Shibuya department stores and Hands close one after another, symbols of youth culture disappearing

Two commercial facilities that represent Shibuya, Tokyo are about to disappear in quick succession.

The first is the Seibu Shibuya store, which will close on September 30th. Tokyu Department Store, which had its main store and Toyoko store, no longer exists, and department stores have disappeared from Shibuya, one of the major downtown areas in the metropolis of Tokyo. This event symbolizes the changing times, making it difficult to establish department stores even in Tokyo.

Following the Seibu Shibuya store, the Hands (formerly Tokyu Hands) Shibuya store is set to disappear in November. In 2022, the former Tokyu Hands was sold by Tokyu Fudosan Holdings to Cainz, the largest home improvement center, and became its subsidiary. The shop name was also changed to Hands in the same year. This time, the Shibuya store, which is the first store and the main store, will be closed, and Shibuya as a so-called youth culture town will definitely change.

When did Shibuya start as a “town for young people”?

Shibuya has long been known as a town for young people, and this image is said to have been formed with the opening of the Seibu Shibuya store in 1968.

At that time, Shibuya was the domain of Tokyu. Tokyu Department Store Toyoko Store (formerly Toyoko Department Store), which opened in 1934 as the first private railway terminal department store in the Kanto region, and Tokyu Department Store Main Store, which opened in 1967 in anticipation of Seibu's expansion, were generating huge sales.

Seiji Tsutsumi, the president of Seibu Department Stores (later the Saison Group), decided that he had no chance of winning by targeting the traditional department store customers of families, middle-aged people, and high-income earners, so he created a store that broke with the norm for department stores and targeted young people and single people. When stores such as Parco and Muji opened, ``cool young people'' worked their way through these stores.

Not to be outdone, the Tokyu Group opened Tokyu Hands in 1978 with a new perspective of DIY and materials. Subsequently, they launched the fashion building ``Shibuya 109'' and succeeded in attracting back a certain amount of young people who had drifted to the Saison Group.

In other words, Hands was a commercial facility built to break up the young people who had gathered around Seibu and turn them around, and was a temple of youth culture along with the Seibu Shibuya store.