On April 4th, the renovated Toyoko Department Store held its grand opening. Founded in 1934, this beloved terminal-style department store at Shibuya Station has operated in three buildings—East, West, and South—for 78 years. Following the renovation, however, it has been consolidated into two: the West and South. The East Building's "Toyoko Noren-gai," known as Japan's first famous shopping arcade, has moved to the basement floor of Shibuya Mark City. It is now connected to the "Tokyu Food Show" on the basement floor of Tokyu Toyoko via an aisle. While the total sales floor space has been reduced from approximately 32,000 square meters to approximately 20,000 square meters, the store has proactively introduced a new concept that takes advantage of this compactness. The store's theme is "Mixing is Fun." By creating new sales areas that transcend target generations and product categories, the store is creating a more enjoyable shopping space than ever before. Among the renovated floors, spanning from the basement to the ninth floor, the women's fashion and accessories department on the first floor is noteworthy in terms of design and structure. Named "Shibuya Scramble 1," this space is proposed as an information hub for women who value urban sophistication. The 600-square-meter space, with 32 brands from across industries, blends together, evoking Shibuya's iconic scramble crossing. The floor is oval, with a crisscrossing passage running through its center. The oval flow is for shoppers, while the crisscrossing passage is for those moving through. Because it serves as an information hub, three pop-up stages (limited-time sales areas) have also been installed. The flow of traffic is curved in an oval, making it difficult to know what lies ahead without walking through. While customers wander around without paying attention to the brands, each brand clearly asserts its presence within the small space. The colorful color palette is centered around bright green. Multiple circular objects on the ceiling and patchwork-like designs adorning the pillars create a sense of exhilaration as you are in a special space.
Tenants include "B'2nd Requa," "Soaptopia," "Iju Ylang Ylang," "Mel Ange," and "Dior Backstage Studio (cosmetics)," all for the first time in Japan, and "Anima" and "Jewel Changes," all for the first time in a department store. There are 13 new brands in total.
The Commerce Design Center, which has worked on store designs for Isetan and many other department stores around the country, was in charge of the design and art direction for the entire building during this renovation. Representative Tokushima Isao had this to say about the creation of the space at SHIBUYA Scramble 1: "Because we had the opportunity to do it with Thinks, tenants have a better understanding of self-organized sales floors. This time, many of the brands aren't in department stores, so we left much of it up to each tenant. The balance between the overall worldview created by self-organization and the individual worldviews is a perfect example of that." Another major topic of discussion is Toyoko Noren-gai, which has moved to the first basement floor of Shibuya Mark City. Japan's oldest shopping arcade, which opened in 1951, aims to maintain its customer base by retaining 80 of the 85 stores that existed before its closure. The arcade now boasts a total of 83 stores. It features a wide selection of well-established shops selling Japanese sweets, rice crackers, and prepared dishes. The rice cracker factory FUKU-LABO and Henri Charpentier, a long-established Western confectionery shop from Ashiya, are opening their first stores. By integrating with the Tokyu Food Show, a massive food world with approximately 160 stores has been created.
At the time of the grand opening, store manager Kiyoshi Kamiya commented, "We want our customers to experience the joy that comes from mingling together. By connecting new and old stores in the food court, we believe we will be able to attract a wider range of customers than ever before."
