Vintage clothing store BEER opens in Kagoshima – Nighttime opening on every Friday

The exterior of BEER

The vintage clothing store Vintage & Collectibles BEER opened on September 19 in Uearatacho, Kagoshima City.

The store is the first independent business of Yamanokawa Ayumi, the owner. She runs the store together with her junior high school classmate, Komaki Yu. Both of them love vintage clothing, and they had always dreamed of opening a store together someday. Yamanokawa worked at the Kagoshima Prefectural Government Office for five years but resigned when she got married. Since then, she has gained experience in sales and customer service at OWL, a zakka store in Tenmonkan. “Since I had friends around me who had started their own businesses, I began to think about my dream of starting a vintage clothing store and decided to give it a try before I turned 30,” she explained.

The store has an area of 40 square meters. The cloth sign embroidered with the store name BEER at the entrance took Komaki two weeks to complete. The store name comes from Yamanokawa’s immediate response, “Beer,” when Komaki asked her, “What is your favorite thing in the world?” She also said, “We only have what we like and what we think is the best in our store, so there was a connection.”

The vintage clothes it carries are mainly American and European brands and about equal ratio of men’s and women’s. It offers tops such as sweatshirts and shirts, bottoms of Levi’s and other brands, and military wear. Ukrainian traditional dresses, blouses, and skirts (from 17,900 yen), “characterized by beautiful embroideries and soft silhouettes,” are mainly from the 1930s to 1950s and are purchased from Ukraine. The store also carries Native American jewelry, Tiffany & Co. jewelry from the 1990s, and old silver jewelry from Mexico (from 4,500 yen).

FireKing tableware from the U.S. and books, magazines, and miscellaneous items related to vintage clothing and beer are also available, and “The T’s” (6,380 yen), an archival book about T-shirts with over 700 vintage examples, is said to be the most popular item. The book sold out within a week of the store’s opening but will be restocked on October 9.

Every Friday, it opens its doors for the evening, calling it BEER Friday Night. They started it with the idea of “making Friday nights happier” and based on an ideal store that Yamanokawa used to think of.

“We want to make this a store where people can casually drop by while taking a walk or on the way to a café. We hope to create an atmosphere where people can feel excited when they visit and think that this store is an ultimate guide to vintage clothing,,” Yamanokawa added.

Opening hours: 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. (4:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. on Fridays). Closed on Tuesdays.