Drawer reopens its Aoyama flagship on September 10, its first renovation since 2003

United Arrows' women's label Drawer will reopen its Aoyama flagship on 10 September, the retailer said in a press release issued through PR TIMES on 7 August — the store's first renovation since it opened in 2003.

The renovated store, at 5-12-4 Minami-Aoyama in Tokyo's Minato Ward, keeps the same designer who built the original: Wonderwall's Masamichi Katayama, who has handled the boutique's interior continuously since its debut 23 years ago, according to United Arrows.

The company described the update under a concept it calls "inheritance and deepening" (継承と深化): the original symmetrical layout stays, but new grey plaster elliptical arches add depth and rhythm to the space. Drawer-style fixtures and the store's bare-bulb chandeliers are being kept, while the façade gains new round glass windows and the retailer is adding a black marble counter as a new focal point, the company said.

Katayama said the value of a physical store lies in the encounters with products it makes possible and the experience that follows, according to the release.

To mark the reopening, Drawer will sell several pieces made exclusively for the event: a mink jacket priced at ¥1,529,000, a petal-detail blouse (¥108,900) and matching skirt (¥132,000), a dress produced in collaboration with Scye at ¥148,060, and rings by Marie-Hélène de Taillac, the company said. Customers spending more than ¥60,000 will also receive a sheepskin room-shoe novelty while supplies last. The store's hours will run from noon to 8pm.

Rehiring Katayama rather than briefing a new designer is itself a statement. Twenty-three years is a long run for a Tokyo fashion flagship to go without a refit, and returning to the original architect reads as continuity rather than reinvention — a bet that Drawer's identity is now bound up with the store's original design language, not one that needs replacing. That makes this a Place-and-Presentation move more than a Product one: the renovation itself, not a relaunch of the collection, is the news. Aoyama has long served as an address where Japanese contemporary labels stake out a design statement rather than chase footfall, and holding the site through a full renovation, instead of relocating or downsizing, signals confidence that the flagship still earns its keep more than two decades in.

What is tested on 10 September is less the new arches than the pricing: with a mink jacket north of ¥1.5 million among the reopening pieces, the bet is that the address still draws the customer who first walked in back in 2003.