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Muji has opened a US mail-order store. Muji is a Japanese chain that makes extremely high-quality stationery, clothes, furnishings, and other stuff, all with a very clean line and none of it with any sort of label. I use tons of Muji stationery, our DVDs are organized in Muji DVD boxes, and three of my favorite shirts are Muji shirts. The baby's room has a Muji CD player in it. Our house is filled with useful Muji tools. It's all long-wearing, reasonably priced, and extremely polished.
That said, my experience with their UK web-store has been pretty awful. Slow delivery, awkward packaging, and a decidedly second-rate website all make me more apt to walk down to Covent Garden and shop in person at my nearest Muji than to go online. But if the web-store were all that there were, I certainly wouldn't turn my nose up at it. Unfortunately, the US range seems pretty limited -- again, it's better than nothing!
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Cory, you've managed to break Boing boing with this post. See snapshot for what I mean in case it's fixed when you read this:
http://bayimg.com/image/oappiaaba.jpg
The following part is the offender, my guess is that the double dash in the URL on row 5 closes a HTML comment that should've stayed open:
http://pastebin.ca/1394687
Hooray, once again living in Australia gives me the opportunity to window-shop, and window-shop only, for awesome things!
Honestly, it's as frustrating as if Ikea let you into the shop but checked your passport before they sold things to you.
The Muji aluminium pens, propelling pencils and rulers make great companions for a Moleskine notebook. The ally card holders are great too.
Muji is "no label" in Japanese? An non-brand brand.
Muji stuff is way overpriced and only reasonably well made. it's ok, but they take the simplicity of their designs to the point of utterly boring.
The UK store is open to EU customers, thankfully. I hate it when they do that whole Region-code thing. Tried to buy MP3's from Amazon.co.uk the other day, but they wouldn't sell to me as a non-UK customer. The only legal alternative: find a local (Belgian) e-music store that carries the album (not likely) or order the physical CD (ridiculous). A nice lesson in driving traffic to the pirate bay.
If New Yorkers want to shop Muji IRL, I noticed that the MoMA gift store stocks their stuff. Perhaps not the cheapest place to buy it, though.
Living in the UK: feels good, man.
For Muji-related purposes, at least.
Muji design clever but extremely overpriced stuff.
I like the Muji store in the Marais...it doesn't seem that overpriced to me. I like the storage and stationery side more than the clothing side though, although my friend got a nice satchel there for 22 Euros.
Here in tokyo, their stores are everywhere, and the foreign community is for the most part in love with Muji. I agree that their items are a bit bland and overpriced. I buy pens/pencils and stationary there, and occasionally candy but anything over 500 yen, and I walk out of the store with an immediate case of buyers remorse. Their clothing is overpriced and bland - They take their fashion cues for late 60s socialist workers parties and the appliances and furtniture are 100% garbage featuring nferior quality at higher prices. Ikea is a better deal in almost every way unless you've got a hospital fetish.
I have a friend whose entire apartment is Muji furnished, and the place looks like a THX-1138 set.
I find that Muji has some items (furniture) that seem over priced for what they are , and many others (stationery/ office supplies, organizational items) that are a great value. I just stick with the latter, and I've never been disappointed by them.
As someone who creates sets and props for television, I can't even tell you how hard it is becoming to find good looking products without copyrighted labels all over them, and my job has become much easier since the NYC stores have popped up.
There are a few in NYC too.
OVERPRICED. Basically the same stuff as Ikea and Container store only more expensive and available only in paperbag brown.
Their prices seem very reasonable to me unless you're comparing them with logo encrusted ephemeral rubbish.
I really like the paris map hankie. Do you think it would be likely to be accurate? or just a 'graphic' that they didn't spend much time on?
Yay! I love Muji so! ::does happy dance:: I am recently returned from Japan, and thinking woefully off the the pretty Muji things I miss.