Even as the Japanese fashion industry edges toward recovery, the damage wrought by the pandemic is gradually becoming clear.
You don¡¯t tend to notice shop closures in fashion hubs like Harajuku because the spaces are instantly seized with a generic Instagrammable sweets shop or the like, but what you do notice is there is just a little less fashion to get excited about.
Statistics from the Japan Council of Shopping Centers makes the reality far more tangible. While 2021 marked a slight 3.8% improvement in total sales over 2020 across all malls and retail spaces, it is still a 19.2% drop compared to pre-pandemic shopping in 2019. That is for overall retail ¡ª when you break it down by tenants, the alarming drop is that before COVID-19, 18% of tenants were fashion or apparel related, whereas 2021 saw that figure drop to 12.9%.
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