ABOUT TAKASHIMAYA ｜ Takashimaya Department store

Putting People First

Our management philosophy is “Putting People First” – a phrase that demonstrates the deep commitment to our customers we have maintained since our foundation. Today, our employees strive to work with this motto in mind.
People means customers, employees, communities and, in a broad sense, society. Valuing people is also the true beginning of business ideas. This belief is brought to each store and presented as hospitality, OMOTENASHI.

Thanks to our customers,
we have today and tomorrow.

Since our founding in 1831, we have grown as a people-centered department store that enhances and supports customers’ lifestyles while closely meeting their needs.

We value the spirit of hospitality, OMOTENASHI.

Our hospitality, OMOTENASHI, is not a one-way street.
It develops as a two-way relationship between the customers and us. We are aware that we can please and delight people through our work and we find it rewarding. We enrich customers’ minds, impress them, and improve their lives.
Through person-to-person sales, valuable and high quality goods and daily necessities in one location, Takashimaya has a people-centered culture.

1831Takashimaya Founded

Takashimaya was founded in Kyoto about 190 years ago as a small secondhand clothing and cotton cloth store run by a married couple.
Despite the turbulence and dramatic changes over time, the couple’s diligent business attitude bore fruit, and the business gradually became known to many customers. In the Meiji era, Takashimaya became a kimono fabric store that served as purveyor to the Imperial household.

1876Japanese Beauty for the World

In 1876, Smith, Baker & Co., an American trading firm with a branch office in Kobe, visited the store. This event led to the store’s first major international business deal. At the Paris World’s Fair of 1900, Takashimaya exhibited tapestries and other fabrics made from rough sketches by Japanese artists, for which they received high international praise. Around that time, Takashimaya opened stores in the key cities of Osaka and Tokyo.

1932Rise to Become a Large Department Store

In the short period between 1932 and 1933, Takashimaya opened the large stores in Osaka and Tokyo Nihombashi that still exist today. Designed with modern architecture, these stores put Takashimaya in the ranks of Japan’s leading department stores. Takashimaya had made the huge leap from kimono fabric merchant to department store, increasing its presence in the department store industry.

1950a Contributor to Local Culture

From 1950, after the Pacific War ended, the Nihombashi Store featured the elephant Takako, which came from Thailand. Takako became a popular figure among children. Later, along with Japan’s economic growth, department stores began to house international brand shops, host market events selling local products and foods from all over the country, and hold art exhibitions, playing a central role in urban culture. Believing its mission to be bringing enjoyment and richness to the city, Takashimaya opened stores in Japan and other regions in Asia, adapted for each area, including Tamagawa Takashimaya Shopping Center in 1969, and Nihombashi Takashimaya Shopping Center and Siam Takashimaya in 2018.

TAKASHIMAYA HISTORY

TODAY

A Step forward Today,
towards the Future

Customers, employees and communities
To pursue the satisfaction and happiness of these important people, we are taking a new step forward as a comprehensive shopping center that promotes coexistence with communities and offers enrichment to customers’ lives.

Nihombashi Takashimaya Shopping Center opened in 2018

Convenient Locations

With the current network of 19 stores mainly in major cities in Japan, including Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka, we are located along routes popular with our international customers.

Going International

Expanding our business beyond borders, we strive to improve every day according to different cultures in each region, providing our valuable and unchanged spirit of hospitality that harmonizes with the values of our regional customers.