No photos, but the sounds might tell you more...

I went down yesterday on a weekday afternoon in the hope of gleaming more information from the manager, but he seemed rather busy as he had just received a few big bags of goods from his customers. So in order to entertain myself, I made a few random voice memos on my ipod touch, and they proved to be pretty helpful in terms of an alternative documentation.


Among the ten odd sound recordings, I selected three short clips which I thought were the most interesting and had them converted into youtube videos so I could mount them here. 


Now, before you watch the first clip, I would just like you to imagine the setup. (I will be drawing a floor plan of the first floor and insert it here, but just bear with me for the time being). It was a hot and sunny Thursday afternoon from 3 to 4pm, and the street just outside the shop seems quite crowded for a weekday. Many housewives are also doing their shopping, and they walk right into the store or take a good half an hour to check out what's on sale on the makeshift counter just protruding out of the shop and onto the street. Imagine you are such a housewife rummaging through the sales items. You can vaguely hear the grunting of the motorcycle in the traffic on the main street. Two girls who look to be in their twenties are discussing about a dress they are looking at, others are talking about their own lives while checking out the clothes in the store and moving the hangers back and forth.

And yes, if you were wondering, the images from this video are taken from fashion shoots in which famous designers make a statement by using recyclable materials to create their 'new' clothing. Also, if you had been paying close attention to the sound recording, you would have heard some muzak amongst the jostling, chattering and traffic noises. I'm not sure if this has something to do with the image the shop is trying to portray but only English pop/contemporary songs are played in the store. I have never heard of Japanese songs, nor that in other languages for that matter, being played in this shop. 


If you're still not sure of what kinds of songs are being played, check out the introduction to my next sound recording, right before the announcement is being made. 

This second recording features a typical announcement that Mode Off would have, which I also wrote about briefly in my previous post. We have the customer recognition and appreciation, followed by the announcement for the number of the customer. 


The next very short clip also features another announcement. 

If you listen carefully, other than the very polite Japanese used, you can also hear the customers' chattering voices. This is pretty common within the narrow confines of the shop, in which most people can hear each other when one comments, for example, "yasui! yasui!" (meaning "cheap" in Japanese), and I was thinking how it can serve as a kind of interaction between the customers who may not know one another. Even as one engages in an act in the recycling process, one can also at the same time interact with strangers.


This probably gives new meaning to the concept of recycling as not just cleaning, packing up and revamping one's resources, but that the whole experience is one that is centered around people. In this shop, people bring the items to sell. People i.e. the employees also record the items and organizes and displays them on racks. People also come to buy the items. Some other people also bring their friends to buy or sell items, or they come together with their friends or family to patronize the shop. In fact, clothes recycling is very much people-oriented. 

As an example, I had a short conversation with a regular customer of the store in broken Japanese. She's a foreigner from Thailand who is married to a Japanese man, her Japanese is not very fluent, and she can't understand English. She looked to be in her twenties to thirties, probably the former half, and is relatively fashionably stylish. She curls her long black hair, does her nails and has a style which can be best described as "sweet" and "girlish." Anyway she was not alone - she came with her Thai female friend. Something I found really surprising is the fact that she comes to Mode Off every day! And each time, she spends about JPY2000 to 3000. Now, I don't know about you but this sounds like a lot of business coming from just one person. 


When asked why she patronizes this shop so much, she admits she likes the fashion - she thinks it is very trendy. What I think she didn't explicitly spell out is that she thinks it's great place to hang out, because she mentioned that many Thai people also shop here so it is kind of a popular place to see and be seen. With a substantial amount of support from a small foreign community, it is no wonder that the shop is flourishing. A Thursday afternoon like today saw about ten to twenty customers on the ground floor at once. 


Okay, this will be it from me for now, more about the concept of the shop in connection to the rest of the chain stores in the next post, hopefully. I leave you in the hands of a recycle vocabulary sort of mind map.