BODY: When a sneaker world icon known for velvety corduroy and a rainbow color palette meets the world's biggest media franchise, you get a plush collection that looks unlike anything else on the Pokémon Center shelf.
Pokémon Center announced that its official online store, Pokémon Center Online, will begin accepting pre-orders for a plush lineup created in collaboration with American designer Sean Wotherspoon on July 23 at 10:00 a.m. JST. Each plush is priced at 7,700 yen (roughly $52), tax included.
Wotherspoon is best known outside Japan as the vintage-obsessed founder of the Round Two resale empire and the designer behind the coveted 2018 "Corduroy" Air Max 1/97 sneaker for Nike. That same textured, multicolor aesthetic carries over here, giving familiar Pokémon a decidedly streetwear-fashion makeover rather than the usual cute-and-cuddly treatment.
To mark the launch, Pokémon Center is holding a product-announcement event featuring Wotherspoon himself alongside Pikachu on stage. Attendance is by lottery only, so fans hoping to see the designer and the mascot together will need to enter for a chance to be invited — a rare in-person appearance for an overseas collaborator in the Pokémon merchandise world.
The insider take
Pokémon rarely hands its characters to an individual fashion designer, and doing so signals how seriously the brand now courts the sneaker and streetwear crowd from its Tokyo base. The 7,700-yen price point is premium for a Pokémon plush — normal ones sit well below 5,000 yen — but that's squarely in line with how "collab drops" are priced in Japan's hype-driven resale scene, where scarcity and a designer name matter more than size. Expect these to move fast and resurface on Mercari at a markup within hours.
Originally reported by GAME Watch (Japanese).