Designer Bag Resale Shops in Tokyo

Hello again, dear readers! I am apologizing because I just realized I hadn’t posted anything new for a good week! Shock!! This is also because a lot of things have been happening in real life that the most online time I get would be for instagram!  Anyway I have some good stories to tell you about my recently concluded trip to Japan with my beloved family 🙂 I’ve been spending a considerable amount of time away from the laptop when I’m with them so it was really a nice, fruitful, and fairly gadget free trip hahaha.

I came back to Manila a few pounds heavier with all that ramen and rice we’ve all been eating, but luckily I managed to fit into the teeny tiny outfit I had to wear as a muse for my dear friend Cheryl’s design collaboration with jewellery brand De Novo held a few nights ago. Anyway, back to Tokyo! A few years ago in this amazing city, I’d find the time to visit second hand shops to check their designer bags and find out how they price them. On this trip, I was able to do that again, and decided that I actually had never really written about them in the past so I should now!

This one shop is located inside Tokyu in Shibuya, quite near the bridge walkway going to Cerulean Hotel. The funny thing was, we’d pass by this area everyday and I didn’t really pay too much attention to it until I looked at the bargain bins. And I saw loads of Louis Vuitton bags! I was flabbergasted! Louis Vuitton Monogram bags on bargain bins?!?

While they were indeed in bargain bins, the prices were definitely not really  good enough to be called “bargains”– but then again, maybe to the Japanese man and woman, these prices are already good enough.

Shibuya also houses Daikokuya

It’s a multi-level building and they have a few birkins and kelly bags there– one of the “steals” was a vintage camel kelly 40cm with gold hardware. It was selling for about US$6,000.

In Ginza, there is that big building right on the crosswalk of 4-Chome called Brands Off– it’s located along the same row as Hermes and has that nice Cafe Doutour on the ground floor 🙂 Brands Off has actually expanded to Hong Kong although I’m not sure if it also has presence in other Asian cities. Brands Off is quite known for exotic Hermes birkins– they had a Himalayan before as well as some of the more unique special order birkins. Prices are really not cheap, but wow if you want to fill your eyes with serious eye candy, it’s worth a visit! Brands Off also has a branch in Shinjuku.

For the luxury watch fanatic, there are a few good places to check out like Evance (more on Rolex) as well as Rasin (Rolex, Cartier, Breguet, Patek Philippe, IWC, Panerai, etc)

Shinjuku seems to have a lot more of these resale shops scattered around. One of the biggest ones is in this blue multi-level building across Isetan called Komehyo. They not only have designer bags (Chanel, Hermes, LV, etc)  and luxury watches (Rolex, Patek Philippe, IWC, Cartier, Jaeger Le Coultre), they also have jewellery (Cartier, Bulgari, Tiffany) as well as used designer clothing.

 

And then there’s Ginzo, also in Shinjuku. Quite close to the main train station in Shibuya. They have a good selection of bags there.

 

Daikokuya is also present in Shinjuku, just adjacent to Ginzo. And then there are the smaller 2nd hand resale boutiques like Sekine

All these stores are google-able for their addresses, but I just wanted to write about them because I’ve personally seen the merchandise and they are authentic and reliable (as of June 2014 haha).

These bigger shops offer tax- free shopping by the way, so it’s good to bring your passport with you when you go designer label “bargain hunting” 🙂 Tokyo is really a fun place to go to when it comes to checking out 2nd hand designer bags and luxury watches. The prices though, I was told, are not as competitive as the ones that are located in Osaka. But hey, if Tokyo is your only city of destination in Japan, then I highly recommend setting aside a few hours to do this 🙂

x
TheBagHag