Matsuya Ginza runs its first Italy fair in about 20 years, pitched as a stay-home answer to the weak yen
Matsuya Ginza is staging a six-day Italy fair across three of its floors from November 11 — its first since 2007 — and says outright that it exists to give shoppers an Italian experience at home because many are holding back on an actual trip there as the yen stays weak and prices climb.
Matsuya Co., Ltd. said it will run an Italy fair at its Ginza flagship from November 11 to 16 — six days across three floors, and its first such fair in about 20 years — according to a release dated October 29. The store last held one in 2007.
The release frames the timing explicitly: it says the fair targets shoppers who are holding back on overseas travel because of the weak yen and rising prices, and that this pattern of deferred trips abroad has continued for some time. Matsuya is also tying the event to 2026 marking 160 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and Italy.
The eighth-floor Event Square carries most of the programme: a Venetian-style standing bar, or bacaro, run by Ginza's own Osteria da Ada, alongside a separate aperitivo bar for Italian wine and cocktails; three restaurants rotating through the run with a 3,850-yen set menu; Franciacorta sparkling wine by the glass and bottle; a live-prepared "bomba" street-food stall from Bulgari Dolci, including a version exclusive to Matsuya; seven flavours of gelato and baked goods sourced from Milan; and Sicilian fragrance, Venetian glass and cameo jewellery, Italian tableware and pieces from the porcelain house Ginori 1735. A first-floor promotion space adds a fragrance pop-up, and the basement food halls carry pizza, prepared Italian dishes and frozen meals — including pasta and lasagne from Enoteca Pinchiorri Nagoya, which the release describes as the only Japanese restaurant listed on the '50 Top Italy 2026' ranking. The first 300 guests on opening morning get a free pour of Franciacorta at the store's first-floor window.
The yen itself backs up Matsuya's framing. The euro bought 179.96 yen in September, the most recent month published, 3.7 per cent more than a year earlier, according to Federal Reserve exchange-rate data — a currency move that makes an actual trip to Italy costlier even as it fills Ginza's event floors with a substitute for one.
The explicit pitch is itself the story: a department store positioning its event floors not as an inbound-tourism draw but as a domestic substitute for outbound travel the weak yen has made harder to justify. Whether that framing becomes a recurring fixture on Ginza's events calendar, or stays a one-off tied to the anniversary year, depends on whether the yen stays this weak into next year's events planning.