Takashimaya - Company History

From used clothing and cotton to kimono fabrics, and the turn brought by Imperial Household patronage

In 1831 the first Iida Shinshichi (飯田新七) opened a business in used clothing and cotton at Karasuma-Matsubara in Kyoto[1]. The shop name Takashimaya came from Takashima district in Omi province, with which the Iida family had ties[2]. A little over twenty years after opening, in 1852, the second-hand trade was given up and the weight of the business moved to kimono fabrics[3]; from then on, alongside selling cloth, the house put its effort into improving the design work of yuzen dyeing and embroidery[4]. It was in this period that the pursuit of better dyeing technique produced velvet yuzen[5]. On a corner of Karasuma-Matsubara lined with Kyoto's other cloth merchants[6], the substance of the trade shifted from dealing in second-hand goods to making dyed and woven ones.

In 1887, being commissioned to supply decorative work for the construction of the Imperial Palace[7] became the opening that led, in later years, to appointment as a purveyor to the Imperial Household Ministry (宮内省). The following year, 1888, the house abandoned the traditional zauri (座売り) and adopted display selling in its place[8]. Zauri — showing the customer up into a tatami room while a clerk carried bolts of cloth out to them — was the norm among kimono-fabric merchants of the day, and the decision to switch to laying goods out on view[9] anticipated the move to the department store. The advance into Osaka began with peddling[10]: a branch office was opened at Dojima in 1896[11], moved to Shinsaibashi-suji in 1898 with vigorous advertising[12], and in 1907 the completion of a rebuilt store gave Osaka the form of a display-style department store[13].

Into Tokyo, and the end of eighty years as a family proprietorship

As orders from the Imperial Household Ministry and other government offices increased[14], it became necessary to hold a base in Tokyo as well. A temporary branch office was set up at Nihonbashi in Tokyo in 1897[15], and in 1900 the store moved to Kyobashi, where it displayed goods for the export trade and sold kimono fabrics[16]. That the trigger for the Tokyo advance was official demand sets it apart from Osaka, where the trading area had been widened step by step from peddling[17]. The Kyoto–Osaka–Tokyo skeleton of three cities[18] was broadly visible by this point.

To match the expanding scale of the business, the organisation was recast in 1909 as Takashimaya Iida & Co. (髙島屋飯田合名会社), a general partnership with capital of ¥1 million[19]. The eighty years of proprietorship that had run from the founding ended here[20], and the business set out afresh as a company. The fourth-generation Iida Shinshichi (四代目飯田新七) took the presidency[21]. The Kyoto store was rebuilt in 1912[22], and the following year, 1913, the first Hyakusenkai (百選会) was held[23]. The Hyakusenkai was the forerunner of the trend-setting promotional event, and from then on it was held twice a year, in spring and autumn[24].

In December 1916 a new store in Kyoto style was built at Minami-Denmacho in Tokyo[25], and full display selling began there[26]. The intent was to carry the design sense and the selling method cultivated in Kyoto straight into Tokyo[27], and the branch was laid out not as a mere outpost but as a selling floor equal in standing to the main store. The boom conditions of the European war happened to be lifting results at the time[28], and the reorganisation into a joint-stock company came immediately afterwards.

The choice of Namba, and a store network answering east to west

On 20 August 1919 the organisation was changed and Takashimaya Gofukuten (株式会社髙島屋呉服店), a joint-stock kimono-fabric company, came into being[29]. Capital was ¥3 million[30], the head office was placed on Karasuma-dori in Shimogyo-ku, Kyoto, and the three-city arrangement — Kyoto, together with Shinsaibashi-suji in Minami-ku, Osaka and Minami-Denmacho in Kyobashi-ku, Tokyo — was fixed in corporate form. A trade paper in 1928 set Takashimaya and Matsuzakaya side by side as department stores for the mass market on a value footing, against Mitsukoshi for the wealthy[31]; the company's standing within the industry was settling at about the same time as its incorporation.

In December 1930 the trading name was changed to Takashimaya (株式会社髙島屋) and the Nankai store was opened inside the Nankai Building at Namba in Minami-ku, Osaka[32]. The renaming came because the words kimono-fabric store no longer matched what was in fact a department store[33]. Behind the choice of Namba lay the widening of the Midosuji boulevard, then getting under way, and the subway plan; the first stage of the subway, between Umeda and Namba, opened in May 1933[34], so the store anticipated the completion of the city's infrastructure by nearly three years. Even so, the trade press reported from the opening onwards that the weight of the rent on the Nankai Building was a matter for concern[35].

In July 1932 the whole of the Nankai branch opened, and a modern department store of 13,000 tsubo total floor area appeared[36]. In January the following year, 1933, capital was raised to ¥14 million and a new Tokyo branch was built — eight storeys above ground and two below, 8,800 tsubo in total floor area[37]. In March of the same year the Tokyo store moved to Nihonbashi[38], completing an arrangement with large stores standing in both Osaka and Tokyo. A trade paper in 1936 described the Midosuji frontage from Shinsaibashi down to Namba, where Takashimaya, Daimaru and Sogo (十合) had their grand entrances, as the shopping street of Osaka[39]; the bet on Namba was recovered as the city grew.

A way out on the continent, and designation under the deconcentration law

Once the war with China began, department stores were subject to tighter controls, the requisition of selling space and bans on employment[40]. Having lost room to grow at home, Takashimaya sought a way out on the continent, placing branches and offices in Xinjing, Mukden and other cities across Korea, Manchuria and China[41]. At home, the Osaka Nagahori branch was merged into the Nankai branch in February 1939 to form the Osaka branch[42], and in March 1944 the location of the head office was moved from Kyoto to Namba in Minami-ku, Osaka[43] — the head office that had stood in the founding city moved to the commercial centre of the Kansai region.

With the end of the war the structure was reorganised, and in September 1945 Marutaka, Marutaka Foods, Second Marutaka Foods and Fifth Marutaka Foods were each absorbed by merger[44]. Shortages of goods and the controlled economy meant that difficulties in management nonetheless continued, and in February 1947 the company was designated under the Act for the Elimination of Excessive Concentration of Economic Power[45]. It was named as a candidate for break-up, but the designation was cancelled in May of the same year[46] and dissolution was avoided. Funds for expanding facilities were met by issuing shares — capital was raised to ¥30 million in September 1947 and to ¥75 million in July 1948[47].

Recovery from war damage began with temporary buildings, and in December 1946 the temporary structure for the Kyoto Shijo store — an outstanding matter since before the war — was completed[48]. In September 1948, after formally abolishing the branches across the continent, the company opened branches in Wakayama and Beppu[49], settling the accounts of its prewar continental expansion. The following year, 1949, Export Bazaars were set up in both the Tokyo and Osaka branches to draw foreign customers[50], recomposing whom the company sold to in line with consumption under the occupation.