Loftman

Loftman was founded in 1986 in Kyoto by Toshihisa Mukai as a Japanese select-shop retail operation focused on the intersection of American workwear, Japanese designer brands, and the broader European designer pipeline. The brand operates flagship locations across Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo, with the Kyoto flagship—occupying retail space in the city's Karasuma-Shijo retail corridor—anchoring the brand's identity inside Kyoto's broader luxury retail conversation. The Loftman vocabulary built up around a tightly edited mix of American, Japanese, and European designer brands: Engineered Garments, Needles, South2 West8, Margaret Howell MHL, Norse Projects, Carhartt WIP, Stüssy, Auralee, plus the broader Japanese-American crossover menswear pipeline that anchors the post-2000 Japanese select-shop conversation. The store also operates a strong in-house Loftman label that anchors the brand's broader Japanese regional select-shop identity. Loftman operates from its Kyoto Karasuma-Shijo flagship plus Osaka and Tokyo locations and a robust e-commerce platform. The brand's customer base—heavily skewed toward Kyoto's design-industry, craft-and-traditional-Japanese-aware professionals plus the broader Kansai region select-shop customer—treats Loftman as one of the defining post-1990 Kansai region Japanese select-shop retail anchors. For Kyoto, Osaka, and broader Kansai customers building a curated American-meets-Japanese designer wardrobe through the post-1990 era, Loftman has been one of the defining retail destinations alongside Beams T Kyoto, United Arrows Kyoto, and the broader Kansai Japanese select-shop retail network.