SHIBUYA109

photo by Aimaimyi · CC BY-SA 3.0

photo by kcomiida · CC BY-SA 3.0

Opened in 1979, it changed its famous red logo only in 2019, for its 40th anniversary.

A symbol of youth shopping in Shibuya since 1979, when it opened as ‘Fashion Community 109’ on the sharp corner of Dogenzaka, designed by the architect Minoru Takeyama. After the 1995 rebranding aimed at high-school girls it became the temple of the ‘gyaru’, with star shop assistants (‘karisuma tenin’) who had more followers than the idols for a whole generation of youth fashions; a name explicitly cited in §5 of the brief as a place never searched for before.

The name ‘109’ plays on the Japanese reading of 1-0-9 (ichi-maru-kyū), a homophone of ‘Tōkyū’, the railway company that owns it, and also recalled the opening hours 10:00–21:00. The cylindrical tower occupies the sharp corner between Dogenzaka and Bunkamura-dōri. The famous red logo, unchanged for 40 years, was changed in 2019 through a public design competition, to move away from the image of ‘temple of the gyaru’ towards a wider young audience.

ℹ️ Open all year except 1 January, 10:00–21:00. About one minute on foot from exit A2 of Shibuya Station (JR, Tōkyū, Tokyo Metro, Keiō).

🚉 Shibuya · 5 min walk

Sources: shibuya109.jp · ja.wikipedia.org

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