United Athle to Open Experiential T-Shirt Shop in Harajuku Where Purchases Begin with a Promise

CAB Co., Ltd., the company behind the plain apparel brand United Athle, will hold an experiential apparel event called “The T-Shirt Shop You Can Buy From with a Promise” at GoOn TOKYO in Harajuku from May 28 to May 31, 2026, in conjunction with Zero Waste Day on May 30. The event is designed to encourage people to reconsider the value of taking care of clothing and wearing it for a long time, amid growing interest in sustainable fashion. Visitors create their own T-shirts through three steps: choose, make, and promise. They can freely combine color, size, print design, and ink color, selecting from more than 42,000 possible combinations. With support from professional craftspeople, visitors then print their chosen design on-site using silk-screen printing, creating a sense of attachment through the act of finishing the shirt themselves. Finally, each visitor makes a promise to take good care of the T-shirt. The shop proposes a new relationship with clothing, one that values not only the brand-new state but also the process of wearing the garment until it becomes a personal vintage piece. The event runs from May 28 to May 31, 2026, from noon to 7:00 p.m., with final admission at 6:50 p.m.; on May 28 only, it opens at 4:00 p.m. The venue is GoOn TOKYO, located at 1F Jingu Heights, 6-33-14 Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo. Admission is free, and the T-shirt printing experience costs 500 yen, with cashless payment only. CAB asks visitors to bring their own eco bags. The background to the project is the growing issue of mass disposal in the fashion industry. According to Japan’s Ministry of the Environment, around 770,000 tons of new clothing for household use are supplied annually in Japan, while roughly 460,000 tons of clothing discarded by households are incinerated or landfilled each year. This equals about 60 percent of the annual supply of new clothing. T-shirts, in particular, are often treated as consumables because they are casual everyday items and tend to be discarded after a short period. The Ministry of the Environment promotes sustainable fashion that considers the environment and society across the entire lifecycle of clothing, from production to use and disposal. Simply wearing existing clothes for one additional year is estimated to reduce waste by around 50,000 tons across Japan. Through this project, CAB aims to turn purchasing from a mere act of consumption into an opportunity to build attachment to clothing and encourage more sustainable consumer behavior. United Athle offers around 150 items and is widely used by apparel brands, creators, and companies producing original goods. Its model, which allows apparel items to be sourced when needed and in the quantities needed, also helps reduce surplus production. The event consists of three main experiences. First, visitors choose a T-shirt body from United Athle’s range of colors, sizes, and fabric textures, then select a design from five participating creators, resulting in more than 42,000 combinations. Options include 20 T-shirt colors, six sizes from XS to XXL, 32 limited designs, and 11 ink colors. Second, visitors print the design themselves with support from print workshop craftspeople and receive a serial-number tag attached to the hem as proof that the shirt is one of a kind. Third, visitors sign a promise stating that they will take good care of the T-shirt before purchasing it. A photo area will also be available for taking pictures with the promise certificate and the shirt. The venue will feature panel displays explaining social issues such as mass production, mass consumption, and mass disposal of clothing, as well as CAB’s initiatives to address them. Five creators have produced limited designs for the project under the theme of a T-shirt that grows with affection: Daijiro Ohara, RYU OKUBO, Hiroki Niimi, Hermippe, and Kengo Aoki. The designs are intended to be loved not only when new but also as they change over time. Supporting companies include TURTLEECHOES, ReBuilding Center JAPAN, and Pimlico Arts JAPAN.