Meet the Japanese Shirting Brand That’s Taken New York by Storm
For years, an insider’s tip among New York’s best-dressed went like this: get yourself to 400 Madison Avenue, about halfway between Rockefeller Center and Grand Central. There you’ll find a tidy, nondescript store where dress shirts made in Japan from quality fabrics sell for a price so reasonable it’ll make your head spin.
That store was Kamakura Shirts—and it closed at the end of 2020, another victim of a roaring pandemic and closed offices. While the shirtmaker continued to operate stores across Japan, where it was founded in 1993, it seemed as if its physical presence in the U.S. was over, a serious blow to those who appreciate a proper collar roll and financial solvency.
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But this past September, Kamakura quietly made its return to Manhattan, not as a store, but as a showroom. The new “Order Salon,” as it’s been dubbed, is located within the Graybar Building at 420 Lexington Avenue, only feet from Grand Central Terminal. Clients may access it by first making an appointment online, and then dropping in for a custom shirt consultation or to try on the brand’s off-the-rack wares.
“Since we had to close our store in New York, we have continuously wished to return,” Kamakura president and CEO Nanako Sadasue tells Robb Report. “New York is the mecca of men’s fashion and home to the world’s top market.”
Returned it has—but in a certain sense, Kamakura never really went away. Junko Tsuchida, who served as an associate at the Madison Avenue store, began holding New York trunk shows for former clients only a month after the store’s closure. These regularly occurring visits, which were hosted from a small office on Park Avenue, focused on made-to-measure and proved a great success. According to Tsuchida, who now serves as vice president of Kamakura Shirts New York, MTM sales increased 20-30% with each passing year, eventually surpassing the sales of its shuttered brick-and-mortar.
“We had the store for eight years, and last year we beat the sales without any store,” Tsuchida tells Robb Report.
It’s for that reason that the company has adopted a more personalized approach for its New York second coming, rather than open a retail store. Within the Order Salon, clients may commission made-to-measure shirts from over 300 available fabrics, ranging from Thomas Mason twills and broadcloths to a chemical-free easy-care offering made by wrapping polyester fibers in 100% cotton. The made-to-measure service, which allows for a wide range of customizations including collar style and monogram placement, starts at just $160 and has a turnaround time of three to four weeks.
Pants are also available made-to-order, with custom suiting soon to follow. According to Tsuchida, suiting orders will be handled by employees from the Japanese side of the business, who will visit New York twice a year to conduct fittings.
Meanwhile, the readymade items encompass popular categories already found on Kamakura’s website, including its “Vintage Ivy” range that promises oxford-cloth button-downs or unstructured jackets with authentic, mid-century details. These, and other off-the-peg picks including denim, may be physically tried on in the showroom, but will then be ordered online and shipped directly to the buyer’s address.
When asked how its offerings—and especially, the made-to-measure shirts—remain so affordable, Tsuchida cites the company’s direct relationships with domestic shirt factories, as well as the lighter footprint of its new showroom concept versus a fully staffed retail store. But there’s also another factor to be considered: the mark-up.
“No secret, our margin is slim. Much slimmer than others,” she says. “But we really believe that this is the core success for any business: sincerity, honesty and the best quality.”
Store or no store, it appears as if Kamakura is here to stay.
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