The venerable Finnish textiles, apparel and home furnishings brand Marimekko that has endeared the Japanese market with its lively prints, opened its fourth Tokyo store Friday.
The new shop Marimekko Hibiya opened on the third floor of the popular Tokyo Midtown Hibiya retail space. For the occasion, Hibiya is hosting the exclusive Japan prelaunch of the collaboration with Swedish-born, London-based artist Petra Börner. To celebrate the opening, a special fabric bag was released in a limited edition and will be sold exclusively at the new store.
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Last year the company told WWD that its goal is to further expand its footprint internationally and has its sights set on the U.S. and Asia-Pacific markets, along with Scandinavia, to help it reach its goals.
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In an interview at the company’s SoHo store, Tiina Alahuhta-Kasko, president and chief executive officer of Marimekko, said in 2023 net sales grew 5 percent to 174.1 million euros with international sales rising 10 percent. Operating profit for the year rose 4 percent to 31.4 million euros. In contrast, net sales in Finland, the company’s largest market, only managed to inch up 1 percent.
The collaboration with Swedish-born, London-based Börner is part of the brand’s Marimekko Artist Series platform that invites emerging and established artists to collaborate on limited-edition capsule collections that it says “pushes the boundaries of printmaking.”
“Her vivid, charismatic artwork captures the dualities of flowers — hope and despair, gloom and bloom,” the firm, founded in 1951, said of Börner. The collection will be available for the rest of the world in stores and online March 21.
In Tokyo, the Finnish design brand is already present in the Omotesando area, Isetan’s Shinjuku flagship and Musashino-City.
Tokyo Midtown Hibiya originally bowed in 2018 and encompasses retail, entertainment, office and green space. It’s centrally located, a short walk from both Ginza and the Imperial Palace, and just steps from the Peninsula Tokyo and the Imperial Hotel, which is a popular destination for locals and tourists alike.