Sanyo Shokai opens first AUREME store at Newoman Shinjuku
Sanyo Shokai's new brand AUREME opens its first store at Newoman Shinjuku on 10 September, betting on mall-based retail, a widened size range and a repair programme rather than another department-store concession.
Sanyo Shokai will open the first store for AUREME, a new apparel brand, on 10 September at Newoman Shinjuku, the company said in a release. The second-floor store marks the legacy Japanese apparel maker's push into direct retail outside the department-store floors that have long been its main channel.
AUREME's stock is organised into three lines — FUNCTION, built around technical fabrics; DAILY USE, focused on material quality and everyday wearability; and COMFORTABLE, weighted toward natural fibres and tactile comfort — alongside a fourth, SOMERA, for accessories, according to the company.
Sizing runs across four ungendered options — 1/S, 2/M, 5/L and F/Free — with roughly 80 per cent of stock in the smaller-to-standard range and 20 per cent in larger sizes, Sanyo Shokai said. It is a modest widening of the range rather than a size-inclusive overhaul.
The store drops disposable shopping bags for a reusable wrap it calls the AUREME Carry Cloth, and pairs the launch with a repair programme, AUREME ReLoom, meant to extend garments' working life. Proceeds from selected items will go toward forest conservation through a partnership with the non-profit More Trees, the company said.
Sanyo Shokai is targeting roughly ten AUREME stores across major commercial districts within five years, according to the release — a modest, mall-based expansion rather than a flagship bet.
The Newoman address is the tell. Sanyo Shokai spent decades as Burberry's Japan licensee before that arrangement ended in 2015, and has since rebuilt around brands it owns outright rather than licences it can lose. A five-year, ten-store target inside railway-linked commercial complexes, rather than a wholesale push through department stores, reads as a bet on cheaper, faster-turning real estate over prestige floor space — the kind of channel a manufacturer chooses when it wants to control the whole retail experience, repair programme included, rather than share it with a department store's own service standards.
Whether AUREME becomes one of those owned brands with staying power, or another line folded back into the group's existing labels, will show up first in how quickly it gets past Newoman Shinjuku and into a second postcode.