Photo/Illutration Forever 21 on Feb. 21 opens a showroom-type store in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward, where customers can look at its clothing. The store will close on Feb. 26. (Yoko Masuda)

U.S. fashion chain Forever 21 re-entered the Japanese market on Feb. 21 with plans to reinvent itself after pulling out of the country four years ago amid criticism and competition from internet shopping. 

The retailer opened a showroom-type store for a limited time in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward. Customers will only be able to look at but not buy the brand’s clothing there.

Forever 21 will sell its items only online for the time being. 

In April, it will open its first regular shop after its relaunch in Japan at the LaLaPort shopping park in Kadoma, Osaka Prefecture.

The company aims to have 15 stores in Japan and achieve 10 billion yen ($74.1 million) in sales in the fiscal year ending in February 2028.

Adastria Co., a large Japanese apparel company that runs popular brands such as Global Work, is now in charge of product planning and sales of Forever 21 items.

Before withdrawing, Forever 21 was regarded as a typical fast fashion brand, a business model where a clothing brand quickly produces and sells fashionable, inexpensive clothing.

This time, however, it plans to change its image with clothing that is conscious of sustainability.

“Reflecting on lessons from the past, we will not make waste. We would like to shed the image of fast fashion,” said Atsushi Sugita, president of Gate Win Co., Adastria’s subsidiary.

Forever 21 first entered the Japanese market in 2009 and had more than 20 stores.

Its shop in Tokyo’s Harajuku district was so popular that more than 3 million customers had passed through its doors just six months after opening.

However, facing the increasing popularity of internet shopping and other factors, its management company went bankrupt in 2019.

Itochu Corp., a major Japanese trading company, struck an exclusive distributorship agreement in Japan with an American company that had bought the rights to the brand.

That made it possible for Forever 21 to re-enter the Japanese market. Gate Win wanted to use the brand name “Forever 21” because “it has worldwide recognition,” Sugita said.

When Forever 21 first came to Japan, customers benefited from its affordable prices, such as a dress for just 1,000 yen, but the merchandise was seen as being “cheap but poorly made.”

The brand was also criticized for discarding massive amounts of unsold clothing.

This time, the average price of the brand’s items will be approximately 4,000 yen and they will be of higher quality.

It will also undertake initiatives to help protect the environment, such as collecting used clothing and drastically reducing the amount of water used to make a pair of jeans.

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