Room for a Recycle-Oriented Society

Just last month, a proper used clothing recycling system was finally created in Japan. According to the Japan for Sustainability (JFS) organization in this article, although there are proper laws in place recycling things like containers and packaging, home appliances, food, construction materials, and automobiles, there had been no such law for textile products. This is surprising considering the amount of waste generated from textiles alone every year! JFS estimates a total of 1.97 million tons of textiles per year in Japan are thrown away, incinerated using fuel or sent to the landfill. Even though some concerned people do take their old clothes to secondhand shops to sell or donate, the majority of these items, a hefty 90%, become waste. This not only shows the need for an established system for recycling clothing, it also shows the lack of publicity as far as recycling textiles is concerned. In fact, in recent surveys conducted during recycling textile events, an overwhelming 90% of respondents affirmed that they would be willing to pay the cost of clothes recycling, albeit in varying amounts. This shows that people are willing to recycle their clothing if only they knew how!

In the same article, it was reported that JEPLAN has established new technology to convert used clothing into ethanol, thus producing a new source of energy. However, the catch is that it is still relatively expensive to produce - one liter of ethanol costs 200yen. For it to be marketable, the price must go down to 100yen at least. Yet, this represents a source of hope for reducing waste in the form of unwanted textiles and carbon dioxide emissions. 

[Images from JEPLAN]

In addition to the establishment of a proper textile recycling law and new methods to reduce waste, I feel fashion-related companies must also do their jobs in reducing waste in the industry and in promoting awareness about recycling clothing. JFS has reported about the efforts made by environment-conscious corporations such as Muji, Uniqlo, Itochu Corp., and even large retailers like Marui Group Co.!


In 2006, Itochu Corp. launched a new recyclable brand of neckties called "MOTTAINAI". Appropriately named since the word "mottainai" carries the meaning of "waste not, want not", this brand claims to be the world's first clothing brand dedicated to the creation of a sustainable society. Made of recyclable polyester fabric, as opposed to the usual silk material, this material fits in with the principles of the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle) as it can be easily melted and reproduced as polyester fibers, as known as fiber-to-fiber recycling. For this purpose, the company has encouraged the collection of used neckties at their stores and has issued postage-paid envelopes for customers to send back their used neckties so these textiles can be processed to ensure recycling. 

In 2009, a "fashion swap" trend was reported as attraction attention not just in Japan, but also in Europe and the United States. This activity provides a platform for people to exchange unwanted fashion items for free. One example of an such an event in Japan, known as xChange, is not only designed to exchange fashion items, but also information and sentiments from the owners of the clothes, using an "episode tag". By attaching feelings to the items they receive in return for their items, people are made aware of the human connection and also of the need to cherish their items even more. In contrast to the food industry, the large impact the fashion industry has on the environment is not as widely known or reported about. One common example is cotton, which consumes large amounts of pesticides, insecticides and chemical fertilizers in the growing process. Of even larger significance is the waste produced when people throw away their clothing. Statistics indicate that the average Japanese buys ten kilograms and throws away nine kilograms of clothes a year. It is also said that women are often the main culprits as 80% of the time, most women wear only 20% of the clothes they own. Hence, events such as these help to reduce waste and most importantly, promote awareness of not overspending on clothing and of recycling one's clothing.

Last year, Marui Group Co. held an xChange fashion-swapping event as part of the company's Earth Smile Project. During the three-day event, a total of 232 people brought 1,157 clothing items and 768 of these were exchanged. This number still represents a small number as compared to the amount that gets thrown away but it is nevertheless a start in promoting awareness of recycling textiles in people.


SFS also reported clothes recycling projects carried out individually by Uniqlo and Muji last year. Named the "FUKU FUKU Project", unneeded clothes were collected at MUJI stores in the Osaka Prefecture for 15 days from January 30 to February 14. As a model for the recycling of textile goods supported by Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, MUJI worked with companies such as Ryohin Keikaku, World Co., Mitsubishi Corporation, Toray Industries, Teijin Fibers Ltd., Tokai Senko K.K., Sekisui Chemical Co., and JEPLAN Co. on this project. Similar to this year's project, the aim was to generate ethanol as viable biomass energy source from the recycled clothing so as to achieve 100% recycling.

Around the same time, Uniqlo started the "All-Product Recycling Initiative" to recycle and reuse all of its used clothing throughout the year from March 2010. This recycling initiative is not new to the scene as it has been conducted three times a year regularly since September 2006. In 2009, Uniqlo successfully collected 2.62 million items of clothes, making this the largest volume of recycled clothes ever. Of the clothes collected, about 10% are recycled as energy materials and industrial fibers while the other 90% are donated to support refugees and disaster victims. 


The above examples mentioned have been very inspiring but this still represents only a very small amount of the total of clothing that turns into waste every year. There is still a need to promote awareness of such activities in the media and through the stores themselves such as in their publicity campaigns and social media. In this respect, I think Mode Off still has some way to go in promoting the need for recycling textiles. As such, there is still room for a recycle-oriented society to grow. 

Spaces In-Between: Shops at Ameyokocho, Ueno

In his book, East Asia Modern: Shaping the Contemporary City, Peter Rowe discusses the idea of spaces in between buildings and urban blocks and how this either relates to traditional village life or to commercialized spaces in a busy city (121). In particular, he mentions how extensive these visual effects are in intensely developed areas such as the commercial zone in front of Ueno Park (130). He categorizes these visual elements into an order of three: 1) signage and other advertising are incorporated into urban spaces in such a way that it conveys a "strong vertical dimension"(132), 2) the same advertising devices cover the entire facade of a building in a way that is not intrusive to both its inhabitants and its overall appearance, and 3) signs can be read "as a kind of running text" by pedestrians passing by or across the street. Rowe also states that these three parts combine to paint a highly visual sensation (132). 


If we consider Ameyokocho, Ueno, specifically the area of the main street adjacent to Mode Off, we will find that the area mostly conforms to the order of visual elements that Rowe has mentioned. 


First of all, we have 1) signage masquerading as upward extensions of buildings:

On the top right hand corner of the picture, we have the Mode Off signage, complete with its own lights to highlight the visual element at night, followed by that of another store somewhere in the middle of the picture. Both are structures that are not originally part of their corresponding buildings, but became so for purposes of advertisement. Both advertising devices also literally add to the height of the buildings, which create the sense that they are taller and more important than they originally are. 


Secondly, we have 2) signage which covers the entire outer appearance of the building in a way that blends into it:

In the picture above, banners and signs on the lower half of the image cover the white/grey spaces of the otherwise plain buildings. There are so many of them that it looks like they are overcrowding and encroaching on the free spaces of the buildings. However, the many different colors, shapes and fonts present a colorful picture of a busy city which has much to offer, such as (in this case): food, shopping, and other commercial services.  


If we look closely at the ground level in the picture below, we realize that these advertising devices are not, as Rowe says, limited to being on the premise of the building itself, but also between buildings and on the floor within the confines of the shops:

Bridging the two buildings in front of a small street is a huge sign named 上中 that characterizes one of the several complicated small streets of Ameyokocho. This marking is quite important, especially for first-time visitors to Ueno, since it is quite easy to get lost in the maze of similar-looking alleys and shops. Between the two buildings and in the shop itself like the jewelry shop on the bottom right hand side of the picture, signs are also placed to signal the presence of the shops. Somehow the main signage usually place above the entrance of the shop is no longer prominent enough to attract customers and shops require the aid of other banners and posters hung elsewhere to point to customers that they need to come patronize the stores. 


Lastly, we have 3) the "running text" sort of signage:

The "running text" is especially visible on the main street, where the banners and signs face the drivers of automobiles as well as riders and passengers in other types of transport. Of course, they are also meant to be read by pedestrians as Rowe says, but in the case of this picture, the banners on the top right hand corner appear to be angled and placed for the sakes of those on the road.

In comparison, the banners in between buildings on a small street like in the picture below, where cars rarely pass through, are ordered in a haphazard stacked manner that one cannot possibly see everything at one glance:

These signs, I argue, are then aimed at pedestrians since one can only full read each sign as they advance along the small street. Again, this "running text" aspect seems to convey the sense of a city culture that is exploding with too many things to do and see. 


In fact, Rowe explains the installation of signage with: 1) in history, banners and flags have traditionally been used in East Asian cities as a form of decoration and advertisement, 2) competition between establishments resulted in the "use of all available space for signage and advertising"(133), and 3) "there is an element of self-perpetuation and expectation in this practice"(133), that signage became to symbolize retail districts and this tradition has not stopped since then. 


I think this is true not just for signage attached to buildings, but also for advertising devices within the confines of the shop itself. Taking the example of Mode Off, which I may have mentioned a few times before so please bear with me: 1) banners and signs in the store not only liven up the atmosphere of the place, they also indicate information like a sale or the arrival of new items, 2) competition for space and customers in recent times has led to hard sell even within the space of the store - this is not just limited to the visual aspect but also audio (in the form of announcements) and face-to-face contact in touting for customers like in the picture below: 

The person in a white shirt in the middle is actually an employee of Mode Off touting for customers just outside the store. I suppose this is an example of using all available space and means to attract customers to come to their store. Lastly, which I think links to Rowe's notion of perpetuating local expression, 3) the practice of having signage and advertisements has been so ingrained in Japanese consumer culture, together with keigo, shop girls and layers of wrapping, that it is hard to imagine another way of shopping in Japan. The service industry in Japan is arguably the top in Asia and one of the top in the world, and it would be a mistake to say that their promotional techniques have nothing to do with, because I think it has everything to do with it. Everything that the employees do at Mode Off is for the purposes of attracting more customers and getting them to purchase or sell more items and increasing their overall sales.


To end off, I would like to make the point that promotion is so avid (at least in Ueno) that even before a store is due to open, signage and other advertising devices are already put in place, like in this example:

If this doesn't look familiar to you, it is because it isn't. This is the new eatery (read: fast food) which will replace the ramen shop opposite Mode Off and next to McDonald's. At this point in time, it clearly hasn't opened for business and is in the midst of interior renovation, but this hasn't stopped its management from promoting the food outlet in the form of banners and signage. This just adds to the busy nature of the city - that business never really stops because a closed store just means an opportunity to open another one. 


I know I haven't posted on Green House even though I said I would in the previous post, but I haven't gotten the chance to go back and gather more information. So I will try to do that in the next post.

The Department Store as Pioneer of Mass Consumption of Material Goods

My apologies for the long break between the last post and this one - I took time off to do the term paper so now I'm back. In the previous post, I mentioned that I would do a comparison of the other stores I've been keeping tabs on so I will do it here. But before looking at the other stores, I would like to consider the idea of the department store from Edo to Taisho era as illustrated by Edward Seidensticker in Low City, High City.


According to Seidensticker, Mitsui (now Mitsukoshi) survived the Edo period and beyond due to a few factors: 1) the company stuck to its practices of adhering a fixed price on their products, 2) it adapted from a specialty store to become a department store, characteristic of an initially Western tradition, 3) it promoted its goods by providing its customers with culture and entertainment in addition to merchandise (110-111). All these factors transformed the experience of mass consumption with things such as display cases for goods, shop girls, elevators, entertainment facilities within the vicinity of the shopping center, central heating, and perhaps most importantly, an aggressive advertising campaign which literally stood in Shimbashi Station. The result of an advertising culture promoting the department store was a creation of fashion and trends during the Taisho era (279), and thus the relationship between advertising and fashion in our world today can be said to be inseparable. 


The department store born in late Meiji paved the way for not just the department stores which exist in modern Tokyo, but that of any shop today, especially in its qualities of being adaptable to change and catering to the customers' needs beyond just supplying products directly. In a recycle shop like Mode Off, the last thing anybody might expect is an exceptionally orderly system of buying and selling that actually strongly encourages customers not to just buy but also to sell their goods. Promotion can be said to be aggressive as it sometimes entails the shop employees shouting out to customers on the street just outside the shop, which reminisces the shop girls of before. The customers' comfort in shopping is also catered for, with so-called trendy music, central heating/air-conditioning and minimal waiting time, which adds to the experience of a typical customer. Lastly, the emphasis on trends and fashion is extremely high, with a quick turnover of products that adheres accordingly to the current season and demand of the customers, thus revealing the sort of adaptability to change that their predecessors in the Edo period had.


If we were to compare Mode Off with high fashion shops such as Forever21, Uniqlo and the latter's subsidiary, g.u., we would realize that they are not all that dissimilar and that they can be related back to the concept of the department store in late Meiji. Let's start with the example of Forever21. A first look at the website targeting Japanese customers shows this:

The website is attractive to say the least, with its very colorful and friendly image that would appeal to the company's main target consumers: young women who are concerned about fashion and want the items to be pocket-friendly at the same. Now, this is not too different from Mode Off, Uniqlo or g.u., except that the first two also welcome slightly older ladies. Promotion in the F21 website tends to be high, with the slide show changing every 6 seconds and illustrating a theme or trend for its target consumers to latch on to so they might be tempted to buy their products. Another example of a trend shows this:

This is obviously taken from the original American website, meant for an American customer base on account of Independence Day. Yet, it is also used for the Japanese website, even though the initial meaning might be lost on a Japanese customer base. Nevertheless, the symbols of America printed on clothing may still seem attractive and exotic to the Japanese customers, who want to be trendy like their American counterparts. Advertising and fashion are thus carved into the site as inseparable elements. The experience of providing beyond just the merchandise is also taken care of as there are some English words mixed into the Japanese characters, which might seem cool to the customers. The models are also predominantly foreign since the pictures are taken from the original American website, so this might add to the whole experience of being exotic and might prompt customers to buy so they can somehow look like these models. Lastly, the price is obviously attractive and comparable to those of Mode Off - I will elaborate on this later.


Uniqlo's website seems to also have the same kind of appeal, except the site looks a bit more flashy than that of F21:

Red is often used to highlight things that are thought to be important to the target customer like brand (UT) , price, sale, recommended products (おすすめ商品), notification of new items (新作), and special prices for the week (限定価格) with an indication of when exactly they end (7/8まで). I wonder if this is associated with the Japanese (and Chinese) tradition of using red which is connotative with something big and auspicious, but Uniqlo's site does look more jarring than F21's, although the same principles of trying to make the site more appealing to consumers apply. The "slides" also change within a span of 4 seconds - this is an image I caught when the slides were in transition:

Unlike F21 which is big on themes and trends, Uniqlo tends to employ the use of brand names to help promote its products, such as those of collaborations with uniqlo like Cath Kidston (in the first image), manga/anime tie-ins like Gundam and One piece, and movie tie-ins such as Transformers, Pirates of the Carribean, to name a few, and the latest being Harry Potter (below):

Brand recognition in Uniqlo seems to be used to attract a younger Japanese crowd made up of both guys and girls, and also foreigners who are somewhat interested in Japanese popular culture. I have heard of tourists who buy something from Uniqlo as a souvenir for themselves or friends before they head home, and Uniqlo seems to be doing really well outside of Japan. Moreover tying up with brands popular with the Japanese crowd like Cath Kidston and Franche Lippee seems to be the way to go for Uniqlo to attract local customers, since I've heard that Uniqlo has not been so popular with them in the past when it first started out.


Unlike F21, the models of Uniqlo are predominantly Japanese with some non-Japanese (or least non-Japanese-looking). Also, there is a larger tendency to rely on celebrity power, both local and international celebrities, as a means of generating more customer identification with the products, which hopefully translates to more sales. Before I move on to talk about g.u., the subsidiary of Uniqlo, and pricing, I'll just like to mention that Mode Off seems to work in the same fashion of using red as indicator of what the store thinks is important to customers. For example, some of the things that are red in Mode Off are: its logo, "sale", "new" and "change of season" signs, color of sale cart, and the color of the price on the price tag. If you realize, these things are almost exactly the same as those labelled in red for Uniqlo. To look at this further, let's look at g.u., which works on the same basic principles:

Again, the "sale" notification stands out in a way that most people cannot ignore, and in red, together with the price and "free delivery above 5000yen" notification. However, despite these similarities, I would say g.u. tries in some way to imitate F21 in promoting its fashion to young female consumers. A closer look at the website provides these images:

In order to market its products to a customer base different from Uniqlo, g.u. has created a label called "be a girl" (first image), which seems to rival F21 in style and pricing. A closer look reveals two categories of "sweet"(second image) and "cool"(third image). Like F21, g.u. uses non-Japanese-looking models specially for this label (a check on other parts of the site shows mainly Japanese models), and the photo shoot looks vaguely familiar as well, although perhaps arguably milder than that in F21's look book (below):

However, the effort for a real photo shoot in g.u. is prominent here in a way that does not resemble the Uniqlo website. Lastly, g.u.'s prices are in fact more pocket-friendly than those of Uniqlo and actually comparable to those of F21, thus making g.u. more of a draw for young female consumers as opposed to Uniqlo. From the images, a dress from g.u. "be a girl" label typically costs about 2500yen, which is average or slightly more than a dress from F21, while a top from g.u. may cost about 1500yen or less depending on the design, which is similar to one from F21. This pricing is comparable to Mode Off, where a dress can cost about 2000yen or more and a top ranges from 500 to 1500yen depending on design. The items from Uniqlo actually cost more than those from all of the above three stores.


In terms of design variety, I would say that F21 has the most designs followed by Mode Off and then Uniqlo and g.u.. A check on F21's website showed some 400 designs in a search for tops alone! On hindsight, this might not accurately reflect the number of designs they have for sale but just the number of designs they have added on the website itself, which is crazy if you think of just how many items they have and how much of a logistical nightmare it is going to incur. 


Anyhow, what can be concluded in this comparison is that: 1) promotion is definitely aggressive for all the sites reviewed, 2) advertising is inextricably tied to fashion for all the sites reviewed, 3) prices are extremely competitive, 4) a large variety of designs and appealing portrayal of goods are crucial to attracting customers, and 5) large emphasis is placed on the ease of buying e.g. being user-friendly be it on the website or in the store. These were lessons learnt from the original concept of the department store developed since late Meiji period and not only have they not waned, they have actually been developed and improved to suit modern day Tokyo. 


Considering all the above factors, the next obvious question we should ask is that: what, then, differentiates Mode Off from the rest? It's hard to point to one exact aspect and say this is the reason but I think the part that supports the environment does play a large role in promoting the products in Mode Off. This is something to think about for the next post as I end off this very long post. I will also update with pictures of Greenhouse, the recycle shop near my place then, so stay tuned!