FamilyMart tests a fashion-retail format, with NIGO and Wonderwall behind its first FAMIMA flagship

FamilyMart opened FAMIMA PARK AZABUDAI on 10 July, the first flagship of a new store concept called FAMIMA, at 2-10-5 Toranomon in Tokyo's Minato ward, the company said. The 217.05-square-metre store is part of what FamilyMart calls its Next FamilyMart Project, timed to the chain's 45th anniversary this September.

According to FamilyMart, the store is built around a clothing shop-in-shop selling roughly 300 items under a house "convenience wear" label, co-developed with the designer Hiromi Ochiai and fitted with touch-panel style guides and fitting rooms staffed by dedicated attendants. Creative direction for the store came from the designer NIGO, with the space itself designed by Wonderwall under Shoji Katayama. NIGO said of the format: "Famima, and FamilyMart, please look forward to it." The company also built a coffee programme with the barista Tetsu Kasuya, a world championship winner, offering three blends, and an outdoor takeout counter it calls FAMIMA STAND, with seating and character-designed benches.

This is a convenience-store chain betting on product and presentation at the same time, in a category where it usually competes on neither: a conbini's edge is proximity and speed, not styling advice or a designer name on the merchandising. Bringing in a coffee champion and a named apparel designer signals FamilyMart trying to borrow department-store and select-shop tactics wholesale rather than adapt them, on a single 217-square-metre floor small enough that the format's economics, not its concept, will decide whether it becomes more than an anniversary flagship.