Photo/Illutration Junko Kemi, founder of Kay Me Ltd., poses at the company’s outlet in the Sogo Yokohama department store. (Aki Sato)

Though the COVID-19 pandemic has led slews of major fashion retailers in Japan to close outlets, one emerging women’s clothing maker can't move into the floor space they're vacating quick enough.

Kay Me Ltd. has proven a hit with customers by going against the grain of how the apparel industry usually does business. The company has been expanding its outlets, placing many in newly vacated spots in department stores.

Getting in a large stock of products, selling them at “good prices” at department stores and elsewhere, and disposing of any leftovers in bargain sales--so went the conventional business model of clothing retailers that worked well until the 1980s, as long as the market continued growing.

But the model visibly fell into a vicious circle when the working population began to shrink in the latter half of the 1990s. Retailers took to holding bargain sales to get rid of their huge inventories, thereby inviting the mistrust of consumers.

Founded 10 years ago, Kay Me, whose main office is located in Tokyo’s swanky Ginza district, takes a different approach. The company conducts online studies of customer tastes ahead of the season to decide what products it will be making and in what quantities it will be making them.

Kay Me holds no bargain sales. It has also set the target of “zero waste clothes.”

Founder Junko Kemi set up the company partly out of her disillusionment with clothes by her favorite designer brands, which were replacing their clothing materials with cheaper substitutes and beginning to hold bargain sales to dispose of their leftovers.

In her previous jobs working for a major operator of correspondence courses and for foreign-affiliated consulting companies, she was so busy she couldn't even afford the time to take her clothes to the cleaners.

Since she also couldn't find clothes that were both washable at home and business-ready, she decided to develop ones on her own.

Kay Me’s jackets and dresses made of stretchy knitted materials can be machine-washed, and feature elaborately designed silhouettes and splendid colors.

The clothing company has an annually expanding membership of about 25,000 customers, including many corporate workers in managerial positions, lawyers and teachers.

“Kay Me makes decent, gorgeous clothes,” said a 42-year-old entrepreneur from Tokyo’s Minato Ward, who loves wearing the brand. “They rarely wrinkle when you sit down in them.”

The pandemic, which has driven major apparel makers into a tight corner, hasn't been much of a setback for Kay Me.

Online retailing accounts for 40 percent of Kay Me’s sales. The company provides online counseling on clothes coordination and online proposals on the choice of clothing and also operates home delivery services for those who wish to try on clothes at home.

Recently, the company also greatly expanded the lineup of its brick-and-mortar outlets.

Until Japan declared its first state of emergency over the novel coronavirus last spring, Kay Me only had five physical shops, including in Ginza and Osaka’s Umeda district.

It now has 11, many in department stores, including the Nagoya Sakae Mitsukoshi and the Fukuoka Mitsukoshi.

The company chose to establish them to provide customers with the hands-on shopping experience that online retailing lacks.

Major clothing retailers are considering following Kay Me's example and many have started to reform how they do business.

TSI Holdings Co., known for its Nano Universe brand, is cutting back on the quantity of its purchases and decided it will no longer hold bargain sales for one of its brands.

“We will reduce the amount of supply to reasonable levels and refrain from holding bargain sales to the extent we can,” said company President Tsuyoshi Shimoji.

Fast fashion retailers have also been doing well during the pandemic, due partly to their low pricing.

Apparel manufacturers neither in fast retail or up-and-coming players such as Kay Me are grappling with how to compete in the current business climate.

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