Spanish fashion brand Desigual opened its first Kansai street-level store on April 25th in Shinsaibashisuji Shopping Arcade. The single-floor store, measuring 192 square meters, offers the brand's full line of women's and men's clothing, as well as bags. While its flagship store in Harajuku, Tokyo, opened last December, spanning three floors, offers a full line of women's and men's clothing, bags, kids' clothing, and shoes, the Shinsaibashi store does not offer kids' or shoes. Desigual's wholesale presence in Japan was the primary focus, but since opening its first directly managed store in Fukuoka Canal City in the fall of 2011, the brand has been aggressively expanding its directly managed stores, opening six more between April and May this year, including outlet locations. Going forward, the brand will expand sales through three pillars: wholesale, directly managed stores, and corner development in department stores. Founded in Spain in 1984, Desigual is a brand known for its colorful and bold graphic patterns. Not a single item is plain. In addition to its standard product lineup, the brand offers collaborations with Disney, the entertainment group Cirque du Soleil, and designer Christian Lacroix, including "Desigual by L." The Shinsaibashi store also carries these collaborative products. This April, large-scale stores by foreign SPA brands opened in Osaka's Shinsaibashisuji Shopping Arcade. H&M's Kansai flagship store opened at the northern end, while Forever 21's Kansai flagship store opened at the southern end, near Ebisubashi Bridge. Both are massive stores, measuring over 3300 sq. meters. Among them was Desigual, a Spanish SPA brand. While this opening is symbolic of the increasing number of global SPA brands entering the Japanese market, it's a bit of a stretch to label this brand as fast fashion. For example, the average price of a T-shirt is between 6,900 and 12,900 yen, which is unthinkably high for a fast fashion brand. Also, while fast fashion is defined as "quickly providing trendy products," Desigual has very little in the way of trend-seeking.
It will be interesting to see how well fashion that features unique graphic patterns will be accepted in the Japanese market.
