DEFINING JAPANESE FASHION – BEAMS & UNITED ARROWS
BEAMS and United Arrows are both names that, from a western perspective, usually appear in the periphery of the never-ending stream of fashion news and debate.
And usually, they are mentioned in the same breath as Arc’teryx or Champion, New Balance or Reebok, Doc Martens or Porter. Their lists of high-tier collaborations are vast, and they almost always prove to be strikingly tasteful.
While in the west, BEAMS and United Arrows are brands mostly recognized by enthusiasts, they can be found in abundance in southeast Asia, especially in Japan. With their respective plethora of sublabels, they characterize the cityscapes from Hokkaido down to Okinawa. In Tokyo, both brands’ stores line the streets of Harajuku, Shibuya, Ginza and many more districts. To give you an indication of their significance: BEAMS runs 159 stores in Asia, 150 of which are located in Japan alone. Their menswear sublabel BEAMS Plus is sold by stockists all over Europe and North America, like Bergdorf Goodman or Wood Wood. United Arrows is even more impressive when it comes to numbers: the company operates a total of 256 stores, most of them in Japan.
BEAMS Boy 2020
Both: BEAMS stylings
BEAMS Boy 2019
With all that in mind, the question arises: how have these two heavyweights of the Japanese fashion industry been able to achieve these major accomplishments? When and how did they get started and what are their plans for the future? Which moves helped them gain the status they currently enjoy? This article tries to give answers and explores the cosmos of two brands that are defining for Japanese fashion and its perception in the West.
United Arrows 2013
UA&Sons by Daisuke Obana
Beauty and Youth x Daiwa Pier39
United Arrows FW2015
Before we talk BEAMS and United Arrows in detail, we have to talk select shops, a special kind of store almost exclusive to Japan. They play an essential role in Japanese shopping culture and offer a broad selection of in-house brands, upcoming local labels and major international brands, mostly curated by buyers or managers themselves. While being as widespread as fast fashion retailers, they maintain a boutique-like setting in every store. Select shops are not limited to BEAMS and United Arrows, there are a handful of corporations following that concept.
Thus, they are ubiquitous in Japanese cities. Through their refined selections they influence the perception of fashion in the country, contributing to setting the agenda of style. High quality products and the affordability of their in-house lines place them at the centre of Japanese society. Also, their often countless sub labels are able to very distinctively tackle most genres of fashion. Some of these select store corporations go way back in history [at least by measures of the fashion industry], and so does BEAMS.
first BEAMS Harajuku Store
In 1976, cardboard company owner Etsuzo Shitara decided to diversify his enterprise by entering the fashion industry. With the goal of “changing culture and customs of the Japanese youth”, they opened a small shop in Harajuku dubbed “American Life Shop BEAMS”. “BEAMS” in this case refers to the rays of light the company aspires to figuratively shed on products by carefully curating and presenting them to the Japanese.
Selling imported West Coast American original fashion and homeware items in a UCLA dorm room setting, they found fertile ground within a society that was just slowly getting out of a great depression and a youth that was tired of buying army surplus. The Japanese fascination for American classics, especially Ivy League, a classic American college fashion style from the fifties, had been evolving since the end of WWII and manifested itself in staple books like “Take Ivy”. BEAMS, among other retailers, would contribute to establishing what we know as “Japanese Americana”.
Pictures from Take Ivy
In the following years, BEAMS’ success led to the openings of more stores in Tokyo as well as the establishment of sublabels like, for example, Ray BEAMS as a women’s label in 1984 or BEAMS Plus in 1999 for the most authentic Americana menswear. Successively, more sublabels were added to the BEAMS family, supporting the territorial expansion. BEAMS even did collaborations before it was a fixed term: by asking their American suppliers to customize items to better fit the Japanese physique or to simply add some extra detail, BEAMS shops were able to offer exclusive iterations of familiar products, such as the much-loved denim. This laid the foundation for their ongoing reputation as a collaborative brand.
Ray BEAMS FW2019
BEAMS Plus SS2012
BEAMS Plus FW2015
BEAMS Plus SS2017
However great their early success, it could not save the BEAMS corporation from internal dispute. So, in 1989, the high-ranking employees Yasuto Kamoshita [designer of BEAMS in house brand], Hirofumi Kurino [brand director] and Osamu Shigematsu [co-founder of BEAMS] left BEAMS to establish their own company: United Arrows. Grounded in a philosophy of setting new standards by creating fashion to enrich customers’ lives and futures, their first Shibuya shop opened in 1990, and a flagship store in Harajuku was soon to follow. United Arrows cannot emphasize enough the importance of the customers well-being for their corporate purpose.
Their very elaborate code of conduct underlines the genuinity and sincerity of that purpose. As BEAMS was showing by example, United Arrows also conducted the strategy of establishing sublabels to tackle different customer bases, gradually conquering Tokyo and the rest of Japan by opening plenty of stores. By 2003, United Arrows was listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. On a sidenote: the relationship between the two companies seems to be rather distanced until today, despite their shared roots.
Hirofumi Kurino 2015
Osamu Shigematsu
Yasuto Kamoshita
According to a GQ interview with Hirofumi Kurino, senior adviser at United Arrows, his company [and BEAMS as well] utilized yet another momentum in history to manifest their unique position in Japanese fashion: When several societal developments like the rise of AIDS and the presidency of Reagan restrained the previous American openness towards new culture in the 80s, Japanese fashion picked up the lost ends and further developed the American style in their own way.
The centricity around classic American styles can still be observed today, with BEAMS PLUS and Camoshita United Arrows upholding the very core of it. Even if the evolution of their respective other sublabels has been fanning out into a broad selection of genres and styles, the core values of high-quality craftsmanship and timeless design are still there.
BEAMS Plus FW2020
Kamoshita himself wearing his brand
Camoshita UA look
In more recent days, both brands have shifted their view towards growing movements of the fashion industry, especially streetwear. In the 90’s, Ura-Hara emerged in Tokyo. Japan, as a country, had been a major consumer of luxury fashion until then, but some kids in the back streets of Harajuku revolutionized the local fashion landscape and, on the long run, streetwear as we know today. Inspired by Western Hiphop, dressed in graphic tees and led by influential figures like NIGO [BAPE] and Jun Takahashi [Undercover], a vital movement blossomed. BEAMS reacted by opening a record store [BEAMS Records] in 1999 and BEAMS T, a label for printed t-shirts, in 2001 to keep up with the zeitgeist. In 2010, United Arrows also fully embraced the streetwear movement by establishing sublabels and store concepts to reach out to the younger customer base. United Arrows & Sons, which carries high end streetwear like Sacai or Yeezy as well as limited sneaker releases, was established by Motofumi “Poggy” Kogi, a rising star within the company who himself started on the sales floor of United Arrows.
UA&Sons FW2016 with Poggy himself
UA&Sons FW2020
Despite all turbulent economic tides, be it the burst of the Japanese economic bubble a few years ago or the corona virus hitting the retail business today, the two brands have prevailed and tackled new challenges with finesse. Both are trying to extend their influence beyond Japan, already establishing themselves in Taiwan and Hong Kong [BEAMS only]. With their buyers’ connections and their global collaborations, both brands have been gaining popularity in the west. Especially BEAMS is taking it a step further, setting up shop in western markets.
Their journey started in 2017 with their first BEAMS Japan pop-up in North America. This comes with a shift in strategies: the goal is not only to bring American lifestyle products to Japan, but to export the essence of Japanese lifestyle to the western world. That approach also attracts fashion conscious Japan tourists: At BEAMS Japan stores in Tokyo, they can get a cool Japan-exclusive souvenir piece, like Japanese tea ware or a tote bag, with cool BEAMS branding on it. A big leap to the west is yet to be seen from United Arrows, but with a lot more Japan based stores than BEAMS and the corona struggle, they might have to focus on that sooner than later.
BEAMS Japan Vancouver Pop Up 2017
Today, United Arrows and BEAMS still prove they have an ear to the street through their brand selections and collaborations. United Arrows feature up-and-coming brands like READYMADE or Aries, that each are disruptive in their own way. By curating smaller independent labels like ARYS, BEAMS keep shedding their ray of light onto something to make it accessible to a broader consumer base. Partnering up with Arc’teryx or Salomon, BEAMS hit the right nerves and continue to promote themselves into the western markets.
And on top, they help introduce decidedly non fashion brands to the fashion market, boosting their image. This boldness is something United Arrows has not come up with yet, rather sticking to established collaboration partners and betting on longstanding branches like suits, which are their main source of income, casual and “classic” streetwear. If you want to get a look at the broad and diverse selections of both brands for yourself, you should probably best visit their flagship stores, as they carry most of the products they have to offer under one roof, organised by section. The BEAMS flagship store is located in Harajuku, steadily remaining in its original location, only much bigger today. United Arrows opened its new flagship store in Roppongi Hills in 2016, providing a rather lavish ambiente suitable for its neighbourhood.
BEAMS flagship
UA Flagship
It is hard to capture the entire picture of two brands as big as BEAMS and United Arrows within just one article. What do we take away from all this information?
The two corporations, with all their sublabel concepts and stores, provide fashion and lifestyle goods for everyone in Japanese society, from suit-wearers to streetwear enthusiasts. In contrast to fast fashion chains like H&M, they provide an exceptional shopping experience, authentic products and philosophy as well as a perspective on fashion that has a certain stability, that does not chase every trend. BEAMS and United Arrows both provide a sustainable timelessness, they follow a quality-focused no-bullshit-philosophy, even though they are major fashion chains. That attitude is shared by most Japanese customers and is starting to attract fast-fashion-tired westerners, too. With their curational skills, they have influenced the evolution of Japanese style over time. By implementing classic American styles into the Japanese context with their own spins on them, they brought Americana to a whole new level.
monkeytime outfit
monkeytime x columbia jacket styling
Beauty&Youth outfit
BEAMS x popeye ad
Although their monopoly as a curational force is shrinking due to the internet, BEAMS and United Arrows remain cultural instances, with the logical next step being the turn outwards.
About the author:
Mark Gilcher interest mostly revolves around fashion, hip-hop and culture, but besides that, he also enjoys talking politics, social work and the great outdoors.
