Step into the revamped Yaeca Home Store – a Tokyo shop and café offering a chance to slow down

Fashion labels often limit the shopping experience to browsing endless racks of clothes. But for Yaeca Home Store’s latest bricks-and-mortar venture, designers Tetsuhiro and Kyoko Hattori decided to take an unexpected approach. The couple, founders of Japanese brand Yaeca – known for shirts, denim and chinos all made in Japan – have always had an eye for an inviting and memorable approach to retail. Previous projects include a shop inside a simple Tokyo flat with its kitchen still intact, and the Saveur bakery in Denenchofu.

Set in a house in the leafy residential neighbourhood of Shirokane, Yaeca Home Store opened in 2014. But after a revamp late last year it now includes a peaceful café and a bookshop with titles drawn from late Tokyo-born musician Ryuichi Sakamoto’s personal library. Upstairs, customers can still browse Yaeca’s loose-fitting clothing. “We want to make places that will live in people’s memories,” says Kyoko.

Complete with a 1930s art deco desk and chairs, the thoughtfully decorated bookshop also has a lamp by French designer Jacques Grange designed for Yves Saint Laurent and a lounge chair by Belgian interior architect Maarten van Severen. “When we created Yaeca Home Store, we envisioned a place where the flow of time would shift slightly,” says Tetsuhiro. “With this bookshop, we hope to offer a place to step away from the pace of everyday life and spend time more slowly.” Fans of Sakamoto can also buy the Pentel pencils and notebooks that the musician favoured, and admire the upright Schwester piano that he learnt to play on as a child, which now lives in the small garden outside. Slices of sponge cake are available from the café. The house still feels strongly like a home – there are no signs outside to denote the presence of the library or shop.

The couple’s next project, in a renovated traditional wooden Japanese house in Tono City, marks another chapter in mixing hospitality with retail. “Yaeca is 25 next year and it’s an opportunity for us to start something new,” says Kyoko. Retailers, take note: widen your shopping concept and customers will linger.
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