Fashion Studio Magazine: FASHION & DESIGN

By Eva Fydrych

Francfranc - Tokyo

Photos by Eva Fydrych / Fashion Studio Magazine

TOKYO, JAPAN - During my trip to Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week TOKYO last year, I had a chance to browse around the city and discover a lot of amazing fashion boutiques, stylish bars & restaurants, and unique design stores.

One of them was Francfranc, a trendy shop located in Ayoama, which combines fashion with interior design. This Japanese company is well-known for their creative visual merchandising. They had so many interesting products that I couldn't help taking out my camera to capture some of them for you!

The store itself is spacious and nicely designed. The elegant entrance grabbed my attention from the other side of the street :)

Francfranc in Ayoama district, Tokyo (Photo by Eva Fydrych / Fashion Studio Magazine)

ABOUT

Francfranc, a Japanese brand founded in 1992, proposes home furnishing products that accentuate space management through coordination of stylish while practical designed items. The concept of Francfranc is "Casual Stylish". Their trendy products create enriched spaces for an enjoyable daily life.

This trendsetting store that became a gia Global Honoree in 2011, gets the message across loud and clear: interiors should be enjoyed in the same way that fashion is. Innovation is key to their success, and the merging of fashion and retail is how they stay ahead of the game.

Bright, light, open, funky, cool and casually chic… all of these words sum up what Francfranc in Japan is all about – this forward-thinking business (under the umbrella of the BALS Corporation) aims to bring homewares to its customers in a fashion-conscious way that is often only explored by up-market clothing boutiques. The furniture, interior décor and housewares products are presented in the same way that stores selling great fashion would present their wares: with a focus on how the pieces could bring value, fun, innovation and color to a person’s life.

Photo courtesy of Francfranc

Martin M. Pegler, a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York in the Display & Exhibit Design Department and a leading expert in his field for over 50 years, admits that Japanese stores have always held a deep fascination for him, and he highly commended Francfranc’s approach to visual merchandising. “The displays such as ones created by Francfranc, when professionally done, are minor works of art”, he says. “‘Shibui’ is the term that I think describes them; elegant, tasteful, serene and simple. What I was so pleased to see at Francfranc was that the displays that appeared throughout were commercial. They were selling tools – product oriented, yet still done with taste and simplicity. The architects allowed floor space for elevated display areas on the main floor where promotional collections of product could be featured.”

In their own words, Francfranc “targets an audience with youthful minds who embrace fashion trends, design and art to elevate their lives”, and they have done a great job in achieving this. Using elaborate staging for visual merchandising, the continual updating of product displays and a wide variety of interior decorations and fixtures, every element of Francfranc goes towards ensuring visitors enjoy a unique shopping experience.

Photo by Eva Fydrych / Fashion Studio Magazine

Adaptation to great changes is continually afoot when it comes to this business. Francfranc was recently re-structured under a ‘re-branding’ project, changing the retail development strategy so that the gia-winning store in Tokyo became a standalone flagship shop. This project resulted in the company scooping an award in 2010 at the Mainichi Fashion Grand Prix – a prestigious industry award presented by Tokyo's Mainichi newspaper. “Through these efforts and this award, Francfranc has positively combined fashion with home-furnishing,” says Miyuki Ando, the secretary of BALS Corporation.

After a year of awards and with the establishment of a Francfranc store in Shanghai, China, the company has attracted a lot of attention, and there are certainly more big things on the horizon. They are busily planning their expansion across Asia and into other overseas markets, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a Francfranc in cities such as London and New York one day soon.

Source: gia & Francfranc