Following the inauguration in 2020 of the Maison MIHARA YASUHIRO flagship store at Omotesando Hills shopping centre in Tokyo, and the magnificent URA concept store three years later, iconic Japanese fashion designer Yasuhiro Mihara recently made his biggest retail statement to date in the buzzing Harajuku shopping area—Maison MIHARA YASUHIRO Jingumae Building. Mind you, URA occupies the B1 level of the Jingumae Building, a redeveloped five-storey structure erected in 1968, and it’s an event we’ve covered in a previous post. But now, the brand’s creative director has revisited the building, creating a branded retail space on most of the upper floors, and once again in collaboration with acclaimed Tokyo-based interior design practice Insideout Ltd.

While Ura means ‘back’ in Japanese, the design followed this as a guideline, but for the newly opened Maison MIHARA YASUHIRO Jingumae Building, the approach has shifted in opposite direction, Omote in Japanese and meaning ‘front’. As such, the building’s exterior and communal areas remained untouched, or rather, carved away, preserving the concept of time embodied by the building’s accumulated age. Additionally, each of the four floors have been given a design theme. The minimalist ground floor theme Counter says it all. It’s anchored by a robust, elongated counter crafted from green marble, and it’s flanked on one side by a large custom sound system and speakers, emphasising the importance of music to Mihara. A row of suspended chevron-shaped light fixtures add a dynamic element to the setting.

One floor up, the Glass theme is captured by a layering of glass floor-to-ceiling panels and the merchandise is placed in the narrow gaps between these layers, creating a new visual relationship between space and product. Here, more speakers can be found. The third floor design, themed Wall, sees an infusion of plywood panels with classic mouldings, however, these come with an intentionally roughly sawed-off top edge to retain an ‘unfinished quality. Indeed, more speakers can be found here, but built in at either end of the room. The top floor is home to NOSE SHOP SLOPE, a retail concept affiliated with NOSE SHOP, a niche fragrance retailer launched in 2017 by entrepreneur Yuki Nakamori, but managed by Mihara. As its name already implies, the setting sees a sloped parquet floor with a variety of custom furnishings. © superfuture