Mitsukoshi
Mitsukoshi, Japanese department stores’ chain since 1673
It’s a Japanese department stores’ chain. In 1673 it was the sign of a store which applied modern mass commerce rules, such as clear prices and visible items which client could try on. It was opened by Takatoshi Mitsui. At the end of XIX century, the store tried to sign agreements with French tailors: this venture, later expanded to Italian fashion, is still winning. It was the first Japanese department store to have a branch and windows in Paris. Its cultural policy, started in 1914, found a fertile soil in France.
Still operative, it’s so prestigious that it gave the name to a railway stop: Mitsukoshimae. The main headquarters still are in Nihombashi, in order to remember its origins, in 1673, when it was a kimono fabrics’s store whose name was Echigoya.
Art exhibitions organized in Japan made the company think up about something similar in Europe: after having bought and restored a Napoleon III-style building, Mitsukoshi installed there the Étoile. The inaugural exhibition is dedicate to 58 most important Japanese créateurs céramistes.
On 1st April 2008 Mitsukoshi and the department stores’ chain Isetan became a unique company named Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd, a holding directed by Nobukazu Muto, Hiroshi Onishi and Toshihiko Sugie.