Women are facing a cunning new strategy aimed at loosening their purse strings -- attractive young men working as clerks in cosmetics and women's clothing departments.
Printemps Ginza Co., a department store in Tokyo's Ginza district, was one of the first Japanese firms to deploy the charms of "ikemen" -- a buzz word meaning a handsome man or a cool guy -- as a ploy to boost sales.
The store, which is an affiliate of the Printemps department store in Paris, made headlines in September when it hired a former male fashion model as a receptionist. Katsushi Yamaguchi, 38, was the first man to be hired by a department store in Japan to work at its reception desk.