The shop has a slight steampunk vibe, with quirky music punctuated by the ticking of clocks wafting in the background. Beautiful bags, journals, shirts and other gifts line the shelves, most of them featuring a cute, but slightly peculiar cat.
At first, I thought the designs were based on Alice in Wonderland, but it turns out that Wachifield is a world of its own, complete with a book series. The central character in the Wachifield universe is, of course, the mysterious cat, Dayan.
The first time I came upon Wachifield was completely by accident. I was hanging around Shinjuku, waiting for a friend and came upon the store while killing time. As I found out later online, the “Wachifield Shinjuku Labrynth” shop isn’t the only Wachifield store in Tokyo. In fact, the Wachifield stores have started to branch out to South Korea and Taiwan.
Since I was in the area again, I just had to revisit the shop. Even if you aren’t a cat lover yourself, you probably have some friends or relatives who would enjoy getting a unique gift from Wachifield. Fortunately, I have plenty of cataholics in my family, so it’ll be easy to find someone to give a Dayan-the-cat bath set to.
For some of the higher-priced items, such as watches and leather purses, you may have a little bit of trouble finding the funds, though. While Wachifield certainly isn’t expensive, it couldn’t be called cheap. Personally, the gorgeous drawings and designs captured my heart, so the items seem worth it.
For an idea, a small towelcost 578 yen, and a bath ball was 399 yen. The shop had an even more beautiful towel for 1,890 yen, which I have my eye on. If you like the characters, but aren’t interested in the larger goods, you can always get a postcard at around 100 to 300 yen to send to a friend.
The store also carried the Wachifield book series, naturally. A lot of the books were sealed in plastic, but you can get an idea of what the world is like before buying by visiting the Japanese or English website. YouTube also had a few Japanese videos about Wachifield. One is a tour of the Wachifield store in Nara City, and the other is of the author, Akiko Ikeda, in Hong Kong drawing Dayan.
Have you heard of Wachifield and Dayan? Does you remind you of Alice in Wonderland? Leave a comment to let us know!
Information
Wachifield Shinjuku Labrynth
Address: 3-25-5, Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
Telephone: 03-5919-2334
Hours: 11:00am-20:00pm
Wachifield Official Website (Japanese)
Wachifield Official Website (English)
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA - Privacy Policy - Terms of Service
Persian kittens are pure delight! Their fluffy coats and gentle demeanor make them perfect companions, and it’s incredible how well they adapt to indoor living.
Thanks to my profession as a “:Marine Engineer” on Ocean ships that i got to visit the Japanese ports of Nagoya, Yokohama and Tokyo.In those years i didn’t have cats as pets but owned a dog and hence didn’t pay much attention towards cats.Was surprised to see cat articrafts and good-luck charms in almost every Japanese shop and in Tokyo during my last visit in 1995 purchased a cat souvenir named “DAYAN” as memories of Tokyo and Japan.”Dayan” is a popular cat in Japanese comics.Bizarrely in that very same year i adopted a dying pet kitten after the demise of my dachshund a year ago.Today in 2015 i own two traditional Persian cats and thanks to the Japanese that i took a interest in cats as pets,