Who needs love when you can have fashion? So goes the philosophy behind Tokyo's latest and greatest luxury clothing store, Loveless, which opened in Aoyama on July 23.
Spanning four floors, two above ground and two below, this multimillion-dollar temple to flashy threads had label-crazy shoppers lining up overnight before it threw its doors open to the public, and in Tokyo fashion circles it's been said that it ranks among the world's best boutiques.
Loveless is essentially operated by apparel giant Sanyo Shokai, which has owned this prime piece of real estate since 1997. Before, it had a womenswear boutique here, catering to well-to-do ladies with a penchant for prim-and-proper frocks, but now it has been totally transformed. In fact, it could hardly be more different: Loveless is a store crammed with avant-garde fashion with a distinctly punk-rock flavor. Perhaps the only aspect of the store to be in keeping with the space's previous well-heeled incarnation is the street-level floor occupied by Parisian luggage-maker Goyard, which -- as a partner of Sanyo Shokai -- is part of the Loveless concept.