The monthly Rose Bowl Flea Market features rows upon rows of booths hawking antique cowhide chairs, African mudcloth, gramophones – and vintage American clothing like leather cowboy boots, 50s bowling shirts, and old varsity jackets.
The market draws people from all over the world, and many of the biggest vintage clothing buyers come from Japan.
Connor Gressit is a Rose Bowl vendor who says that’s been true a long time: “Since the 60s and 70s, Japanese buyers have been coming here and buying out our Levi's, predominantly, but rayon shirts, sweatshirts, military surplus, all this stuff, taking it back to Japan and setting a market price that is far above and beyond the American consumer market's understanding of these things.”
But recent economic changes have shaken up the market. The yen hit a 30-year low this past July and hasn’t bounced back. At the same time, the U.S. demand for vintage has increased significantly in recent years. According to many dealers, America now has a bigger market for vintage than Japan.
A vintage dealer shows off his wares to a prospective buyer at the Rose Bowl. Photo Credit: Zeke Reed
Meanwhile, so much clothing heads to Japan from the Rose Bowl and other antique stores, estate sales and vintage shops that some entrepreneurs have developed specialized shipping services. Jim Onishi operates a booth in the far corner of the market that moves a lot of weight across the Pacific.
“We start[ed] this kind of business 15 years [ago],” Onishi says. “The first day of the Rose Bowl was three boxes we collect[ed]. Right now, every month almost 10,000 kilos,” or over 22,000 pounds of vintage clothes.
One of Onishi’s biggest clients, BerBerJin, operates multiple stores in Tokyo and buys thousands of pounds of vintage a month. Their dedicated team of buyers has a home base in LA but travel all over the country sourcing new products.
“All the best American vintage in the world is sitting in Tokyo,” says local vintage dealer JD Stroud.
That quality doesn’t come cheap. Historically, Japanese buyers are willing to pay extremely high prices for the right items. “An average single stitch t-shirt from the 70s in Tokyo is $900,” Stroud says. “If you see a guy in Tokyo with a classic head-to-toe American vintage fit, he's probably really wealthy.”
The prevalence of Japanese buyers means it pays to speak the language. Vintage dealer Michael Green runs a store in Little Tokyo called Gator’s Vintage and says his conversational Japanese is a real asset.
“I could hear Japanese buyers talking about maybe getting a better deal before they tried to get the better deal,” he says. “I have a friend who owns a shop who literally did four years of Japanese in college just to do this business.”
Michael Green runs a vintage store in Little Tokyo where his conversational Japanese comes in handy. Photo Credit: Zeke Reed.
The strength of the Japanese market can make it tough for local dealers to compete. JD Stroud gets most of his merchandise from so-called rag houses, giant warehouses full of old clothes that get sorted into designated bins. He says he’s learned to show up before the big ticket buyers.
“I've had to ask, ‘Are there any Japanese clients this week?’ And they'll be like, ‘I have two.’ And I'd be like, ‘Can I come earlier? Please?’”
JD Stroud poses with his collection of vintage at a local pop-up market. Photo Credit: Zeke Reed.
Part of the appeal of vintage is that it tells a story, and in Japan the story of Americana started with the U.S. post-war occupation. Taka Kondo is a Japanese vintage dealer whose Tokyo store Life specializes in the everyday clothes people wore in mid-20th century America. He says that vintage reflects the appeal of the American lifestyle.
“After the war, young people drove around in American cars, like the Chevrolet Impala, or the Bel Air, hanging out with girls dressed in rockabilly style,” he tells KCRW. “In Japan, it was a time when people weren’t sure if they could eat a single rice ball, so it’s not surprising that they would long for America. Many people admire the American lifestyle of that time. That's why American products sell.”
Taka Kondo sells everyday vintage American clothes at his store Life in Tokyo. Photo courtesy of Taka Kondo.
Vintage dealer Connor Gressit says the exposure to mid-century American culture makes sense, considering how many GIs were stationed on the island after the war.
“The Japanese were seeing them on the street partying, dancing, having a good time, wearing Levi's 501XX with the red line selvage sewing on the out-seam,” he says. “They saw Americans and were like, ‘Yo, this is it.’ They wanted to reproduce that culture.”
Post-war American culture resonates domestically as well. Vintage dealers say the U.S. market for vintage has grown dramatically in the last several years. Gressit explains that “vintage clothing has never been more popular in the American consumer market. People are paying more money for the more desirable items, competing even with the Japanese market.”
That’s actually inverted the flow of vintage across the Pacific, according to Gressit: “You're seeing American dealers go to Japan to buy American goods to bring back to sell on the American market – or to sell back to higher level Japanese dealers.”