New Opulent Chanel Store in Ginza

[Mulboyne]

AFP via Expatica: Chanel opts for absolute luxury in Tokyo store
With a 10-floor palace of glass at the ritziest of all Tokyo addresses, Chanel is launching its biggest boutique in the world, banking that Japan's famous appetite for luxury is alive and well.
The store opening Saturday in the Ginza district features a concert hall, a restaurant by celebrated French chef Alain Ducasse and 1,300 square metres (14,000 square feet) of shopping space with designer items sold nowhere else. "We decided on absolute luxury. The future of luxury in Japan is a lot more luxury," said Richard Collasse, the head of the French company's Japan branch. "We're betting on the high end, and that runs against what everyone is doing,"
http://www.chanel-ginza.com/

[Taro Toporific]

AFP via Expatica: Chanel opts for absolute luxury in Tokyo store

Caption: TOKYO, JAPAN: Karl Lagerfeld, German designer for French fashion giant Chanel speaks to journalists during a preview of its new boutique...01 December 2004 AFP PHOTO

[Captain Japan]

Designed by American architect Peter Marino, the 56-metre (184-foot) high building set to dominate the elite Chuo-dori avenue has a massive curtain wall of glass that encapsulates a nest-shaped block of aluminium in Chanel handbags' signature tweed pattern...http://www.chanel-ginza.com/

That webpage is a mess. I get a "morgue" feeling, not a "handbag" feeling.

[Taro Toporific]

.http://www.chanel-ginza.com/

That webpage is a mess. I get a "morgue" feeling, not a "handbag" feeling.[/quote]

I get the BEIGE TOKYO feeling from it.

[Captain Japan]

.http://www.chanel-ginza.com/

That webpage is a mess. I get a "morgue" feeling, not a "handbag" feeling.

I get the BEIGE TOKYO feeling from it.

If ever there were a webpage encouraging the use of charcoal briquettes and portable stoves it is the Chanel page.

[Mulboyne]

Kyodo via Yahoo: Chanel opens Ginza boutique, 200 line up
Chanel launched its boutique on Chuo Avenue in Tokyo's Ginza, Japan's ritziest shopping street, on Saturday with 200 fans of Chanel products lining up before the doors opened at 11 a.m. They were apparently intent on snapping up designer items sold nowhere else and called "Ephemere de Ginza," connoting transitoriness, to commemorate the opening.
...Chanel fans are known as "Chanelers" in Japan, where the creations of the fashion empire's founder and designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel are famous.

FT: Chanel goes big in Japan

[Mulboyne]

IHT: A touch of glass: Chanel's high-tech tweed illuminates Ginza

"Ginza is an area of foreign stars, where you are able to do new architecture and to express your brand," says Peter Marino, the American architect behind Chanel, explaining the lure of hyper-modern Tokyo

Peter Marino sounds dangerously close to speaking Japanese-English.

[Captain Japan]

Tokyo's Upscale Market Downshifts
Financial Times recycled by Los Angeles Times (this sucker will disappear eventually as it is subscription only; as well this story is from last year)

TOKYO — The casual observer strolling the streets of Omotesando or Ginza today, two equally upscale shopping districts in Tokyo, is likely to be left with the impression that Japanese consumers are in the throes of another asset-bubble induced spending spree.

This assumption would not be entirely misplaced. Over last year, several luxury goods brands have erected shiny new retail outlets, some at exorbitant cost. Chanel last month unveiled its new 10-story shop in Ginza, one of the biggest French investments in Japan in recent years at $240 million. Tod's, the Italian leather goods house, opened a store in Omotesando for $130 million. And seemingly every other young Japanese woman in Tokyo owns a Louis Vuitton handbag.

Despite the activity, there has not been a resurgence in luxury goods spending in Japan. Overall luxury goods sales in Japan are expected to shrink in 2004 to 1.19 trillion yen (about $11 billion) from 1.22 trillion yen a year earlier, according to Yano Research Institute, a Japanese think tank.

Most in the industry argue that the slowdown is cyclical, owing to economic sluggishness, depressed wages and the dramatic uptick in Japanese travel in 2004, as the year before levels were depressed by the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome and terrorism concerns. Japanese travelers tend to buy luxury goods overseas, which dents domestic sales figures.

Other experts point to a structural shift in spending patterns and brand preferences, citing a shift toward value. Meanwhile, the market for some brands has become saturated. According to Saison Research Institute, 92% of Tokyoites in their 20s own at least one Louis Vuitton product.

"The market share of the biggest brands is staying constant, but at the same time, the smaller luxury goods players are being forced out of the market," said Noboru Ikeuchi, a manager at Yano Research's brand marketing unit. "Overall spending is shrinking, and the pie is getting smaller."

LVMH's Louis Vuitton, which depended on the Japanese market for 32% of its revenue in 2003, making Japan its single biggest market, said sales in 2004 were sluggish by comparison.

"This year [2004], it is true that as far as Vuitton is concerned, we are suffering from decreasing domestic sales in Japan," said Kyojiro Hata, president of Louis Vuitton Japan. "When we count Japanese sales in Japan plus sales made by Japanese tourists overseas, we are OK. But domestically, we are not growing at a double-digit pace."

Relatively newer brands in the market are faring better. Coach Inc., the U.S. leather goods company, said sales rose to 30 billion yen in the fiscal year ended June, up 47% from the previous year. Coach has benefited from positioning itself as an "affordable luxury" brand, with prices generally cheaper than those of its European rivals.

"The underlying purchase motivations today for luxury brands are very different from 10 years ago," said Ian Bickley, chief executive of Coach Japan. "Ten years ago, if you were a brand name and if you had tradition and authenticity, basically that was a guarantee for success. For today's consumer, those things are the cost of entry. You have to be relevant for consumers' lifestyles today."

Bickley adds that Japanese consumers are more inclined to buy more reasonably priced goods. Used Louis Vuitton bags, for example, have sprung up on Japanese Internet auction sites and luxury brands also are a fixture at secondhand shops. The condition of many of these used goods is often pristine.

"We do see a shift toward more value," Bickley said. "While the overall market is flat, growth is coming from accessible luxury brands. What it means is women are buying handbags more frequently but they are buying them at lower average prices."

Longer term, Japan's maturing population is forcing many luxury goods companies to rethink their strategies. For most brands, the target customer is a young woman living at home with her parents. But as the population ages, some companies are shifting their focus.

"Our products are ageless and unisex," said Hata of Louis Vuitton, adding with a smile: "We cannot do too much about the maturing population in Japan. But one idea is to develop a wheelchair complete with our signature monogram canvas."

[FG Lurker]

Tokyo's Upscale Market Downshifts
Financial Times recycled by Los Angeles Times (this sucker will disappear eventually as it is subscription only][...]

Relatively newer brands in the market are faring better. Coach Inc., the U.S. leather goods company, said sales rose to 30 billion yen in the fiscal year ended June, up 47% from the previous year. Coach has benefited from positioning itself as an "affordable luxury" brand, with prices generally cheaper than those of its European rivals.

"The underlying purchase motivations today for luxury brands are very different from 10 years ago," said Ian Bickley, chief executive of Coach Japan. "Ten years ago, if you were a brand name and if you had tradition and authenticity, basically that was a guarantee for success. For today's consumer, those things are the cost of entry. You have to be relevant for consumers' lifestyles today."

[...]

[/quote]
Coach used to be a company that made some very nice, very high quality stuff.

Then they started to get big in Japan... And now they produce shitty products in China covered in the Coach logo a-la Vuitton. Blech.

[Mulboyne]

SMH: Louis lures the label-lovers
Stephen Urquhart has long understood the power of a brand name in Japan. He recalls a business meeting in the 1970s that continued into the lunch hour. "The secretary walks in and asks what do we want for lunch. Normally in Europe or America they ask: 'Do you want a ham sandwich? Do you want a cheese sandwich?' But here they asked me what brand I wanted. I promise you. 'You want a sandwich? What brand?' "
...Japan's consumers are obviously not reading the financial pages. Their economy is supposed to be in trouble...And yet the country's obsession with prestige brand names, preferably foreign ones, continues unabated.
...The trend is not confined to the cities. Provincial Niigata...would not generally make much of an impact in Europe. But the quiet port town, with a population one-68th the size of the Tokyo metropolitan area, has its own Louis Vuitton boutique. In Australia this is the equivalent of having a Vuitton branch in Queanbeyan, outside Canberra.
...In 1978, when he opened the first Vuitton store, Hata knew he was on to a sure thing. Japan's craving for luxury brands was well documented and profiteers were buying up large quantities of stock at European retail stores and reselling them at vastly inflated prices in Japan. But Hata could not have imagined the scene in 2002 when Vuitton opened its then biggest flagship store on one of Tokyo's most glamorous promenades...Hundreds of people camped overnight for the opening...A shopping melee in a store like that, where an empty wallet costs $500, goes beyond brand loyalty. It's addiction.

[FG Lurker]

A shopping melee in a store like that, where an empty wallet costs $500, goes beyond brand loyalty. It's addiction.

"Addiction" isn't quite the word I would have chosen.

"Pathetic" seems somewhat more appropriate. Maybe "hopelessly pathetic".

[Captain Japan]

Omotesando goes one step beyond
Japan Times

Omotesando has seen a flurry of buildings for up-market fashion brands open in recent years, most notably Jun Aoki's Louis Vuitton flagship store and Herzog & de Meuron's Prada tower. Now, the thoroughfare lined with trashcans inscribed with "the Champs Elysees of Tokyo" is blessed with another architectural marvel dedicated to luxury retail -- Tod's.

The Italian footwear brand enlisted the services of Toyo Ito, known for his high-tech conceptual buildings, and has created a dramatic seven-story temple to conspicuous consumption.

The 2,550-sq. meter store is most remarkable for its facade of crisscrossed concrete braces with glass filling the spaces between them, creating the effect of silhouetted tree branches, and referencing the tall elm trees that line Omotesando Dori. Inside, Ito has made optimum use of natural materials such as stone, wood and leather, reflecting the handcrafted, artisanal quality of Tod's leather goods...more...

I guess the market for this kind of thing will never die...