The apparel brand Kuskus opened their first store in Japan in August 2012 in the La Foret shopping center in Tokyo’s Harajuku district. The brand’s name comes from a Japanese onomatopoeia equivalent to the “tee-hee” laughing sound in English. The brand states its concept and overall style as “easy to wear, a little playful; you let out an involuntary titter.” In order to realize this image, Jamo used windows and plants as thematic visual elements and created a sense of nature and the outdoors that visitors can feel even from within an enclosed shopping center.Jamo added details to the interior to increase a sense of depth and width while also striving to keep these details from taking up valuable space in the store. These include a cutaway façade used to create the atmosphere of a sunroom and antique window frames that cut into the walls at a 45º angle and are backlit with 11mm thick LED panels.Intended to add a touch of charm, the custom designed shelving uses frames shaped like the letter “K” in the brand’s name.The shop gives a slightly humorous expression to the cute “kus-kus” sound of a light chuckle.

BEAMS opened the flagship of their “Demi-Luxe” stores in March 2012 across the street from their renovated BEAMS Ginza store. The 3-story shop (from 1st basement to 2nd floor) was organized as a “modern villa” with each floor designed as the “home’s” grand entrance, living room and closet. The concept is expressed without explicit scenography or specially fabricated store fixtures. Rather, as when renovating an actual old home, antiques and contemporary furniture are used side by side with the resulting “differences in temperature” creating a space where visitors can get a sense of the person living there and what his or her likes may be. With the various brands sold at the store ranging from basic to high-end items each season, it was important to create a space that transmitted a degree of luxuriousness appropriate to each brand.

BEAMS reopened their Ginza store in February 2012. The redesign of the store involved nearly 285 square meters across the 2nd and 3rd floors as well as a new first floor entrance that connects the store to the street. For this project Jamo paid especial attention to creating effective zoning for the shop’s long narrow floor plan as well as to creating a sense of overall harmony.On the 2nd floor, where men’s and women’s casual wear are displayed together, we arranged the flooring and ceiling design to correlate to one another and broke up the space with small nooks to the extent that it would not interfere with shop operations. The aim was to create a space where the floor plan can be used to create variation: for example the floor’s 6 fitting rooms can be rearranged to fit the image of a particular season’s collections. We also worked to create a space with a “sense of elevation” where customers could enjoy the process of wandering about the store as they shop.For the areas for suits on the 3rd floor, Jamo wanted to create an interior that had a sense of class appropriate to the atmosphere customers in Ginza are accustomed to. At the same time, we created an impression of lightness by using a natural color palette and fixtures with little sense of weight. A grid system in the ceiling allowed us to install lighting and ventilation equipment that blend in with the interior.

In March 2012, the Japanese retailer BEAMS moved its store in Sendai to a building situated in the city’s most beloved district. The store carries men’s and women’s apparel spanning casual and business attire as well as items for “special occasions”. With the aim of making this diversity of product externally visible, Jamo installed a large yellow sign running the height of the shop window, from 1st to 2nd floor. We then created interior zones based on the 4 areas that emerge out of the placement of this sign: 1st floor for womenswear, 2nd floor for menswear, and casual and business sections for each. Jamo set these areas up with functionality in mind as well as the ease with which shoppers could peruse and shop in each areas. The ultimate aim was to create a landmark store for the so-called “city of trees”, one that could be appreciated by both younger and older shoppers.