LONDON — Times may be tough for many luxury brands in Japan, but not for Stella McCartney.
The designer is poised to open her first flagship in Tokyo in 2008, and will open a network of shop-in-shops in key department stores, Marco Bizzarri, president and chief executive, told WWD exclusively.
The company has inked a five-year agreement with Unit & Guest Co. Ltd. to distribute the Stella McCartney ready-to-wear and accessories collections in Japan.
The agreement foresees the opening of the first Stella McCartney flagship, as well as a string of shop-in-shops across the country. The shop-in-shops will be built around Stella McCartney’s existing wholesale accounts. Since launching in 2001, Stella McCartney has had a series of wholesale accounts in Japan, including corners in department stores Isetan and Hankyu and specialty stores Restir and Estnation.
Bizzarri said the brand was growing in all markets, but Japan was expanding faster than the rest. “We really hadn’t paid a lot of attention to Japan in the past, and we thought it was time to have a partner based there to develop it,” he said.
Bizzarri said McCartney was not experiencing the same problems in Japan as other, more mature luxury goods companies and was not seeing the widely reported effects of the weaker yen or a slowdown in spending.
“We are a small company, and the Japanese market is not a mature one for us. We are a new brand and in the growing stage of our life cycle, and we see Japan as an opportunity,” he said.
More flagships are in the pipeline, he said. It’s simply a question of finding the right locations, “because what we do in Japan will impact the rest of our business in Asia,” he said.
Bizzarri added the Stella McCartney rtw collection was the biggest seller, followed by the accessories line, which hit shop floors in June and does not feature any leather.
He declined, however, to say what percentage of overall sales came from Japan or provide sales projections for Japan. “It’s still a small country for us, but we’re very confident about growth there,” he said.
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The company will release sales figures for 2006 in late February.
Tetsuya Hashida, president of Unit & Guest, said in a statement Friday that his company is looking forward to creating a “strong Stella McCartney brand” in Japan. “Unit & Guest has a reputation for working closely with brands to ensure their philosophy is expressed and conveyed appropriately in the Japanese market.”
Unit & Guest was established in 2003 and distributes, develops and operates stores for international brands, including Diane von Furstenberg, Luella and Biba, in Japan. The group is owned by Sanei-International Co. Ltd. of Japan.
The new partnership with McCartney will kick in at the end of January with the pre-fall 2007 market, and all products sold in Japan will be imported from Europe. Unit & Guest will set up a dedicated showroom in the Shibuya part of Tokyo.
Back in Europe, McCartney hasn’t been sitting still. In October, the company opened a 500-square-foot shop-in-shop at London Harvey Nichols.McCartney designed the area, in the store’s contemporary designer section, with London architects APA.
The designer also will launch an organic skin care line, Care by Stella McCartney, early next year.