Rebuilding the Men’s Building without adding floor space, and ¥15bn for the main store (2003)

Taking the selling floor back without adding a square metre

“If it fails, will you put it back? Put that in writing.” What the brand holders asked of President Muto Shinichi was a guarantee of restoration should the thing go wrong. What Isetan chose in 2003 was not more floor space but a rearrangement of the contents of a building it had opened in 1968 — breaking up the boxes allotted to each brand and pulling the right to edit the floor back to the department store’s side. This was a period in which refurbishment without expansion was said not to work; the company stepped in on the side with the poorer odds. The result — 53% of visitors male — followed afterwards.

Whether the same method would work in womenswear was, at that point, undecided. The self-edited floors on the women’s levels remained an observation, the power of the famous brands was still overwhelming, the details never firmed up, and the plan for an integrated redevelopment fell through when Shochiku announced first. The imbalance by which the Shinjuku flagship accounted for 57% of non-consolidated sales only grew as ¥15bn went into the main building. That Isetan could still write off two years of growth was, it seems, because the 300,000 customers on the 10% and 7% i-card discount tiers were carrying ¥190bn of purchases and could be relied on not to leave over a temporary closure of a floor.