Graniph Japan: Still the place for design shirts?

Graniph is a name synonymous for cool design shirts – at least for me. So I want to revisit this brand and compare to where it was many years ago.

It was 2007, the year I finally moved to Japan after visiting the country twice before. I had no idea about where to find some cool shops or just get the basics. This was before Instagram, with even YouTube being an infant. This was before wanna-be influencers shouting: ONLY IN JAPAN! I know, I’m sounding like someone’s grandmother reminiscing about old times.

Old Times

In those days, I got info mainly through those who were already living in Tokyo for a while. Sure I’d have eventually set foot into a Uniqlo or Donkihot sooner or later, but it made settling into my life in Japan so much easier after receiving some good advice.

Graniph is even older, the store turns a quarter cenury this year. The first store was opened in the hip Shimokitazawa neighbourhood and started with selling print t-shirts. The brand later expanded to other Asian countries like Singapore and Taiwan. In 2017 the company operated one hundred shops in Japan alone.

Finding Graniph

I found the Graniph store by accident while exploring Harajuku. The selection of shirts was wild. While they did have collaborations with established brands, most of it was supplied by various designers. Being a German native speaker, I was delighted to see some shirts with German texts. Usually it was some poem that had no relation to the design, pasted on some free space on the shirt.

They had way too many designs and collaborations going on at any given moment to present them in their physical store. And they kept asking for more.

Part of their business model was to ask designers to submit their design. This form is actually still online today.

Graniph today

But I doubt that many designs that are submitted that way will go into production. Looking at their store in Harajuku and the online store, Graniph distinguishes between collaborations with brands and established designers and originals. The latter have mostly an animal theme (Rolling Pandas, City Boy Penguin).

Nothing outlandish anymore, but then designers have a million ways to market their work online. The most well-known in the west is Etsy of course, but Japan has their own handcraft stores like Creema.jp and Minne.com.

Graniph may no longer be the main shop for silly designs, but there are places where the silliness continues. Meanwhile I still do like some of Graniph’s current designs, even without unrelated German poems…