Ode to a Surprisingly Stylish Japanese Convenience Store
Family Mart's ConvenienceWear clothing line is a classic case of Only In Japan. Family Mart is one of Japan's big convenience store chains — up there with Lawson and 7-11 (yes, 7-11) — and so, of course, it has its own surprisingly excellent clothing line.
The ConvenienceWear collection debuted in 2021, designed by FACETASM founder Hiromichi Ochiai and priced low enough to make UNIQLO blush.
On the Family Mart site, where its ConvenienceWear wearables are listed alongside pre-packaged onigiri and batteries, T-shirts and camisoles retail for ¥1,091 (about $7) while ribbed socks can be had for as little as ¥390 apiece (about $2.50). The line even encompasses more adventurous (and slightly pricier) fare, like packable winterwear and denim truckers.
Perhaps the coolest thing in the ConvenienceWear line (though it's sadly not available online) is a pair of black foam sandals that're probably the slickest mules you can snag for under $20 (retail is ¥2,990 or a bit over $19).
These shoes aren't entirely new, admittedly, as nearly everything in the line has dropped in some form or another over the past few years.
But some items aren't restocked as frequently as the others and the cushy clogs are returning for Spring 2024, their first revival in a while.
And, y'know what? They're really good! At least as solid as nearly any other mule on the market and way less spendy, which is par for the course with ConvenienceWear, really.
The line has proven successful for Family Mart, which has especially struggled to compete against 7-11 in Japan's bustling convenience industry — if you haven't actually been, you might not get it. These things are like tiny corner stores, restaurants, and shopping centers all in one. And the food slaps. Competition is fierce.
Familiy Mart is deservingly proud of the fact that Ochiai's eye for approachably easygoing design — a far cry from his comparatively avant mainline brand — has won ConvenienceWear ample fans.
Sales were up 60-percent year-over-year by 2023, as domestic newspaper Asahi Shimbun reported, and the line has since expanded to now offer over 100 items. The most popular wearable, apparently, is the ¥1,998 ($13) shorts.
ConvenienceWear is such a proven winner that Family Mart celebrated its clothing line's hot streak with a Harajuku runway show in late November 2023.
Some of the 100+ models included Family Mart franchise owners and their family members (talk about keeping it in the Family! Mart. Ha ha ha).
Now, as for the ConvenienceWear collections themselves, the clothes are fine. Not blow-your-hair-back special but for being shrink-wrapped convenience store clothes, it's about as good as you can get.
The crux of it all might simply be the novelty of buying respectably stylish clothing and surprisingly excellent shoes at the Japanese equivalent of the minimarts typically attached to gas stations. Now that's value.
