SUSAN BIJL X District United Arrows

Some collaborations are born in a boardroom. This one started on Cat Street.

United Arrows holds a special place in our history. They were the first Japanese retailer to carry our bags, that was around 2004, when The New Shopping Bag was still finding its feet and Japan was already paying attention. We lost touch for a while, as you do. Then, in 2017, we walked into the District United Arrows store on Cat Street in Tokyo carrying a SUSAN BIJL x Michiel Schuurman bag, and a sales rep crossed the floor to ask if it was one of ours. He'd been using our bags for years. His name was Shinji-san.

What followed was one of those conversations that just goes. Mutual interests, shared references, genuine warmth. Each time we visited Tokyo after that, District was on the list, not out of obligation, but because it's the kind of store where you actually want to spend time. Dries van Noten, Maison Margièla, Church's: they have a good eye. We got to know Shinji and his colleague Iijima-san properly over time. Both are part of our interview series Inside The New Shopping Bag in our 25th anniversary book. Shinji's interview is also on our blog.

Around 2020, District United Arrows asked us to create something exclusive for their stores. Looking at Bertjan Pot's six-colour bag for inspiration, a new format emerged: three colours, three parts,  bottom, flash, and handles each doing something different. It worked. A new chapter in a friendship that had been years in the making.

Now, for the opening of their new Marunouchi store, we've designed four new three-colour combinations. From the quiet of Cloud / Brown / Francis to the full volume of Key Blue / Fluo Yellow / Wena, with Calendula / Fluo Pink / Cinnamon and Treble / Orange / Echo somewhere brilliantly in between. Like sweets in a jar, the colours pull you in, and together as a set, they're near impossible to resist. These are only available in Japan, at United Arrows stores. If you manage to get your hands on one, you'll know why.

Shinji, photographed by Jan Bijl in Tokyo (Shinji has now retired from working at District United Arrows)

About United Arrows

United Arrows was founded in Tokyo in 1989 with a clear point of view: to reinterpret Western fashion through a Japanese lens. English and Italian tailoring, American casualwear, the work of leading international designers, all filtered through a sensibility that is distinctly their own. Today they oversee more than 30 labels, from the elevated womenswear of Drawer and BLAMINK to the relaxed ease of green label relaxing, each one reflecting a different facet of how people actually want to live and dress. What ties it all together is a genuine commitment to quality and curation — not trends, but things worth keeping. Exactly what we like.