The Coolest Clothes from Back Then

The day a 60-year history comes to an end

When I saw the news that the long-standing Machida jeans shop 'Marukawa Main Store' was closing, a swirl of nostalgia and sadness stirred deep in my chest.

Closing the curtain on 60 years of history. Looking at the number, it is certainly a long time. But for me, it has a more personal and more poignant meaning.

For me, a middle schooler in Machida just as the Heisei era began, the Marukawa Main Store was my 'first arena for battling with fashion.'

To tell you the result, I was completely defeated.
But looking back now, that defeat feels somehow endearing.

Machida in the early Heisei era, my battlefield

Get off at JR Machida Station, turn left at Matsumoto Kiyoshi, and you will see the Marukawa Main Store.

Where the Sun Drug is now, I believe there used to be a camera shop. Was it Kitamura? They sold Famicom software at 20% off the list price, and I, as an elementary schooler, would be glued to that display case.

'Ganbare Goemon is 4,400 yen...'

I would count on my fingers, compare it with the balance of my New Year's money, and seriously plan my purchase. For me back then, 4,400 yen was a huge amount of money.

Things changed when I became a middle schooler.
I found something more important than Famicom games.

Clothes.

To be precise, it was a rebellious spirit that said, 'I can't keep wearing the uncool clothes my mom buys for me!'

But the trouble was, the clothes I chose and bought myself were hopelessly uncooler than the clothes my mom bought.

Why?

The answer was simple. I had no money. The humiliation known as 'clearance items.'
The 'clearance items' lined up in front of the Marukawa Main Store.

Every time I saw those four characters, my heart would twist in a complicated way.

'Clearance items' are cheap. They were at a price that I, a middle schooler, could barely afford by scraping together my allowance and the remainder of my New Year's money. But they were hopelessly uncool.

A mysterious printed T-shirt, a shirt that didn't quite fit right...

"That's lame."
I thought in front of the mirror. But I had no other options. I relied solely on the baseless confidence that it was better than the clothes my mom bought for me.

In reality, it wasn't better at all.
I wore a mysterious T-shirt that said something like "CALIFORNIA STYLE."
Because that was the "cool outfit" I had chosen for myself.

My standards for "cool" back then

Looking back now, the standards for "cool" among middle schoolers in the early Heisei era were a total mess.

• Jeans are cooler when they're dirty

• If it has English written on it, it's stylish by default

Following these standards, I scoured the "clearance" rack at Marukawa.
"Doesn't this look pretty cool?"

Thinking about it now, it was pure self-suggestion. But I was serious at the time.

A youth that feels like it still smells

Wearing clothes bought at Marukawa, we wandered around the streets of Machida.

We had no purpose. We just walked. We ate 100-yen hamburgers at Maru-Mac, and
met up in front of the moving carousel.

The jeans gradually became truly dirty. I thought the accumulated damage or dirt looked cool. The shirts faded, and the prints started to peel off.

"Marukawa clearance items"
That was our uniform.

To everyone else, we were just lame middle schoolers. But in our own way, we intended to be as "cool" as possible.

That feeling, I still think, was not wrong.

The final farewell

The other day, I visited the Marukawa main store before it closed.

At the entrance of the store, hangers and mannequins were placed with a sign saying, "Please feel free to take them."

When I found a lower-body mannequin among them that must have been wearing Gomarisan pants, my eyes welled up.

The symbol of "cool" that I admired back then was right there.

Even looking at it with my eyes today, I can't call it stylish by any means. But for the me of that time, that was the definition of "cool."

Thank you, Marukawa Main Store.

In the end, I wasn't able to refine my fashion sense at Marukawa Main Store.

But I learned something else.The importance of reaching for more.

Trying to be "cool" in my own way on a limited budget. Even if it looked uncool objectively, that feeling was real.

Marukawa Main Store gave me my first experience of "choosing for myself." Including the failures, it became a part of my youth.

Goodbye, Marukawa Main Store. Thank you, Marukawa Main Store.
Thank you for your 60 years of hard work.