How We Approached the Brands We Wanted to Work With

When Amekaji Boutique first committed itself to starting this business, we, like everyone else in the world, came to realize there's no rule book, no real guide to hold your hand throughout the process of opening a clothing boutique selling niche products like Made in Japan clothing from small Japanese brands. Even if others had done it themselves (Blue in Green, Standard & Strange, Self Edge etc), none of them were going to willingly share their secrets and contacts for free. And why would they? That's part of their whole business strategy; their ability to source these hard to find, niche products is what made them all so successful. So, it was up to us to carve our business' own path forward.

While we already had a small list of favorite brands in mind, we still spent countless hours further researching and looking for other small Made in Japan brands to potentially bring back. We found dozens and dozens of small boutiques to visit while in Japan to further assist in research, with the hope that visiting them would give us inspiration for store design as well as expose us to brands we would have never found if we had just simply depended on search engine algorithms to show us what's available out there. With at least a shopping itinerary set for ourselves, we felt we had enough to book our flights out to Japan.

Our next hurdle was trying to convince brands to work with us directly and not just operate as resellers. So we did the only thing we could think of: we reached out to them directly. Literally, we just straight up emailed them and asked if they'd be willing to meet with us. That's what it took. We had a friend who spoke fluent Japanese translate our messages and we sent them off. What we said and how we convinced a brand like Fill the Bill to work directly with some upstart no name business like ours; well, that's what we'll be keeping close to our chests for now. Like us, you gotta also put some sort of effort into figuring out your own approach. You gotta make it uniquely yours. You have to bring your personality and story to the table and be authentically you. The right people will eventually come to you if you commit to that. 

The point we want to hammer home is: "Don't be afraid to put yourself out there and potentially look stupid doing so. You will learn and grow, but only if you take the risk." So, get out there and take a risk on something you care about. It won't always work out, but you will get better at taking risks every subsequent time thereafter.