OVERVIEW: A store in San Francisco specializes in selling lolita-style clothing, a fashion subculture that started in Japan but now has a worldwide following. The basis of the fashion is modeled after Victorian-era styles of clothing, and is meant to give its wearers a look of youthful innocence. Today the fashion has evolved into several sub-styles, each with its own standards of how one should look.
Due to the scarcity of space and high rent, the physical area occupied by the store actually contains two separate “shops”: Harajuku Hearts, which carriers a variety of different Japanese brands that cater to many lolita sub-styles, and Angelic Pretty, a brand that specializes only in sweet lolita. Each shop occupies half of the store, and their own areas are further organized according to their resources. While it may have been simpler to just mix both shops’ resources and have one overarching organizing model, this would likely confuse customers as to what the store actually offers and make it difficult to find specific items.
WHAT RESOURCES ARE BEING ORGANIZED? Most of the store resources are the clothing pieces, along with accessories. Since the model of a lolita outfit is most often composed of several separate clothing pieces, lolitas are often encouraged to mix and match pieces from different brands. Aside from the clothing items themselves, the stores also sell accessories and even novelty items that appeal to lolitas. In order to make the shopping experience easier, mannequins that display a suggested outfit is put in the window view, and sale racks are arranged near the front.
Harajuku Hearts’ half of the store requires more granularity in the organization of its resources, because they carry more than one brand. Ultimately, because many brands in general establish themselves as catering to one or two specific sub-styles, it’s easier for the customers to interact with the resources starting at the brand level before going into the clothing type level. While the staff tries to keep each area separated by brands, because of the small space, sometimes more than one brand is forced to share one area—e.g. accessories are all displayed on one shelf, regardless of brand, because there are so few resources to begin with, it doesn’t make sense to waste space.
WHY ARE THE RESOURCES ORGANIZED? Most customers who come into the store are already knowledgable about the domain, but a few come out of curiosity. As such store’s organization is more suited for customers who already have knowledge of the fashion; to cater to the rare casual customer would be a waste of effort and resources. Many lolitas often come in looking for a specific piece—say, the latest dress, or a short-sleeved blouse to match their existing skirt. It is much easier for them to browse in the blouse section or go to the new arrivals section to find what they are looking for, instead of having to comb through everything. The goal is to make sure that the widest variety of resources get displayed in order to entice customers with different tastes to shop here; with limited space, sometimes a choice has to made to display more or less of a certain brand in order to appeal to a wider audience.
HOW MUCH ARE THE RESOURCES ORGANIZED? Since details are important in lolita fashion, the granularity level of organization is high. Even for Angelic Pretty, the top level is organizing by clothing type, and then the items themselves are arranged by color, light to dark. Special consideration is taken for the sales rack and the display case, which are considered separate from the rest of the store because they are defined by a boolean facet classification scheme, sale/not on sale or display/not displayed. Harajuku Hearts has a similar organizing model, only its top level is brand, before diving into classification schemes for its clothing.
Alternatively, each half of the store could just display all times using a chronological scheme, but this would only help customers looking for the latest release, and not help in finding one particular item.
WHEN ARE THE RESOURCES ORGANIZED? The shop staff sets up the store each day before they open, but they are also constantly re-organizing and performing maintenance throughout the day—often customers will try on clothes but not buy them, and so the item must be returned to its proper place. Otherwise, not only would we get a messy store with lots of expensive clothes lying around, but you’d never want to find a punk shirt next to a jumper skirt. At the end of the day, the stock is inventoried to make sure that amount sold is correct, and if they need to re-order more items. When new pieces arrive, these resources must be quickly and successfully integrated with the existing items.
WHO DOES THE ORGANIZING? Resources are strictly maintained by shop staff only; although some customers might be just as knowledgable about the sub-styles, they may not be aware of any specific rules and may end up making more work for the staff. The manager oversees and decides the general layout and categories, and the staff helps to actually arrange the resources in the correct manner. Also, a strictly controlled interaction limits risks like taking pictures (forbidden since designers are afraid their designs will get bootlegged) or shoplifting.
OTHER CONSIDERATIONS: There are no overarching standards or official guidelines that dictate exactly what is considered lolita fashion or how to conform to a certain sub-style; this fashion is constantly evolving and much of what is accepted is based on the community. As such, the store needs to be able to keep up with community trends if it’s to be successful, and pay close attention to the needs of its customers. If the sweet lolita sub-style is getting more popular, perhaps it would do better by dedicating more floor space to showcase those items. Poor observation and maintenance of its resources could quickly drive the store out of business.