Department stores in Japan categorize some of the luxury items they sell as "tokusen," which means "specially selected products." Most tokusen merchandise today consists of high-end brand items from Europe and the United States.
The best-selling tokusen items are not ready-to-wear clothes but handbags. The big three -- Louis Vuitton, Hermes and Chanel -- continue to rule with their overwhelming presence, although Gucci has been very popular in the past three years, almost overtaking the dominant trio. These four are followed by Prada and Dior.
When it comes to jewelry among the tokusen items, the big two are Cartier and Tiffany. Add Bulgari and they used to be called the big three, although Van Cleef & Arpels, whose Alhambra series has been a big hit, has been closing in on Bulgari over the past 10 years.
Apart from Hermes and a few other exceptions, high-end brands suffered in the aftermath of the Lehman shock in 2008, which led to poor performance worldwide. However, they escaped stagnation thanks to the significant growth of the Chinese market.
Foreign tourists, whose numbers have been surging in Japan since about 2014, have added luxury brand merchandise to their shopping lists, which has helped the sales of many brands exceed the peak figures they recorded in 2007.
Chinese visitors have a particularly voracious appetite for shopping, as they can purchase such products more cheaply in Japan than at home due to the tax system in China. This has made them saviors for the sales of luxury brand items in the Japanese market.
That said, only a limited number of places -- such as Ginza and Shinjuku in Tokyo, as well as Shinsaibashi and Nanba in Osaka -- have enjoyed the large sales profits from non-Japanese tourists in Japan. And growth is now not as high as before. Department stores are considering reverting to the policy of emphasizing purchases by Japanese customers.
Balenciaga caps and sneakers, as well as small wallets printed with the brand's logo, were extremely popular through the second half of last year, and so were Gucci's products bearing its logo. Their vast popularity has finally subsided, but their sales have shown more than 10 percent growth.
These two brands are noted for successfully attracting customers in their 20s and 30s. Although they are luxury brands, they have won the hearts of young people by offering many reasonably priced, street-inspired products bearing their logos, produced with their respective designers, Demna Gvasalia of Balenciaga and Alessandro Michele of Gucci.
Among the street-themed hit products in the first half of this year were sneakers from Roger Vivier, a major provider of elegant high heels. Those sneakers are major examples of a luxury brand's expression of street style.
A similar example is the successful Tangle bag series by Jil Sander, a high-end brand owned by Onward Holdings Co. of Japan. In April 2017, Lucie and Luke Meier became the brand's creative directors. Luke Meier used to be the creative director of major street brand Supreme, while his wife Lucie has worked for the design team of Dior and other brands.
Today's fashions are said to be in a transition stage, moving from street style to elegance. If you look at elegant-type luxury brands, Dior's Book Tote is the brand's first smash hit in a long while. Apparently, the success of the item has been followed by the revived popularity of Dior's past hit handbags, such as Lady Dior and Saddle.
In a nutshell, products with logos are selling well, and customer interest is concentrated on major brand products.
Miura is the editor at large of WWD Japan.
Read more from The Japan News at https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/
