Why Lalique thinks Japan is ready for its next chapter in luxury retail

For a luxury brand built around crystal, Lalique is hoping its latest retail move will offer a clearer view of its larger ambitions in Japan.

The French luxury house opened its first directly operated boutique earlier this year at Osaka’s Quartz Shinsaibashi, a new development in the city’s central luxury shopping district. The 106-square-meter space features everything from Lalique’s signature crystal vases and decorative objects to jewelry, fragrances, furniture, chandeliers, and architectural panels, bringing the full range of the brand’s offering to Japan’s Kansai region for the first time.

The opening also represents a notable shift for Lalique, which established its Japanese outpost in 2018 after previously operating in the country through a distributor. Much of its local business has since remained concentrated in department stores, where limited floor space made it difficult to communicate just how far the 138-year-old brand has expanded beyond decorative crystal.

“It was difficult for Lalique to express the full Lalique universe in the Japanese market,” Yusuke Kimura, president and representative director of Lalique Japan, told Retail Brew. “The reason for building a subsidiary in Japan is to show everything [about] Lalique, including all the elements like furniture, lighting, fragrances, jewelry.”

Object-ive difference: Founded by René Lalique in 1888, the house became known for its Art Nouveau jewelry before its founder increasingly turned his attention to glass. Lalique has manufactured its pieces at its historic facility in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France since 1922 and today also offers decorative objects, interior design, jewelry, fragrance, art, and hospitality.

For years, however, Japanese customers primarily came across the brand through smaller department store shops. Since then, the retailer has been looking for an opportunity to expand in Osaka, Japan’s second-largest prefectural city and an important luxury market, Kimura said, but the Covid-19 pandemic delayed those plans. When the developer behind Quartz Shinsaibashi approached the company, Lalique opted for a larger standalone format rather than another compact department store location. The result? A boutique designed to resemble an “apartment” more than a conventional store, Kimura said. Customers can sit among shelves displaying vases, sample fragrances at a vanity, try on jewelry in front of mirrors, and see chandeliers, furniture, and crystal panels.“People can try on everything as if they were in their own homes,” Kimura said.

The Osaka location is also among the first stores outside France to use Lalique’s new global boutique concept, which follows a recent rebranding that introduced a new logo, color palette, and visual identity. The space additionally includes crystal panels with archival motifs, a suspended Champs-Élysées installation, and the Japanese debut of Lalique’s collaboration with handcrafted wallpaper company Fromental.

“In our shops in department stores…the space is limited to express our interior products like chandeliers, tables, and furniture,” Kimura said. “But we have implemented all of these aspects into the Shinsaibashi boutique.”

Home stretch: This broader presentation is particularly important as Lalique tries to capture what Kimura sees as a growing Japanese interest in luxury lifestyle and home categories.

Per Kimura, Japanese shoppers have historically limited their spending on fashion, leather goods, watches, and jewelry. However, customers there are becoming increasingly interested in interiors and lighting, creating an opening for Lalique to sell not just a vase or sculpture, but an entire aesthetic.

In fact, decorative objects remain Lalique’s top seller in Japan, as it builds up its interiors category. The country is already a significant market for Lalique collectors, particularly those drawn to designs created by or inspired by René Lalique.

Lalique currently operates five Japanese locations, including shops inside department stores, but Kimura says the network could eventually grow to about 10, with markets such as Kyushu and Sapporo. Tokyo is also on the radar, where the brand already operates a showroom and plans to open a boutique using the same concept next year.

“Considering that the wholesale business is weakening in Japan, I think it’s important for us to really communicate…directly with the customers,” Kimura said.