A Japanese clothing brand is making waves online with its T-shirts featuring the names of random Scottish places.
While it's common for people around the world to wear slogan tops with famous place names like New York, Los Angeles, and prestigious universities like Harvard and Yale, a Tokyo-based retailer called Shoo-La-Rue has taken a different approach. They've released a collection that includes names from Scottish regions such as Clackmannanshire, North Lanarkshire, Falkirk, and West Lothian.
One design in the Cutie Blonde collection has caught the attention of social media users for mistakenly suggesting that Falkirk is located in West Lothian.
The Clackmannanshire T-shirt also features the slogan "clarity precedes success" alongside a tropical graphic. Although Clackmannanshire is home to Alloa, sometimes affectionately called "Sunny Aloha" by locals, the region is not exactly known for its palm trees.
Freelance football coach David Clements noticed the Falkirk/West Lothian T-shirt while shopping in Saiki, Oita. He shared a photo on X (formerly Twitter), joking, "Paris, New York, Tokyo, Falkirk."
Originally from Glasgow, Mr. Clements has split his time between Tokyo and Saiki since meeting his wife, Nozoki, 14 years ago. He commented, "At first, I thought the T-shirts were unusual, but now I think they might have been waiting for something viral like this for promotion. I might even buy one just for fun."
Shoo-La-Rue is owned by the fashion company World. On X, an account called Scotland's Coefficient expressed fascination, saying, "It's interesting that Japanese people are wearing T-shirts with random Scottish areas and towns, with dates that seem to have no significance."
Fascinated by this.
Japanese people wearing t-shirts adorned with random Scottish areas & towns, with dates of seemingly no relevance
👕 Clackmannanshire since 1974
👕 West Lothian since 1872
👕 Falkirk 1932
👕 North Lanarkshire
This was in response to another user on X who had highlighted an old post asking, "Just as Scottish people wear tops that say 'New York' and 'LA', do Americans wear tops saying 'Arbroath' or 'East Kilbride'?" Sharing photos of the Japanese shirts, the user added, "Well, there you go. Japanese people wear tops that say Falkirk."
