Closure of Seibu Shibuya store to end 58 years of shaping youth culture

Sogo & Seibu’s Seibu department store in Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward will close its doors for the last time Wednesday, bringing an end to its 58-year history of shaping youth culture.

The Seibu Shibuya store was opened in April 1968 by the late Seiji Tsutsumi, head of the now-defunct Saison Group. It attracted many customers with luxury-brand shops, such as Hermes, which were rare in Japan at the time, as well as a rooftop amusement park. The store helped promote cutting-edge fashion through its “capsule” sales area, which featured products by young designers, and helped spark Japan’s “DC brand” boom, a craze for designer labels, in the 1980s.

However, the store’s earnings deteriorated following the collapse of Japan’s economic bubble.

Sogo & Seibu said in March that the Shibuya store would close after it was unable to renew its lease agreements with the rights holders of the land and buildings housing the store.

The store’s A building, which mainly offers food, cosmetics and women’s clothing, and B building, which has clothing stores, will close. Meanwhile, the Loft building and the Movida building, the latter housing a Muji household goods shop, will remain in operation but not under the Seibu name.

Since late June, 100 days before its closure, the Seibu Shibuya store has held a variety of events, including sales, photo exhibitions and gift giveaways. A countdown showing the number of days until the closure has also been displayed in a storefront window.

Many customers have visited to bid farewell to the store. One woman in her 50s who came from Narashino, Chiba Prefecture, for the photo exhibition said she was reminded of visiting designer-label shops with her friends when she was in her 20s. “It was fun just looking around during sales and thinking about what to buy,” she recalled.

Tokyu Department Store, which also played a key role in shaping youth culture in Shibuya, closed its flagship store in the district in 2023 but continues to operate at various shopping facilities, including the Hikarie building directly connected to Tokyu’s Shibuya Station.

Stores operated by the two department store chains are now displaying posters expressing support for Tokyu and gratitude to Seibu.