Diatribes by Joah

The World's Best Merchandisers & America's Close Second(s)

The following post first appeared here on Huffington Post. I spent the last week of 2011 and first week of 2012 in Japan traveling between Nagano, Kyoto and Tokyo employing roughly one-fifth of my college education, a minor in Japanese, as best I could.

In between snowboarding in Nagano, seeing temples and shrines in Kyoto and riding trains in Tokyo, I managed to check out some 150 boutiques. I even, somewhat, bypassed the online shopping craze during the holiday season in preparation for the trip. And let's just say my more financially prudent self did not make the trip.

In the midst of going over my self-imposed spending limit (us Americans aren't so good at spending limits, I guess), I was able to learn at least one thing worth sharing. No offense, but the Japanese could teach classes to American retailers and boutique owners about meticulous customer-centric merchandising and shop upkeep.

During the mornings, you'd see shop owners and employees doing everything from scrubbing the floors while on all fours to double-counting how many items were folded on each table. When the stores opened, the focus was solely on the products the customer touched and seemed to desire. The decorations, fixtures and racks were set up in such a way that you couldn't help but touch a few things in every store. Words just cannot do justice to places like the Isetan men's department store in Shinjuku, designer Tsumori Chisato's shop in Aoyama (where they refused to allow photos), any of the United Arrows shops around Tokyo, and even the small, locally-owned shops in Kyoto or Nagano.

Major fashion retail companies like J. Crew, Forever 21 and Target should send all of their merchants and store managers to Japan to check out the setup and service at places like Beams, Loveless and Tokyu Hands. If not all of their merchants and managers, at least the ones in fashion-forward cities like New York, LA, Chicago and San Francisco. Cities where European and Asian retailers appear to be targeting for hand-to-hand consumer combat.

Upstart boutique owners and shoppers may not be able to afford the trek to the Far East, so I'll meet you halfway by suggesting some U.S.-based shops that meet the type of merchandising acumen I'm referring to having seen throughout Japan. Some of these shops were mentioned on my previous go-to shopping list here.

I'm not sure when I'll next be visiting Japan, but I know the next time I visit these cities and shops, I'll think back to the merchandising prowess displayed by our friends on the other side of the Pacific.

1. Bodega -- There were plenty of awesome sneaker shops in Harajuku. Similarly, there are several well-designed sneaker boutiques here in the U.S. Undefeated is a behemoth and Alife Rivington Club is always worth a visit. But this Boston shop is second to none when it comes to merchandising. You have to experience the entrance and mahogany heaven for yourself.

2. Canopy Blue -- You'll see and hear words like "unassuming" and "nestled" describe this boutique when someone describes the experience of stumbling upon this shop in the Madison neighborhood of Seattle. This dreamland doesn't feel like Seattle, which is not to say that it's not right at home, but to say that its design truly stands out. The airy space feels like falling into a retail day bed. Canopied dressing rooms, blue walls and chandeliers and seashells may have you thinking you've landed in Greece or, at least, Southern California by mistake.

3. Confederacy -- The shop's owners -- That 70's Show actor Danny Masterson being one of them -- are wonks for customer service and have laid the store out primarily to enhance the shopping experience. Vintage-inspired phone booth-turned-dressing rooms, '50s-themed Tea Room and 16-foot ceilings make it easy to spend more time looking at the shop than the collections they sell. Also, the employees are dressed in uniforms by the likes of Rag & Bone and Shipley and Halmos.

4. Mellow Johnny's -- Does a more interesting place to buy a bike exist than this Lance Armstrong-owned one? Probably not. Sure, they're missing fixed-gear options for the hipster bunch, and the Nike imprint in the shop is a bit overbearing (along with Lance's other brand affiliations), but you can't not be impressed in here. The sad part is that the shop probably makes more money online selling yellow gear to people who've never had the privilege of walking into the shop.

5. Opening Ceremony -- It's not the most accessible shop, from a price standpoint, but the brands -- Rodarte, Topshop, Rachel Comey -- represent a great mix of what's now and what's next, what's "in" now and what never goes out of style. The Olympics-inspired design is both concentrated and evolving reminding me of what Japan's best stores had to offer.

6. Saturdays Surf NYC -- A surf shop in SoHo. Last year, I had coffee here with a friend in the midst of Manhattan's record snowstorm. The shop's coffee offerings, surfside collection of clothing, books and boards, and hip staff made this place a cocoon of cool and a warm retreat from the weather outside.

7. Self Edge -- You won't find a more interesting place to buy a pair of designer jeans than this San Francisco style stalwart. Its owner Kiya Babzani has built a following through educating the rest of us on high-quality denim, with an obvious passion for emerging Japanese brands.

8. Sir & Madame -- This black-owned Chicago gem is located in the Ukrainian Village, not far from the popular Wicker Park area. The shop may be the smallest on this list, but they've packed it with stellar brands, salvaged furniture and a comforting, soulful personality that could only come from a husband-and-wife team.

Winter Discoveries @ Winter X in Aspen

Pulled from our Tumblr. These are a few I took over the weekend.

 

First a good read, then a good song

First Obama gets a resounding thumbs up (or at least his critics got a thumbs down) by Andrew Sullivan in this piece, and now he's showing his comedic, musical side. Beats a guy with a sax (or a rifle) if you ask me!

My first Instagram photos

It's not that I've not always taken photos of the sky; it's just that I didn't see a reason to alter them before. Credit @baybaysteps and @niraj26 for the change of heart.

Albany, Georgia: Where MLK Cut His Teeth With the Movement

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was uplifting through his hope, but I am much more inspired by his honesty. It is through his vein of candor and frankness, that I believe lie some of the most essential lessons we have to learn from and about MLK.

When most people think of the Civil Rights Movement, they focus on the “I Have a Dream” speech, along with the image of a Klansmen and the fire hose-wielding bigot as the main oppressor. MLK would be pointing out a lot more to us, though.

Think about it: He called out the government for its lack of commitment to the Great Society. In his epic Letter from Birmingham Jail, he called out white clergymen whom could have used their platforms in Jewish, Catholic, and other religions to support “Negroes” in their fight against a prejudiced society. Most importantly, he called out those whom would deny the most unalienable rights to Black Americans simply by being silent. “In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends,” he said.

His honesty about the Movement was often calculated and measured, and some of the younger more militant members of the Movement claimed he sugar-coated his speeches and involvement a bit too much at times, but it was always accurately targeted for impact. This is perhaps one reason why Dr. King said, “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.” Unfortunately, he didn’t take his own advice in Albany and I believe he’d say so today.

If I could guess, I think he’d point back to a failure in Albany, Georgia, not the Birmingham campaign or the “I Have a Dream” speech, as the key point of his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement. It was there, roughly 50 years ago, in early 1962 in a small Georgia town, where Dr. King learned one of his most important lessons about honesty as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement.

The Albany Movement, which took place primarily from late 1961 through a good part of 1962 (and thereafter) is frequently forgotten or glazed over in the story arc of the Movement. This is not simply because Albany, Georgia, was a smaller town than Birmingham, Alabama, or a less violent scene than Selma, Alabama, where the infamous “Bloody Sunday” occurred in 1965, but mostly because the victory wasn’t as clear-cut. Some historians call it a defeat for Dr. King.

The previous year, during the summer of 1961, Freedom Rides had become a major pillar of the Movement, with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) leading the way. These rides were a sensational tactic in that the chief participants were not all Black and many of them, including a 19-year-old Stokely Carmichael (best known for coining the term “Black Power” and being a founder member of SNCC) were a decade or two younger than Dr. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference colleagues.

Due to the SCLC’s limited involvement in the Freedom Rides, many King critics got to calling him “De Lawd” for his perceived lack of aggression toward Jim Crow laws. Possibly in response to such criticism, Dr. King and SCLC made it a point to be a more involved organizer of the Movement in Albany where the protesters called for the wholesale desegregation of the town.

The week before Christmas in 1961, Dr. King appeared in Albany and was quickly arrested amongst other peaceful protesters. At one point, King deployed the Gandhi strategy to have the jails filled to capacity with protesters in order to weaken the Police Commissioners powers. Unfortunately, the local police chief had out-strategized King and his colleagues – in large part due to the over-reaching nature of the Movement, which again called for desegregation throughout the town. Ultimately, in the summer of ’62 after minimal impact or gains, Dr. King left Albany.

Therein lies the lesson Dr. King likely learned. The Movement would have to be more targeted and more focused to succeed. Dr. King had tried, perhaps out of a desire to maintain his voice and signal strength as the national leader of the Civil Rights Movement, to do too much in Albany. A call for desegregation town-wide was a stretch in 1962, and hindsight clearly demonstrated that much.

But SNCC was becoming a major force in the Movement, largely through the success of the Freedom Rides the summer before, and Dr. King’s involvement in Albany may have been an attempt to keep these young, potentially aggressively-minded leaders like Stokely Carmichael (who would later become a major voice in the Black Panther Party) at bay while SCLC worked to strengthen the overall campaign through the eyes of whites and the national media by focusing on nonviolent conflict.

The lack of a clear victory in Albany is credited for instilling key lessons in Dr. King that would be critical to the successful campaign waged in Birmingham. While his work in Albany is often described as a “morass”, King’s more targeted strategies in Birmingham, which focused primarily on the desegregation of the downtown shopping district and parks and fair hiring practices, were a shot in the arm to the campaign. Dr. King’s April 1963 arrest in Birmingham led to national scrutiny with local retailers suffering financially and the Kennedy White House intervening. Just a few months later, the “I have a Dream” speech was birthed.

On MLK Day, much attention is paid to the speech and the Birmingham campaign, but I hope this brief essay has exposed a deeper reality of the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. King’s leadership of it in the early 1960s.

Dr. King told us that, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase,” and we can now see that his faith enabled him to pursue a course of action in Albany, Georgia, that significantly altered the course of the Movement, and American history, for some of the wrong reasons. Ego, fear, hubris, inability to share leadership, lack of accountability and over-zealousness were all at play in Albany. For that brief moment in the campaign, Dr. King’s power was waning, his influence dissipating and the Movement’s focus thinning.

Dr. King also stated that, “Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”

In Albany, we hopefully learn that even the great Reverend could be blinded by half-baked solutions. But, as you’ve heard before, it’s not important how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up. [Something our President should learn from…]

It was from the clear lack of focus and unsound thinking that brought Dr. King to Albany and, ultimately, a lack of a publicity-grabbing victory in that small town that he was able to make much-needed strategic changes to lead the charge toward a much more important and symbolic win in Birmingham. The media frenzied battles with Birmingham public safety chief Bull Connor coupled with ample solitude for Dr. King to reflect and write in that jailhouse paved the way for the “I Have a Dream” speech we celebrate every year on this day.

So, this year, don’t just listen to the speech and think the Movement’s chief lessons are to be learned in Washington, D.C.

Think back to Albany, Georgia. Honestly, that’s where Dr. King cut his teeth as the leader of the Movement.

Friday Jam: SBTRKT

Yes, this needs to be said...and said again.

Japanese Style May Be the Best Style

I was planning to wait to write a full-on blog about the trip, but I'll start here instead.

Okay okay...that last one is me on NYE in Tokyo.

Deva practicing her Japanese stance in the black (left).

More Deva

More me