Yokimono Japanese Market: How One Woman's Community Became East London's Favourite Japanese Market

NOVA ESEA
May 21
4 min read

Updated: May 22

From a Storehouse in Shizuoka to a Showroom in Dalston

Sonoe Sugawara first came to London in 2001, burned out from years in fashion and food PR in Tokyo. She planned to stay three months. She's still here.

Those three months became a language school, a PR course, a work visa, and eventually a freelance antique business, selling British vintage at department stores in Ginza and Shibuya. Then, in 2009, her husband's family started tearing down an old house in Shizuoka that had once been a kimono shop. Inside the storehouse: a collection of kimonos from the 1920s and 30s, untouched, and about to be thrown away. Sonoe packed them up and brought them back to London.

She took them to Spitalfields, the same market she'd been visiting for years as a buyer. Fashion designers, film costume designers, and collectors all showed up and understood immediately what they were looking at. Seventeen years on, Furuki Yokimono, her vintage kimono shop, is still running, now out of The Factory in Dalston, where, in 2019, Yokimono Japanese Market was born.

The Market That Was Only Supposed to Happen Once

The Factory was new and mostly empty. The building owner told Sonoe she could do whatever she wanted with the space. A customer, a professional taiko drummer, suggested they put on something together. Sonoe looked at her circle: Japanese artists, craft makers, food producers, ceramicists, most of whom she'd known for years. So they organised a market. One time only.

Time Out covered it before it opened. Word spread. On the day, far more people turned up than anyone had anticipated. "We never expected so many people," Sonoe says. "Both the stallholders and I were in total shock." She hadn't planned a second edition. After that first day, she didn't need to think about it.

The market ran, paused during lockdown, and came back. This year is its seventh.

What draws people in isn't just the food or the craft, it's the feeling of the thing. When people first walk through the entrance, Sonoe wants them to think: I've been to Japan, and I feel like I'm back. Or, for those who haven't been: Wow. I've never seen anything like this.

"I Only Invite People Whose Food I Really Want to Eat"

Yokimono — the name — means "good things" in Japanese. But Sonoe is quick to add that it's not only good things. "Good people, good spirit," she says. The three are inseparable.

Every trader goes through the same process: Sonoe visits them in person, tries their food, meets them, and decides. She works from her personal network first, her circle of trusted friends and artists, and then from their recommendations. "Word of mouth and reputation from people I trust is very important."

What she's looking for is authenticity and quality, and something distinctly Japanese, not items people can easily buy anywhere else in London. Some traders have become so committed to what Yokimono stands for that they only trade there, nowhere else. "That's very nice to hear, and I'm very grateful." she says

If you're wondering whether to go: "Just trust me," she says. "I carefully select people. I only invite people who make good things and make good food, especially food. I only invite people whose food I really want to eat."

Still Local, Still Independent

Last year, Yokimono received invitations from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and the Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Centre, institutions well outside the Hackney bubble where the market made its name. Sonoe calls it a turning point: the chance to bring Japanese yokimono to a much wider audience.

But she's not chasing scale. The market still takes no sponsors. It runs on Sonoe, a small team, and volunteers. She deliberately keeps it that way. "If we make it too big, the festival runs the risk of becoming too commercial, and that is definitely not my goal."

What she hopes for, in ten years, is something closer to a feeling than a metric. "I would be very happy if Yokimono becomes a part of Londoners' lives, just like the Notting Hill Carnival. It doesn't matter if the market is big or small. For me, the most important thing is to keep it going."

Have you been to Yokimono Japanese Market or is it on your list? Tell us below 👇

🎥 Check our interview video below

Find Them

📍 The Factory, Dalston, London

👉 @yokimono_japanese_market

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