There are mainly two kinds of the vintage shop: The former can be detected by the smell of its piles of garments that leaked out onto the street. To let through another person while browsing, you need to embed yourself into the shelf at the front, and it’s always a challenge to stuff what you just took out back into the rack. The latter is similar to luxury boutiques on a prestigious location, so does the figure on the price tag.

Unlike any of those, The Vintage Dress should not be seen as a mediocre. Five minutes’ walk distance from Daikanyama Station, the shop is hidden in an alley at the east side of Daikanyama Tsutaya Book Store

Easy to miss, the wood door is always shut, the frosted window prevents glance from outside, the shop name is understatedly engraved on a small bronze door plate. And it only opens from Friday to Monday each week. Indeed, it requires an elaborated design with exceptional subtlety to obviate grandstanding or mediocrity, while preserving a certain extent of accessibility.