Singapore’s Charles & Keith has opened a new store in Japan’s Kyoto, unveiling its new store design in partnership with David Chipperfield Architects Milan.
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Located in Shijo-dori, the iconic shopping belt that runs east to west through the heart of Japan’s cultural capital, the Charles & Keith duplex store reveals the fashion brand’s new flagship concept, including walls, composed of panels sprayed with lime-based plaster, with recycled aluminium shelves integrated into a sequence of niches for products to be displayed on.
The new concept also boasts a series of coloured resin shelves are juxtaposed with aluminium pieces, alongside display tables in translucent carmine-red and emerald green resins and rounded sofas in a rich burgundy fabric, inviting customers to try on the brand’s shoes on the store’s second floor.
The floor, in semi-polished reconstructed stone, are a contrast with the roughness of the walls, while the ceiling in plaster comes to life with linear lighting that “enlivens” the space and spotlights the brand’s latest collections.
The store’s lower façade serves as a decorative filter between its interior and exterior, made up of glazed ivory-coloured Italian terracotta tiles that are overlapped
to generate a three-dimensional surface.
Separated by a canopy is the upper façade, which has been kept simple to reveal the authenticity of the existing building – one of the few typical Kyoto shophouses left on the street – with a rough Japanese plaster finish adding character to the surface.
The Kyoto opening forms part of the Southeast Asian fashion brand’s retail expansion across Asia in recent months.
Most recently, the company in December opened a new store in Japan, located in Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district.
Looking ahead, Charles & Keith plans to open its new Tokyo flagship, slated for the first quarter of 2024.
Known for its take on affordable luxury, Charles & Keith’s pricing sits in the mid-range, growing in popularity over the last decade-and-a-half since its founding in 2006. Today. the brand boasts nearly 700 stores around the world, including in key fashion cities such as Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai, and Dubai.