Manolo Blahnik opens first Japanese flagship, launches men’s line

By

Isabelle Crossley

Translated by
Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 29, 2019

Manolo Blahnik opened its first Japanese flagship store on April 26, in Tokyo’s Omotesando district. The brand also debuted its men’s line for the first time in Japan at the launch.
 

The flagship store has opened in Omotesando at the site where the French clothing brand Carven’s flagship store used to be. Carven closed its doors in September 2018 and Manolo Blahnik has now taken over the space.

The store measures around 160 square metres and was designed by the architect Nick Leith-Smith who has a long-standing relationship with the brand. The store features a glass interior which was inspired by Bauhaus founder Walter Adolph Georg Gropius’ work and the interior’s aesthetic mixes technology with modernism. The space has a clean, minimal, and modern feel and is decorated with furniture in shades of blue, orange, and yellow.  

The store houses the brand’s classic women’s heels as well as its line of men’s shoes, which launched for the first time in Japan along with the store. To celebrate the store’s opening, the brand released a navy blue pair of leather-strap sandals featuring a bejewelled starfish motif which retails for 161,000 yen ($1,443) before tax.