Incorporating art into their business structure since conception, Japanese department stores provide more than a place to shop: they act as a space for shaping cultural trends and art aesthetics for all walks of Japanese society.

A large inflatable metallic blue ant is suspended midair, nonchalantly watching shoppers pass by from Nankai Station to Osaka Takashimaya, a department store in central Osaka.

The installation, a work by visual artist Maki Takato, made up part of the third rendition of the Osaka Art and Design festival, which turned galleries, shops, and spaces all across Osaka into a citywide exhibition for a month this summer.

Undoubtedly, the biggest exhibitors were the city’s department stores. Almost all of them took part, opening their galleries, event spaces, and even repurposing regular retail floor space for creative endeavors, including workshops and meet-the-artist opportunities.

While citywide collaboration between competitors might not have always been on the cards, the festival shines a spotlight on Japanese department stores’ unique role as art trendsetters. Unlike their Western counterparts, department stores in Japan have incorporated art galleries as a key feature since close to their inception. Even in the present era, where purchases are often made with one click, this heritage lives on — an uptick in interest in art from both domestic and Japanese buyers is seeing department stores expand their activities in the art market, not only attracting serious art investors, but also acting as spaces for casual artistic encounters.

Far from a passing trend, department stores’ role in bringing art to the public and shaping societal trends is a story that unfolds over more than a century, connecting creativity, commerce, and urban communities.

Art from the outset

First emerging in the mid-Meiji Period (1868–1912), Japan’s department stores were one of the societal hallmarks of Japan’s debut as a modern state and its rapid embrace of Western culture. After over 200 years of self-imposed isolation by the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan’s new leaders were eager to industrialize and began adopting a range of imported Western customs, from food to fashion.

Japan’s very first department store grew out of Echigoya, a kimono store established in 1673, renowned for its innovative business practices. At that time, goods were typically purchased in bulk using a credit system, with prices negotiated through haggling. Echigoya, however, was the first to sell goods both on a "cash basis at fixed prices" and by the piece, enabling less affluent customers to purchase kimono. This pioneering approach saw their business boom and became their driving corporate philosophy. The company went on to found Japan’s first department store in Nihonbashi in 1904, formally becoming Mitsukoshi, with others following in swift succession over the next couple of decades.

Whereas early Western department stores acted as shopping facilities that signified one’s affluence, those in Japan expanded their societal role, emerging as key cultural tastemakers for a broader customer base. Art galleries became an institutionalized feature with a clear mission of selling art to customers. Mitsukoshi once again emerges as a protagonist in this tale, hosting the first department store exhibition in its Osaka Branch in November 1908.

Its then-art sales and exhibitions planner, Naojiro Kitamura, tied Mitsukoshi’s foray into the art world directly to its business philosophy, arguing that the traditional method of ordering directly from artists required too much time and money, while customers waited for the artist to produce the work with no guarantee they’d even like the finished product. With this new approach, however, artworks could be viewed in person before purchasing.

Takashimaya followed suit with an exhibition in Osaka in 1909, and subsequently established its own art department in its Kyoto store two years later. Other department stores soon embraced this trend, opening their own kaeru bijutsukan — an art museum where you can buy [artworks]. Initially, these artworks were focused on domestic artists, but through the 1920s and 1940s, when Imperial Japan was at its peak, art and artifacts from China, Korea, Taiwan, and Southwest Asia were regularly on display. T

hese were historically collected by the elite, but department stores opened the door to a wider market, providing not only an exhibition space but also actively marketing “tōyō shumi” (Oriental taste) to a growing and aspirational middle class. Through encounters with such works in a familiar commercial space, these new consumers found themselves imbued with the cultural confidence to appreciate and collect them.

Seibu and Saizon Culture

In post-war Japan, Seibu Corporation took department stores in a different direction. Headed by Seiji Tsutsumi, son of Seibu founder Yasujiro Tsutsumi, Seibu’s Ikebukuro flagship store expanded rapidly to become one of Japan’s largest department stores by the mid-1960s. Unlike Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya, which focused on tradition and high culture, it aimed to attract younger shoppers and emerging white-collar consumers. Tsutsumi’s vision was to refocus Japanese consumption in line with his ideas of culture and modern living, founding the Saison Group in the 1970s specifically for this mission.

As Thomas R. H. Havens wrote in his book Architects of Affluence: “The early postwar department store was a city within the city, with park benches, small art galleries, restaurants, and rooftop playgrounds.” In the 1980s, Seibu shifted to catering to middle-class families living in residential areas, “taking the city to the suburbs”, and by 1990, “the aim of the contemporary department store…was now ‘marketing goods and services for particular lifestyles.’”

Art was a key part of this vision to sell shoppers a young, urban, and sophisticated lifestyle. Seibu held innovative exhibitions from the 1960s onwards, and in 1975, established the first dedicated art museum inside a department store, the Seibu Museum of Art in Seibu Ikebukuro, painting giant Mona Lisas on the store shutters to mark the occasion.

The museum subsequently rebranded as the Sezon Museum of Art, sponsoring young painters, sculptors, and printmakers by holding exhibitions and sales aimed at customers in their twenties and thirties who were just establishing homes. It’s unclear as to how financially beneficial some of its efforts were, but as Haven writes, “Whatever the pull of exhibitions and concerts in luring shoppers to its stores, Saison clearly went beyond its middle-class customer base in patronizing the avant-garde.”

The business of art in modern times

Promoting art in the present day, however, has much clearer financial incentives, even if Japanese department stores aren’t quite the same cultural powerhouses of the past. They faced two decades of decline after the economic bubble of the 1980s burst, spurring the mergers of Daimaru–Matsuzakaya and Mitsukoshi–Isetan in the mid-2000s as a survival strategy. At present, performance is mixed but overall strong: Isetan Mitsukoshi posted a record-high profit for the second consecutive year, thanks to strong sales at key department stores like Isetan Shinjuku. The pandemic presented a financial challenge, but it also spurred notable interest in the art market. Domestic art sales increased as many Japanese workers found themselves working from home and hyper-focused on the interior design of their immediate surroundings. This has seen department stores begin hosting exhibitions and events specifically to appeal to customers in the 20s-40s age group.

Yet interest from wealthy consumers in purchasing art hasn’t declined, either. Department stores are also enjoying growing revenue from inbound visitors, who are particularly attracted by relatively low art prices compared to overseas. The Japanese market grew 11% between 2019 and 2023, bucking the global trend of an overall decline. All of this has provided department stores with strong incentives to increase their art offerings. Daimaru at Tokyo Station, for example, completely renovated and expanded its art department in April 2025, and their Nagoya store became the first department store in Japan to boast an entire floor dedicated to art in December 2024.

Bringing art to the public

Modern-day department stores haven’t erred away from their historical roots of conducting business with a societal goal or philosophy in mind — a practice demonstrated by Osaka Art & Design. Undoubtedly, the economic incentives are there, and certainly the festival was strategic, launching two years before the Expo with an eye to attracting international attention. However, there’s an underlying consideration of how art can bring something to city centers struggling to remain relevant in an age of teleworking and online shopping. Japan’s regional hubs have been banking on art festivals and there’s a sense that art can bring something more to cities.

“I often say this is the number one starting point for developing culture,” says Aoki Akio, general producer of OAD and CEO of DESIGNART, which hosts a similar event in Tokyo. “Public art can be seen for free, by everyone — young people, elderly people, all generations. That raises awareness. People start to want more beautiful things in their lives, like good lighting, good furniture. That in turn increases demand for traditional crafts, for designers, for creators.”

While department stores aren’t public space per se, the OAD art exhibitions are free to view — and their participation was entirely key to bringing the festival to life, with almost all department stores in the city taking part. “Even if initially it [OAD] doesn’t lead to big profits, continuing to do art and design supports creators and raises Osaka’s presence,” Aoki continues. “Osaka used to be known as ‘a place where art doesn’t sell,’ but when so many major department stores join together, it becomes impossible to ignore.”

Department stores still have the power to influence people’s tastes, whether through collaborative events like Osaka Art & Design or by solitary showcases. As trusted institutions, exhibiting there boosts not only exposure for artists, but also the number of actual sales made. Aoki says several artists sold more than one million yen: “When work is sold inside a department store, it gives buyers reassurance, so sales happen.”

Back in Tokyo, Seibu is continuing its mission to pursue the avant-garde. Shibuya Parco, which was completely rebuilt and opened in 2019, successfully targets a wide range of customers through its “global niche” approach, mixing high-end fashion brands and pop-up stores with Japanese pop culture touchstones like Nintendo that have captured huge inbound interest. It’s not afraid to push the boundaries of mainstream, either: its basement floor Gallery X, which was the only gallery to agree to host a Tom of Finland exhibition in 2020, while others shied away from depictions of male homosexuality.

Art in the city

It’s clear that Japanese department stores continue to play an active role in bringing art to the public, not only responding to trends but also aiming to shape them. In a digital era when city centres are struggling in the face of changing work and consumption patterns, they are rethinking their value propositions and what they can offer customers when shopping, social connection, and much else is often relegated to screens. Citywide collaboration may very well mark the next stage in department stores’ development — rather than operating as a “city within a city,” department stores seek to unite with a machizukuri “town revitalization” strategy with the aim of mutually contributing to a citywide ecosystem.

As interest in Japanese art trends upwards, department stores can continue to leverage their historical role in bringing art to the public, whether that’s through visiting their kaeru bijutsukan, or through more casual encounters, like strolling past a giant inflatable metallic blue ant.

About the Author: Originally from the UK, Phoebe Amoroso is a Tokyo-based multimedia journalist and reporter with more than a decade of experience covering Japan for international and domestic media, including BBC, The Japan Times, and Nikkei Asia. Her work ranges from business and current affairs to arts and culture, with a particular focus on food and sake.