Daimaru Ashiya completes its first full-store renewal in five years, led by Prunier and a 29-brand cosmetics floor
Daimaru Ashiya completes a five-year renewal on Friday built around gourmet and boutique-beauty tenants rather than fashion, a bet that Kansai's wealthiest suburb keeps shopping close to home.
Daimaru Ashiya completes the final phase of its first full-building renewal in five years this Friday, 28 August, according to operator Daimaru Matsuzakaya Department Stores, part of J. Front Retailing.
The renewal has rolled out in stages: nine shops opened between December and February, one more in June, and five in this final August wave, the company said.
Friday's openings are led by two Kansai-first arrivals: Prunier, the French caviar house founded in 1872, and Dammann Lumière, a tea salon and boutique built on a collaboration between the French tea house Dammann Frères and Lumière, the French restaurant run by chef Yasushi Karato, offering more than 60 teas alongside sweets made with Dammann Frères leaves. Two patisserie tenants, Chihiro Cake Shop and Chihiro the Choux, a cream-puff specialist, complete the food lineup, according to the release.
The renewal's other anchor is DEPACO, a 29-brand cosmetics floor that marks the first physical store for what has so far been an online and media-only beauty platform, the company said. Four of those 29 brands — including Olivia Fragrances and dr365 — are making their debut in the Ashiya-Kobe area.
The tenant mix says as much as the renewal itself. Ashiya sits between Osaka and Kobe as one of the Hanshin corridor's wealthiest addresses, and a suburban department store there answers to a different customer than a Ginza or Shinjuku flagship built around inbound tax-free spending: a loyal, local base that shops for everyday indulgence rather than trophy fashion. Building the renewal's headline tenants around caviar, a tea collaboration and boutique beauty, rather than a new apparel floor, is a product and presentation call that plays to that base — small, discovery-led formats meant to keep footfall coming from the neighbourhood rather than the tour bus.
J. Front's own announcement of the finished renewal was dated 22 June, more than two months ahead of Friday's actual completion — an early preview of the August lineup rather than same-week news.