5 brands to look for on Vinted if you love Japanese vintage Because no, just searching Japanese Vintage is not enough to find hidden treasures

Vinted is overflowing with second-hand fashion. Whether it's 2000s surfwear brands, signed accessories from the last century, or fast fashion knock-offs, the app holds treasures for anyone who recognises the value of pre-owned clothing. If among all the brands on the platform perhaps the most widespread is Japanese Vintage — a name invented by users to index their listings so they land on the for you page of lovers of selvedge denim and brands like Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Comme des Garçons — fear not: genuine pieces of Japanese vintage are hiding on the platform. You just need to know exactly what you're looking for.

Here, then, are 5 brands to search for on Vinted if you love Japanese vintage fashion, beyond the usual suspects.

Atsuro Tayama

Atsuro Tayama launched his own brand in 1982, after working in the atelier of an icon like Yohji Yamamoto and serving as chief designer at Cacharel, the Parisian brand founded by Jean Bousquet in 1958. His earlier studies at the Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo and his creative direction in Paris infused his personal line with a romantic balance between Japanese sartorial minimalism and French refinement. If you search for Atsuro Tayama on Vinted, you might find asymmetric all-black dresses, miniskirts with functional belts, as well as ruched shirts or knitwear with silk inserts.

Michiko Koshino

While Tayama embraced French style, designer Michiko Koshino fell in love with London fashion. She did so in the 1970s, perhaps one of the most brilliant periods for British design. Even among the punks, Koshino managed to make her mark in Europe with audacity, taking the trends that were taking hold in the English capital and transforming them into something entirely new through her singular point of view. By the 1980s she was a star of London's club culture, a passion that was reflected in both her designs and her shows, where editors and models let loose to the beat of music. Military aesthetics are also a constant interest for Koshino, which is why if you search her name on Vinted today you might easily come across bomber jackets, camouflage prints, as well as technical fabrics and denim.

Zucca

Akira Onozuka founded the brand Zucca in 1988 in Tokyo. A year later, the designer was already presenting his collections in Paris, and before long the brand took flight, establishing itself in Europe as much as in Japan. A student of Issey Miyake in Tokyo and Paris, Onozuka cites British icons such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Biba as his main inspirations, whose style is reflected in his casual yet elevated designs. Zucca's collections take the great classics of the urban wardrobe and reinvent closures, zips and entire silhouettes. In 1994, Zucca Travail was launched, a line dedicated to workwear.

Tsumori Chisato

The story of Tsumori Chisato, the brand of Chisato Tsumori, is quite unusual. After graduating from the Bunka Fashion College in Tokyo, in 1977 the designer began working for the Issey Miyake group, designing the collections for ISSEY SPORTS. Six years later, in 1983, the brand changed its name to I.S. Chisato Tsumori Design, with Tsumori as creative director. Seven years after that, in 1990, she launched a brand entirely her own with Miyake's support, opening the first store in Tokyo in '95 and the first in Paris, in the Marais district, in 1999. Tsumori's collections revolve around a sense of carefree femininity — bohemian and cute, as she herself describes it — bringing a generous dose of imagination into the adult world through Japanese prints made by hand in pencil, watercolour or digitally.

Momotaro

We couldn't close this list without including an iconic Japanese denim brand. Momotaro has only just earned the title of vintage brand this year, having just turned twenty, yet it has always crafted timeless pieces. Born in Kojima, Okayama, the heart of Japanese denim, it combines craftsmanship and textile innovation to carry forward the local denim tradition. Momotaro's denim is recognised for its Tokuno Blue, a shade achieved through distinctive processes not only of dyeing but also of weaving, produced specifically at high density to give the garment weight and chromatic depth. On Vinted you can find endless pairs of Momotaro jeans and denim jackets, marked by the brand's logo inspired by the Peach Boy (Momotaro, indeed) of Japanese folk tradition, or by two white stripes printed on pockets and sleeves.