Fashion
Japanese clothing brand Shoo-La-Rue selling T-shirts emblazoned with names of random Scottish places
A Japanese clothing brand is generating online buzz for its T-shirts emblazoned with the names of random Scottish places.
Many people across the world wear slogan tops featuring iconic place names like New York and Los Angeles and world-famous universities like Harvard and Yale.
But now local authorities in Scotland including Clackmannanshire, North Lanarkshire, Falkirk and West Lothian feature in a range being sold by Tokyo-based retailer Shoo-La-Rue.
The Cutie Blonde collection has captured the attention of social media users due to one of the Falkirk designs wrongly suggesting the town is in West Lothian.
The Clackmannanshire T-shirt also features a slogan saying “clarity precedes success” alongside a tropical graphic.
Although Clackmannanshire is home to Alloa – sometimes referred to as “Sunny Aloha” by the locals – there’s no palm trees in the Wee County.
Freelance football coach David Clements spotted the Falkirk/West Lothian T-shirt while at a shopping centre in Saiki, Oita.
Posting a picture on X, he joked: “Paris, New York, Tokyo, Falkirk.”
Mr Clements, who is originally from Glasgow, has lived between Tokyo and Saiki after meeting wife Nozoki 14 years ago.
He told Sky News: “I thought the T-shirts were unusual at first, but coming to think about it maybe they were waiting for something viral like this for promotion.
“I might end up getting one for the sake of it.”
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Shoo-La-Rue is owned by fashion company World.
On X, an account named Scotland’s Coefficient said: “Fascinated by this. Japanese people wearing T-shirts adorned with random Scottish areas and towns, with dates of seemingly no relevance.”
It came in response to another X user highlighting an old post in which someone asked: “See how Scottish people wear tops that say ‘New York’ and ‘LA’ do people from America wear tops saying ‘Arbroath’ or ‘East Kilbride’.”
Sharing pictures of the Japanese shirts, the user said: “Well there ye go. Japanese people wear tops that say Falkirk.”