended. For all of my important appointments, I use my cell phone since I can set an alarm reminder. I use my diary to write down everything that I’ve done in the day…kind of as a record of all the things I’ve done. I also like to go back & read all of my old entries & reminisce about all of the fun stuff I’ve done.
5. Background wallpapers:
I love to use custom background wallpapers on all of my electronic devices. (Please see my previous post about where I like to get my HQ desktop backgrounds). Every few months I will rotate my background wallpapers & it really adds a pop of eye candy & daily inspiration.
This is a picture of all of my Pinky dolls:
This is a picture of my sticker collection. This is only 75% of my entire collection. I have over 150+ sheets of stickers:
These are the current calendars I’m using in my room. The first is a pop-up desk calendar & the 2nd is a wall calendar by the brand fewmany:
This is the current diary I’m using. I bought a plain diary from the Japanese stationery store LoFT & added some decals & a few crystal beads to make it look personalized:
Here are the current background images I’m using:
1. macbook, 2. iPad, 3. iPhone
Rabbits & Foxes 
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