Street talk Store talk

1998: Hakodate, Hokkaido. 2000: Soho, New York. 2001: Marunouchi, Tokyo. That’s the order KANEKO OPTICAL opened its first of now many stores throughout the country, seeking to break out of its wholesaler role by starting directly owned stores. Clearly it’s unusual for a company from Fukui to open its first store in Hakodate before opening in a city like New York or Tokyo, but it’s even more unusual for a Japanese company to open its first store in New York before Tokyo. We focus here on the Marunouchi store in Tokyo, the company’s third directly owned store. Despite being third, the Marunouchi store, which opened as the FACIAL INDEX NEW YORK Tokyo Store, and in October 2019 became the current "KANEKO GANKYOTEN Marunouchi Nakadori Store,” was the first store in Tokyo, and the one company president Shinya Kaneko positioned as “the place where we will take our stand in the real challenge to come.” Let’s look back at the New York store, which opened in the year before the "real challenge" was to start. How did New York managed to skip over Tokyo to be the first?

It's 1998, shortly before the first directly owned store opens in Hakodate. KANEKO OPTICAL is starting to expand its business overseas through its booths at eyeglass exhibitions around the world. In addition to the company's original brands BLAZE, SPIVVY, TAIHACHIRO KINSEI, and KOH BOH-SAKU, designer brand items from WOLFGANG PROKSCH and the like were winning kudos from shops and connoisseurs in New York, Milan, and Paris, and business with influential overseas opticians was on the rise. Added to the positive response, the presence in New York of Toshiyuki Hamaguchi, a close friend since around 1990 who helped stage Kaneko's booths at exhibitions and worked in the New York eyeglass industry, was a further encouragement to opening a store in New York. Contrary to all conventional wisdom, that was then accomplished. 
The location was SoHo in downtown Manhattan, filled with handsome old buildings and considered the cutting edge of fashion and art culture. A small eyeglass wholesaler from Sabae in Fukui Prefecture opens a directly owned store in New York City, skipping over Tokyo, and fills the store with its own brands. In SoHo, no less. The advent of this previously unknown store caused a sensation not only in the eyeglass industry but the fashion industry as a whole. Even now, from a 30,000 foot view, that decision looks radical and insightful. Shinya Kaneko remembers those days:
“I hadn't specifically pinpointed NY. In the late 1990s we wanted to compete with the world, so we were showing at major exhibitions in cities around the globe, but New York was special. It was filled with more people of every ethnicity and race than any other city, and was truly the center of the world. It felt like this was the only place we could really test our strength. Of course the fact that New York had shown a particularly positive reaction among our growing overseas business and my encounter with Hamaguchi-san were also important. His presence there encouraged us to open the store. Hamaguchi-san and I were both around 40, looking for original ways to live our lives, with a dislike for common sense thinking – truly fearless (laughs). 
This was how FACIAL INDEX NEW YORK came into being. Shortly after, still in the wake of the New York opening, a new “chance meeting” opened the way to a first store in Tokyo.

In the fall of 2000, six months after the New York store opened, Shinya Kaneko pondered a store in Tokyo, which he believed would be the place to "take on the real challenge,” he was presented with the opportunity to open a store in Marunouchi. Marunouchi sits between the Imperial Palace and Tokyo Station. More than 100 years have passed since the Mitsubishi company had a vision to create a district rivaling Lombard Street of London, one of the world's most prestigious business districts. In 1998, Mitsubishi Estate, which had purchased and led development of a vast area of land in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) in the so-called "Daimaru-Yu area" of Otemachi and Yurakucho, including present-day Marunouchi, declared its intention to “rebuild Marunouchi.” Mitsubishi Estate announced a plan to rebuild the Marunouchi Building, symbol of Marunouchi, as the centerpiece of a huge redevelopment project, and to transform the building from an office building into a new shopping complex with retail tenants well suited to the city. As preparations toward a 2002 opening proceeded, Kaneko took the opportunity to meet with the leasing manager of the new Marunouchi Building to explore the possibility of opening a store as a tenant in the new building. 
“Marunouchi is special -- it’s the center of Tokyo and really the center of Japan. So it was very significant to open our store there. This was the right place for us to take our stand for the true challenge.” But...this was the famed Marunouchi Building. Compared to all the famous brands listed as candidate tenants, the far less known KANEKO OPTICAL wouldn't stand a chance. Until that meeting.

The interview took place at Mitsubishi Estate's headquarters building overlooking Otemachi. The person across from Kaneko sensed the potential for KANEKO OPTICAL’s progressive energy, even though it was by no means a well-known company or brand, and made an unexpected counteroffer: "What if you open a store not inside the Marunouchi Building, but facing the main street of Marunouchi?” He then added, "I would love to see you open an attractive store like the ones on the streets of New York – that would bring fresh air to Marunouchi.”
The meeting with the leasing manager set the stage for KANEKO OPTICAL’s future rapid strides – once again Kaneko was attracting important encounters leading to new paths. In September of 2001, FACIAL INDEX NEW YORK Tokyo opened as the second store in Japan and first in Tokyo, on Nakadori in Marunouchi. The goal was a space able to convey the company's sensibilities in a way that exemplified the idea of an "optician that doesn’t smell like an optician.” Walking into the store, no eyeglasses meet the eye, only irori style tables and sofas. The stylish store interior, with sunken and elevated spaces, produces a sense of comfort and even excitement in visitors, as if discovering a new environment. 

“The eyeglasses we offer are innovative and high-sensitivity ‘eyewear.’ We strive for creativity in eyewear fashion. And that works because of the traditional eyeglass techniques of Sabae. We wanted to start a revolution in society through the FACIAL INDEX NEW YORK Tokyo Store, sharing the wonderful space we ourselves had designed with as many people as possible by conveying how our eyewear fuses innovation with tradition.” Even after more than 20 years in business, a name change to KANEKO GANKYOTEN Marunouchi Nakadori Store, and a store renovation, the foundational concept from that time hasn’t changed. “When deciding whether to open a store, the feeling I get from people I meet there and the opportunities offered is more important than the spreadsheet. New encounters give us new opportunities, and we move forward. In both the New York and Marunouchi cases, I was guided by fate more than I was deciding to open a store.” (Shinya Kaneko).