Free X-Girl Tote Bag in Japanese MOOK

The X-Girl 2008-2009 Fall and Winter Collection magazine / MOOK is out now in Japan. I picked up a copy in Tower Records in Shibuya last week.

As has become the trend with many Japanese magazines and fashion brand catalogs, this season’s X-Girl MOOK comes with a furoku. Japanese Furoku are free gifts given away with magazines – these are items that cannot be bought in stores. (The most famous of these items was the Cher eco tote given away by Sweet magazine.)

In this issue of the X-Girl magazine, the free promotional item is a limited edition X-Girl tote bag in leopard print. The sticker on the front says (in Japanese) “Big Tote Bag” – and the bag is pretty big at 26cm x 40cm x 11cm. Here are a couple of pictures:

Opening the magazine to get to the folded up tote:

The tote bag opened up so you can see the size:

The X-Girl catalog itself shows the new clothing items from this season listed, along with prices and interviews with some models, etc. Some of the new winter jackets are very cute, and they’ve got some collaboration bags with Porter that are really bright and bold. As is typical with X-Girl, most of the jeans, hoodies, t-shirts, sneakers, accessories, and other items revolve around what I would call a “california casual” style. They are priced a bit above casual California clothing, but these are brand goods after all.

One of the interesting things I noted while looking through the magazine is that they have a leopard print X-Girl tote bag pictured as one of the new items for this season. It is very similar to the one being given away with the magazine.The difference is the price. The tote bag listed in the magazine retails for over US$100, but you can buy the MOOK with the only slightly different furoku version of the bag for about US$15. Check it out before they’re sold out.