Acne Studios opens house by perforated metal screens
Acne Studios opens house by perforated metal screens
They are two cities separated by more than 8,000 km. But despite the geographical distance, a little piece of Stockholm arrived last week in Tokyo — in the form of Asia's first Acne store.
Jonny Johansson at Acne Studios Aoyama ACNE STUDIOS
The cult Swedish brand, famous for its high-quality jeans and edgy designs, unveiled its shiny new flagship in a two-story building set on a quiet lane in the Aoyama district of the capital.
Inspired by the concept of a modern Swedish house, Acne Studios Aoyama aims to bring the spirit of its homeland into the new space, with men and women's ready-to-wear, denim and accessories spanning three floors.
A subtle collage of materials and textures form a modern backdrop to the shop — with floors of interlocked wood and expanses of sky-blue granite, alongside perforated metal screens, concrete walls and a pastel interior palette of blues, grays and Acne's signature pale pink.
"If we were to design a modern Stockholm house, this would be it," says Jonny Johansson, cofounder of Acne. "The word 'collage' is very important. For Acne Studios Aoyama, we juxtaposed textures and materials including pop (color) dyed wood, stone and new-age stones, such as blue granite, hoping to emulate the Swedish summer light."
Among the ubiquitous denim and ready-to-wear designs, a silk scarf with vintage postcard-style motifs has also been unveiled to mark the opening of the Aoyama store, designed in collaboration with English illustrator Benjamin Seidler.
The rise of Acne (Ambition to Create Novel Expression) is the stuff of fashion legends. It was in 1996 that Johansson founded the studio with three others, before making 100 pairs of unisex jeans in simple cut denim with signature red stitching, that they handed out to friends and family.
The first batch was an instant hit. Since then, legions of global Acne fans have been seduced by its simple, subversive designs, and Acne Studios has expanded massively, with several dozen stores today, mostly concentrated in Scandinavia and Europe, plus one in the United States and three in Australia.
And now its Asian expansion is clearly under way. Japan has long been the leading market for Acne in Asia and it was the obvious choice for the brand in terms of its first standalone store in the region.
The attraction to Japan, however, is not simply commercial: an appreciation of the similarities between the two cultures in terms of temperament and aesthetic is perhaps the main creative driving force.
