DIOR has opened its latest concept store — dubbed the Dior Bamboo Pavilion — in the Japanese capital, incorporating the work of around 20 local artists, designers and artisans. The store follows similar concepts launched previously in Seoul and Bangkok, but with a localized feel that draws on the house’s long history in Japan and its support of Japanese creatives.
“Dior Bamboo Pavilion is much more than just a boutique; it is a place for unique experiences that pays tribute to the unbreakable ties we have forged with Japan since the historic beginnings of our house,” Delphine Arnault, chairman and chief executive officer of Christian Dior Couture, said via email “Monsieur Dior was, in fact, quick to forge a special bond with Japan, a country with which he shared a sense of excellence and a passion for creativity. In 1953, he became the first Western couturier to offer his collections in the archipelago.”
“Dior Bamboo Pavilion highlights this shared creative vision more than ever through inventive collaborations and dialogues with talented, captivating Japanese artists such as Seijun Nishihata, Makoto Azuma, We+, Ayumi Shibata, Takt Project and Hana Mitsui to name a few.” Some of the artists that Dior collaborated with for the store have ongoing relationships with the brand, having also worked on the exhibition “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams,”. Paper artist Shibata had created a garden-inspired room at the museum, with botanical cutouts of washi paper hanging from the ceiling like thick vines. For the new store, a portion of this work has been repurposed as a chandelier in the café.
Other elements that have been incorporated into the store include curved walls covered in washi paper from Fukui prefecture, which give the illusion that shoppers have stepped inside a massive Japanese lantern; tatami mats placed on the ceiling instead of the floor, and clothing racks crafted from natural bamboo. The space is anchored by a large central foyer that will host displays that change with the house’s collections. Currently it houses giant paper lanterns by the Kyoto-based atelier Kojima Shoten, hand-painted with flowers from the brand’s latest textiles. Off of the central space are four product rooms and a Dior Café.
In the room that houses the men’s items, the contemporary design studio We+, led by the duo of Toshiya Hayashi and Hokuto Ando, has created tables and stools made of recycled styrofoam crates used to keep seafood on ice at Tokyo’s iconic fish market. In the dressing room of the same section, textile artist Hana Mitsui has unpicked tatami mats, dyed them blue and rewoven them into a pixellated version of one of Dior’s iconic patterns.
“We want to create experiential concepts around the world in singular, remarkable urban districts where art and design are expressed everywhere and where rare places that exist nowhere else can be found,” Arnault said. “Dior Bamboo Pavilion is, like our exceptional concept stores, devised to offer our customers unique experiences, where they can shop, enjoy French gastronomy and pastries created by the multistarred chef Anne-Sophie Pic, stroll and revitalize themselves in poetic gardens, admire works of art and design alongside ready-to-wear creations from the Dior collections. It is an invitation to marvel at a dreamlike realm where the art of detail, the art of living and the art of entertaining all come together.”
The store, located in Tokyo’s Daikanyama district, marks the second time that the house has collaborated with Pic on a café in Japan. The chef said she has long been fascinated and inspired by Japanese ingredients such as matcha, hojicha and aonori seaweed, and she has incorporated some of these into her recipes for the Dior cafés. However, she said she hasn’t necessarily approached her menus for Japan differently than she would for one of her other restaurants around the world.
“There are some peculiarities of course, according to Japanese culture, but I really believe that universal taste does exist, and that what is good is good for every human being on earth,” Pic said. Unlike the location at the Dior store in Ginza, the new Dior Café outpost in Daikanyama features a spacious terrace facing an impressive Japanese garden, offering diners a place of respite from the urban jungle.
