Maker's Shirt debuts its flagship store in China

Japanese apparel brand Maker's Shirt is hoping to capture a slice of China's fashion market, opening its Chinese flagship store in Shanghai on Nov 7.

The Shanghai opening marks the company's 26th anniversary and follows flagship stores in Tokyo and New York.

Maker's Shirt, sometimes branded as Kamakura Shirts, is known for its excellent quality and high degree of tailoring at an affordable price.

The name Kamakura Shirts stems from the historic Japanese city Kamakura located to the south of Tokyo, where the brand's founder Yoshio Sadasue and his wife Tamiko first opened a small shirt store in 1993, with the aim of offering high-quality products at affordable prices.

Maker's Shirt cuts out the multiple middle stages between production and retail, and sells products directly to customers at lower cost. The company uses high-quality fabrics, extensive sewing techniques and revised shirt patterns.

The Shanghai store is located downtown in the city's Jing'an Kerry Center and has a sales area of 133 square meters, which is even larger than its flagship store in Tokyo.

It also marks the first time Maker's Shirt has opened a workshop inside a store, offering on-site services of shortening trouser legs and modifying sleeve lengths. Such services are not available in its Japanese stores.

Customers can also order tailor-made shirts via its made to measure service.

"Maker's Shirt pays attention to every detail during the whole production process," said Sadasue. "We have won acclaim from Japanese customers with our precise craftsmanship and high quality. Now we would like to better serve Chinese customers as part of our internationalization strategy."

Maker's Shirt first tested the water in the Chinese market by opening a flagship store on Alibaba's Tmall in January.

The online store has performed impressively with average monthly sales of 1 million yuan ($142,560), which has increased the company's confidence in the Chinese market.

According to Sadasue, the bestselling products on the Tmall store are shirts with a yarn count of 200.

"E-commerce in China has developed at a very fast pace. We opened the offline store in the hope of linking up with our online stores, which is expected to achieve better sales in the future," he said.

According to Maker's Shirt, online sales during China's annual Singles Day shopping extravaganza on Nov 11 reached 1.8 million yuan.

Products at Maker's Shirt's online and offline stores are kept consistent with one another. The Shanghai store will update its product lines at the same time as the Japanese market, Sadasue said.

Entering the Chinese market has come after careful consideration, according to the company.

"As early as 15 years ago, we had a chance to enter the Chinese market, but at that time we thought that if we could not get a foothold in New York, we would not be able to successfully win the Chinese market," Sadasue said.

In 2012, Maker's Shirt opened its first store outside Japan in New York, and in the following years gained positive recognition.

Maker's Shirt's products have received excellent reviews on website Yelp, winning the People Love Us On Yelp award in 2017.

"China is ahead of the rest of the world economically. I hope it can also be in line with international standards in terms of style," Sadasue said. "We enter the Chinese market, hoping to spread the knowledge we have accumulated over the years."

Maker's Shirt has expanded at an average rate of one store per year, with 30 stores worldwide so far. The prices of its garments are about half to two-thirds the cost of products of similar quality on the market, according to the company.

Sadasue said the company aims to continue its slow and steady development across China and the rest of the world.