daikanyama tokyo shopping guide: balcony, design works concept store, q flagship

Daikanyama Shopping Guide

Tourists flock to the big-name glitz of the Ginza strip and the teenage circus of Harajuku. Locals head to the quieter streets of Daikanyama. A low-rise neighborhood chock-full of quirky boutiques and sidewalk cafes, Daikanyama often encloses leafy hidden courtyards within its clusters of shops and homes. But low-rise doesn’t mean low end. Big names have planted their Tokyo outposts here including Vivienne Tam, Paul Smith, and Martin Margiela. Jean Paul Gaultier’s Tokyo flagship rises above the street, seemingly bandaged with jagged strips of warped steel and torn-edged concrete. Less blatantly look-at-me, private homes converted into charming shops offer local designer goods as well as vintage clothes and accessories. These treasured finds are often tucked between houses in the verdant back streets, discreetly hidden behind the haute couture-lined main drags of Kyu Yamate Dori and Hachiman Dori. Stylists and Japanese fashion insiders know all about Daikanyama, and now it’s time you did too.

..DESTINATIONS

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Tokyo
...Aoyama/Omotesando
...Daikanyama
...Harajuku
...More Shops.
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Balcony
33-8 Sarugakucho
Explorers wandering the surprisingly tranquil back streets of busy Daikanyama might happen upon Balcony. Open French doors invite passers-by into what looks like a quiet house on a narrow lane.
>Go to Store

Design Works Concept Store
28-2 Speak for Sarugakucho
In Daikanyama, one of Tokyo’s main shopping drags, Designworks opened its sleek glass doors in fall 2004. Although the shop offers men’s and women’s clothing from New York, Milan and Paris, its signature look is “New Brit Style”—an upscale designer look cut with a dash of street punk.
>Go to Store

Q♥ flagship ebisu-nishi
1-30-10 Ebisunishi
Make your grand entrance into the Q♥ flagship by striding down a skylit catwalk suspended above the basement store. Down a floating staircase, you’re greeted by what looks like a giant wall of firewood rising from a hearth not of fire, but of warm-weather sandals.
>Go to Store