is a zelkova tree-lined avenue located in Shibuya and

Minato Minato (港 or 湊) is Japanese for 'harbor', and may refer to: Places * Minato, Tokyo or Minato City, a special ward in Tokyo, Japan * Minato-ku, Nagoya, a ward of Nagoya, Japan * Minato-ku, Osaka, a ward of Osaka, Japan * Minato (湊), a neig ...

, Tokyo, stretching from the Meiji Shrine entrance to Aoyama-dōri (Aoyama Street), where

Omotesandō Station is a Tokyo Metro subway station located at the intersection of Omotesandō (Avenue Omotesandō) and Aoyama-dori (Aoyama Street) in Aoyama, Minato ward, Tokyo, Japan. Part of the Chiyoda Line platforms extends into Shibuya ward. Lines Omote-sa ...

can be found.

History

Omotesandō was originally created in the Taishō era as the to Meiji Shrine, which is dedicated to the deified spirits of

Emperor Meiji , also called or , was the 122nd emperor of Japan according to the traditional order of succession. Reigning from 13 February 1867 to his death, he was the first monarch of the Empire of Japan and presided over the Meiji era. He was the figur ...

and his wife, Empress Shōken.

Present

Omotesandō is known as one of the foremost 'architectural showcase' streets in the world, featuring a multitude of fashion flagship stores within a short distance of each other. These include the Louis Vuitton store (Jun Aoki, 2002),

Tod's Tod's S.p.A., also known as Tod's Group, is an Italian company which produces luxury shoes and other leather goods. The company is majority controlled by the founding family Della Valle Family and is listed on the Italy's Milan Stock Exchange be ...

( Toyo Ito, 2004),

Dior Christian Dior SE (), commonly known as Dior (stylized DIOR), is a French Luxury goods, luxury fashion house controlled and chaired by French businessman Bernard Arnault, who also heads LVMH, the world's largest luxury group. Dior itself holds ...

( SANAA, 2004), Omotesandō Hills (

Tadao Ando is a Japanese autodidact architect whose approach to architecture and landscape was categorized by architectural historian Francesco Dal Co as "critical regionalism". He is the winner of the 1995 Pritzker Prize. Early life Ando was born a few m ...

, 2005) and Gyre (

MVRDV MVRDV is a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based architecture and urban design practice founded in 1993. The name is an acronym for the founding members: Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs, and Nathalie de Vries. History Maas and Van Rijs worked at OMA, De Vr ...

, 2007), amongst others. Omotesandō is the main vehicle and pedestrian thoroughfare for Harajuku and Aoyama. The area features many international brand boutiques, such as Louis Vuitton, Alexander McQueen and Gucci, as well as

fast fashion Fast fashion is a term used to describe the clothing industry's business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and High fashion, high-fashion designs, mass production, mass-producing them at a low cost, and bringing them to retail stores qui ...

retailers such as Gap, H&M and Zara. In his book ''Luxury Brand Management'', luxury brand manager Michel Chevalier cites Omotesandō as one of the best locations in Tokyo for a

luxury goods In economics, a luxury good (or upmarket good) is a good for which demand increases more than what is proportional as income rises, so that expenditures on the good become a greater proportion of overall spending. Luxury goods are in contrast to n ...

store. Omotesandō is also home to the Kiddyland toy store, Laforet, and the Oriental Bazaar. Omotesandō's side streets, known as Ura-Harajuku, feature a range of smaller cafes, bars, restaurants, and boutique stores. Omotesandō is the venue for Tokyo's annual Saint Patrick's Day Parade.

Gallery

File:Prada Aoyama.jpg, Prada Aoyama Image:Tod's at Omotesando.jpg, Tod's Omotesandō building Image:Omotemall.jpg,

Omotesando Hills is a shopping complex in central Tokyo built in 2005, in a series of urban developments by Mori Building. It occupies a two hundred and fifty meter stretch of Omotesandō, a shopping and (previously) residential road in Aoyama. It was designed ...

Image:Dior Omotesando 2007.jpg, Dior Omotesandō Image:Gyre_Omotesando_2.jpg, Designer retail complex "The Gyre"

References

External links

Pictures of Tokyo, Omotesandō
(and surroundings, Aoyama, Jingūmae)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Omotesando, Tokyo Harajuku Neighborhoods of Tokyo Shibuya Shopping districts and streets in Japan Streets in Tokyo