Store opening: our special order process

We talked yesterday about the selection that we'll have at opening on the 3rd. But let's say you just have to have that Rococo Bouquet Mini-hat in Rococo Pink, and bad luck, we only have it in black! Well, we'll be doing special orders on an ongoing basis to make it a little easier to get exactly what you want through us. Here's how it will work.

If you see a product you like on the web site of a brand we carry, or in KERA or another magazine, we can usually get it. We can currently accept special orders for the following brands:

Putumayo
Algonquins
Atelier-Pierrot
Innocent World
Victorian maiden
SEX POT ReVeNGe
Maxicimam

We will have a short order form for you to fill out and sign, and there will be a 30% deposit requirement. There will also be a wait involved - how long depends on when we placed our last order with that brand. Figure that we order from each brand about once every 6-8 weeks. So your wait could be anywhere from 10 days to 8 weeks - we can give you an estimate before you place your order so you can decide if you want to do it.

When we're close to placing an order with a brand or brands, we'll announce it and give everybody a chance to get last minute special orders in. In the store, we'll have a whiteboard that just lists our upcoming orders and expected shipments. Of course, we'll announce here as well.

You can also place your orders through the web site. We'll have a link and a form for it eventually, but for now you can just email us. We'll invoice you through PayPal.

Once your order arrives, you can pick it up in the store, or if you order through the web site, we'll ship it to you (for our standard shipping rates).

Hopefully it'll make you guys happy knowing you won't have to hope your taste matches ours when we select stock :)

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Store opening: the clothes we'll have

We thought it might be a good idea to lead up to our store opening with a series of posts answering some of the questions we've gotten about what to expect on the 3rd. (We'll condense these later into a FAQ post just before the opening.) The first topic we'll cover is just what we expect to be selling on the first day, and why.

In Japan, we're what's known as a "select shop", in that we pick and choose the clothes we want to sell rather than just taking whole lines. There are a few reasons for this, the two main ones being that we don't have unlimited room and we have to account for cultural differences, both between Japan and the United States and between New York and everywhere else. (That doesn't mean we're always right, and we do experiment with things now and then that we aren't so sure about.)

So we will have a selection of clothes from the four brands we've started with, including Algonquins, SEX POT ReVeNGe, Atelier-Pierrot and Victorian maiden. We started earlier with Algonquins and SPR and still have some of their summer clothes, so our Lolita area won't be quite as full up as our punk/rock/vk area will be initially. One thing to understand is that there's a seasonal lag with any clothing store - the autumn stuff we just got from SPR and Algonquins was actually ordered months ago, during summer. We still have a bunch of stuff from both of them that we haven't even posted to the web site yet, and that we didn't bring with us to NYAF either. There's gonna be some new stuff that you haven't seen, no matter how closely you follow us.

We do have pending orders with both Victorian maiden and Innocent World to help us bulk up on Lolita. Whether we will receive those shipments by the 3rd is up in the air right now - we're trying, but it's gonna be close. (We might get one or both on Saturday... though it could be next week too.) Shoes are not part of that first IW order, but socks are, along with skirts and jumper skirts, bags, wallets and more. From Victorian maiden we're expecting a couple extra skirts and dresses as well as hair accessories, mini-hats and some other things for our display case.

We are planning Maxicimam and Putumayo orders for shortly after opening, but we will not have them on the 3rd. Maxicimam might be of interest to some of you, though, because they make a line of larger size Lolita clothes. Whether we carried larger waist sizes was one of the more common questions we got at NYAF. So please watch for Maxicimam news here.

As for vintage used clothes, most of what we have is currently posted to the web site, though there are a few extra things that we just never got around to. We will be doing consignment at the store (more on that in another post) and we'll start buying from Japan again as well, but vintage clothes are not our main focus so we've been putting more energy into making deals with brands and getting new clothes.

We'll also have a post on the special order process coming up - even though we're a select shop, we can and will get you anything you want from any of the brands we carry. All it takes is time. More on that later.

That's all for now - watch for a few more of these store opening posts over the next couple days!

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Thanks to all at NYAF!

We wanted to just take a minute to thank all of you that came out to see us at the New York Anime Festival. We heard lots of encouraging words from many of you and we really appreciate that. We just hope we don't disappoint on the 3rd - we've always said we're starting small, so while you'll see more at the store than you did at NYAF, it's still going to take a little time to build things up. We've only been around since February, and we've taken this store from absolute zero to the web site, the booth at NYAF and a physical store opening on October 3 in that time, so there's been a lot of progress and we think we've done pretty well. But there is still going to be a lot of room to grow once the store is opened. We hope you'll continue to support us in our goal to become the #1 destination for Japanese street fashion in the United States - it's not going to happen overnight.

This was our first festival as a store, and while we're completely exhausted, we had a lot of fun and we learned a lot too. This was sort of a test run for the store in a lot of ways, and we'll use what worked and modify or chuck what didn't. We also had a lot of people coming to us with new business opportunities, and hopefully some of those will bear fruit in the future. And we need to acknowledge all you guys still asking about jobs - we do appreciate the interest, and we've been telling everybody the same thing: just not yet.

Wish we could have wandered around more and seen more of the show itself, but we were just too busy! We did catch a few minutes of the fashion show earlier today, and we got to see AKB48 walk by our booth on Saturday :) (That's them in the photo above, not that you can tell.)

Well, now it's time to refocus again on the store opening on the 3rd. We still have a huge amount of stuff to do and basically no time to do it. But we've announced this date everywhere, so it's basically October 3rd at 12:30PM or bust. We'll do our best to open up a nice store.

We'll have a lot more details on what to expect from the opening and the store itself in the next few days.

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NYAF Day 1! And... announcing our location!

Just got back from day one at the New York Anime Festival (yeah, NYC traffic's really as much of a bitch as everyone says). Thanks to everyone who came to visit us! We hope to see even more of you there tomorrow.

If you couldn't make it and you're curious, or if you're coming Saturday or Sunday, here's our booth:


We were actually surprised at how cramped 10x10 feet really is. We had to ditch a whole planned second clothes rack (same kind as the one on the far right) because it just made it impossible to walk around in there.

Oh, and we did announce our address as of October 3. Ready for it?

170 AVENUE B, NEW YORK, NY 10009
We still have some work to do and the place is still covered up if you go and look at it, but the sign's there (though it's a little messed up right now - damn contractors), and it's pretty obvious what kind of store is moving in.

We'll add more to the site related to the store opening after the festival. Just gotta get through the next two days and we'll refocus again.

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Tokyo Rebel at NYAF Frequently Asked Questions

If you're planning to come see us at the New York Anime Festival this weekend, this post contains all you need to know. (We'll update it if anything new comes up.) For any general questions about the festival, please visit the New York Anime Festival web site.

Q: Where is your booth going to be?

A: We're in booth 338. You can find the floor plan here (PDF link).

Q: What's your booth going to look like?

A: Like clothes :) We're going to let the products do the talking. It's our first festival so we're not going to have a lot of fancy decorations. We plan to do this every year, and other festivals too, so we'll build up experience and add new displays and decorations as time goes on.

Q: What will you be selling?

A: We'll be selling a selection of our clothes from all of our brands each day - Algonquins, Atelier-Pierrot, Victorian maiden and SEX POT ReVeNGe. The selection will vary day by day. If there's anything specific you want to see on the day you're going to be there, email us and let us know so we can add it to the list. Note that this is not a "hold" - it just guarantees that we will have the item for sale that day. We will not hold items at the festival. So get there early!

We will also be bringing various used items with us, and a few new things we haven't posted to the site yet from Algonquins and SPR.

Q: What methods of payment will you accept?

A: We will be accepting cash only. (We'll accept credit cards in our store, if you're wondering about that - this only applies to the festival.)

Q: Are you running any promotions?

A: Yes! The first five customers who spend $100 or more with us at the festival each day will receive 10% off the marked price! This applies to all three days of the festival.

Q: Will you be charging tax?

A: New York State and City law requires us to charge 8.875% tax on all clothing items priced over $110, and certain items (mostly accessories) priced below that.

If you have any other questions, leave a comment and we'll answer!

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Algonquins shipment is here! And more on NYAF

Just a quick update (about all we've got time for at the moment) - our first Algonquins fall 2009 collection shipment is finally here! Lots of cute and cool stuff in this shipment:



Excuse the cell phone pic, but we'll have proper photos later. This is actually quite a large box, and it's completely full.

With all that's going on, we will not have time to post this shipment to the web site before this weekend. (We're still working through our SPR shipment too!)

However, we will have a selection of these items at the New York Anime Festival. Included in this shipment are handbags, skirts (including punk Lolita jumper skirts!), shirts, and lots of accessories including arm warmers, wristbands, garters and more.

We will also have a few additional items from SEX POT ReVeNGe at the festival that we have not yet posted. So, consider this a bonus - you guys coming to see us get first crack at some of our newest items.

And one more thing. If you're going to the festival more than one day, come check us out each day you're there because we will be changing up our selection through the weekend. We now have too much to even comfortably fit into a 10x10 booth, so we'll be bringing a selection with us each day and replenishing with different stock the following day. If there's something specific you want us to bring on any of the three days, let us know (email us) and we'll make sure it's on the list for that day.

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New York Anime Festival, retail store and brand update!

Those of you on EGL might have seen this, but it's important info that all of our fans need to know about.

As we barrel ahead towards our October 3 opening, we wanted to give you guys an update on what to expect from us at NYAF and at our store opening. New brands coming soon too! Big ones!

First, for those of you who don't know, we will be at booth 338 this weekend at the New York Anime Festival. We will be selling clothes from all of our brands, including Atelier-Pierrot, Victorian maiden, Algonquins and SEX POT ReVeNGe. Additionally, we'll be bringing our lightly used vintage clothes with us from a variety of other brands. We're also pleased to announce that we will be selling the November issue of KERA at our booth, and we hope our shipment of KERA Maniax and Gothic & Lolita Bible #34 gets here in time. If not, we'll have them at the store.

This is our first festival and it's coming just a week before our store opening, so our booth's not going to be a big Hollywood production - but we'll have lots of great clothes there. Please note we will be accepting only cash and possibly PayPal. We're still figuring out how PayPal's gonna work in that kind of setting, but we hope to offer it and we will if we can. If anyone has experience with this at a festival, we'd love to hear about it.

Keep in mind that New York law (state and city) requires us to charge sales tax on clothing items over $110, and on certain items below that.

Now, the good news! The first 5 customers each day of the festival who spend $100 or more will receive a 10% discount off the marked price! We don't want to discriminate against those who can't come on Friday, so this will apply Friday, Saturday and Sunday. However, it is first come, first served on those days, and it's possible we'll be pretty picked clean by Sunday. If you're worried about us selling out of something before you can get to it, order it from our online store before the festival. (But sorry, no discount that way!)

Also, we will be announcing our retail store location at the festival! Our new main sign is supposed to be going up tomorrow and the storefront's getting painted, so it seems like the perfect time to do it. (Of course, we're fine if we get outed in advance - we've been hiding in plain sight this whole time anyway.) We'll also announce the store location here on Friday night - assuming the sign actually goes up on time. We just want the place to look presentable.

We'll have some special promotions for the store opening too, and we'll talk about those when we announce the location. Stay tuned!

Now, maybe the best for last, definitely for the long term. New brands! You already know that our full list of brands (for new clothes) includes Atelier-Pierrot, Victorian maiden, Algonquins and SEX POT ReVeNGe. Well, we're pleased to announce that we have also signed up the following brands:

Putumayo
Maxicimam
Innocent World

They will be available in our store shortly after opening, though likely not on October 3. We're considering doing some group orders to start with, with the added benefit that you'll be able to just come and get your stuff in store (or we'll ship it to you if you're outside the area). Some of you have also asked us about shoes, and yes, we're going to carry shoes (even have a spot reserved in-store), but again it will probably be after opening. Innocent World will be part of that.

And just a P.S., but we are still not yet hiring. So please, no questions about that - we'll announce on our blog when and if that changes.

We'll answer any other questions you might have!

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Accessory shipping charge reduction!

Power to the people! Here's some news that'll probably make some of you happy.

If you've been putting off buying that $15 accessory because of an $8.95 shipping charge on top, well, we've got some relief for you.

From now on, if what you're buying will fit comfortably in a Small Flat Rate priority mail box, your shipping will be $6.50. (The USPS flat rate is actually $4.95, but we add both insurance - to protect you and us - and a small amount of packaging to protect your item.)

Anything that requires a larger box will still be charged based on weight. But the vast majority of accessories will fit in that little box. So if you're looking for accessories, worry less about shipping and more about buying what you like!

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Victorian maiden group order #2! (Now closed)

UPDATE: This group order is now closed and the order has been sent to Victorian maiden. Those of you who participated will be receiving invoices from us as soon as we hear back - most likely Monday. Thank you!

Important: If you sent an order to us and have not heard anything back, it means we didn't get it. We've contacted everybody we've received orders from at this point. Please send us another email ASAP if this is the case! Ideally using another email account just in case there's some kind of block happening.

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Those of you who missed out on our first Victorian maiden group order last month should be pleased to know that we're now running another one!

Since our first group order, we've had several inquiries from people looking to buy various specific items available on VM's site, but not ours. (VM themselves do not ship overseas.) Our VM stock is small, we admit, but we're planning to bulk it up over time. In the meantime, we will take special orders when possible, and the easiest way to do that is through one group order where everybody places their orders all at once.

Here is how this all works, and this is all copied out of our EGL post:

THIS ORDER WILL CLOSE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 AT 10PM EDT

This order is open to all, worldwide! However, shipping charges will be higher outside the United States. We have shipping tables available on our web site policy page here. If you're not sure how much the item you want weighs, well, your guess is as good as ours - but generally a chiffon/polyester skirt will weigh about a pound, accessories weigh less, dresses usually weigh around 2 lbs. So that's a rough guide.

If you spend more than $200 specifically through this group order, we will give you free shipping within the United States, or $10 off shipping outside the United States!

HOW IT'S GONNA WORK:

Check out the Victorian Maiden site: http://www.victorianmaiden.com/shopping/new-item.html

You can pick out what you like there. The nav is all in English, so you can easily find the categories you're looking for.

The entire site is fair game. Just use common sense if you're unsure of anything - you can ask us any questions and we can ask VM for you. (But do it early if you do have questions.) Also, reserve items obviously won't be available immediately, but we'll order them for you if you want.

Send us an email at info@tokyorebel.com with the words "Victorian Maiden Group Order for [your name]" in the subject line. (We promise to check our spam box this time!) Include in the email the following:

• A direct link or links to the item or items you're interested in on the Victorian Maiden web site
• Your real name
• Color and/or other options you want
• Your email address where we can contact you
• Your PayPal email address, if you have one and it's different
• Your address & phone # (the USPS likes to have it just in case)

PRICES, SHIPPING & FEES:

The price of any item will be VM's price at the going exchange rate on the day we place the order, plus 10% to cover shipping from Japan.

NEW YORK RESIDENTS will need to pay tax on certain items over $110. Sorry, that's just the law - and you're technically buying from us, not VM.

Shipping fees will, again, be based on our standard shipping rates found here. Purchase over $200 through this group order and you will receive free shipping within the United States, or a $10 discount outside the United States!

INVOICE & PAYMENT:

You will receive two invoices.

First, we are treating this like part of our new special order process, so you will need to pay 30% up front. This is different than most group orders, where you pay 100% up front. The 30% is non-refundable except in cases that are outside of your control - like the shipment gets damaged, or there's a delay longer than 30 days. This deposit is not refundable if you just change your mind or decide you don't really have enough money later. Once you pay your deposit, you have bought the item and are obligated for the balance once the item arrives. If you fail to pay, you will forfeit both the item and your deposit (since we're then stuck with the full purchase price on an item that we might not be able to sell to anyone else). We're testing this process out, so hopefully it doesn't get abused or we'll need to go back to requiring 100% up front for special orders.

We will send you the first invoice as soon as we have verified stock on your item(s) with Victorian maiden. Payment is due within 24 hours or we will remove your item(s) from the order! We're on a little deadline here - we're also ordering for our store and we need our items in before September 24.

Once the order arrives, we will send you a second invoice for the balance and any applicable shipping costs and/or tax.

THIS ORDER WILL CLOSE WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16 AT 10PM EDT

Please comment below or email us with any questions. Thank you!

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Dear J punk fans

We received new SEX POT ReVeNGe clothes!
They are so cool!

I cannot wait to introduce those to you.
You are gonna love them:):):)



This is taken by my cell..
Sorry... the picture didn't come out clear...

We will take real pictures this weekend!




You might want to order before the NY anime festival,
because...

this stuff's gonna sell out!!!

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Labor Day weekend means Labor! Hard labor.

So here is the Tokyo Rebel retail store in paper form :)

It's actually a bit longer and thinner in real life than it looks here, so don't consider this a fully accurate visual representation. We'll show you the store itself pretty soon.

This is technically our first weekend in possession of the storefront, and we're full speed ahead on getting it ready. Today we took a big ugly wall down that was cramping our style, and we got the other walls ready to paint. Tomorrow, we've got to finish cleaning up the demolition and actually paint!


Working with a crowbar is pretty satisfying. And I think we've found our anti-theft system :)

In other news, this weekend we will finish posting our current Atelier-Pierrot stock - we've still got one or two more corset skirts, a separate corset and the crinoline/cage skirt to put up.

We're also expecting a couple more things from Victorian maiden early next week, including a restock of the Rose Bouquet Stripe Dress that's proven especially popular.


Lastly, starting with the issues being released this month, we will soon be carrying KERA magazine, and the KERA Maniax and Japanese Gothic & Lolita Bible mooks. For any of you that don't know, KERA and its related mooks are the unofficial (and in one case official) bibles of Harajuku and Osaka street fashion. So we're pleased that you'll soon be able to come to our store (or visit us online) to check out all the current and upcoming styles in KERA, tell us exactly what you want from those styles, and then order them directly through us once they're available. Kinda like how it's done in Japan :)

Hand in hand with that, we will have a special order process worked out around the time our store opens next month... and we'll be doing it online as well.

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Hello EGL readers!

So a lot of you are coming here today (and yesterday) from xxhanakotobaxx's post on the EGL community (which itself is a repost of our post here below). We just wanted to say that we're glad you're all so excited about our store opening, and we just hope we can meet your expectations. We're going to be starting kind of small - as New Yorkers, we're not convinced the New People model would really work here, so we want to build over time - but we're going to have at least the brands currently on our web site at launch and we will be adding new ones quickly.

Keep reading our blog, Facebook page and/or the Twitter feed for info on the store opening and any upcoming events and promotions we might plan. We try to keep people updated almost to a fault, so you'll definitely see everything we've got going on in all of those places.

Also, don't forget that we do actually have a web store, where you can, you know, buy stuff. No need to wait for the store opening!

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