is a Japanese multinational

retail Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is the sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholes ...

company which operates a chain of

department store A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store mad ...

s in

Tokyo Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...

as well in other major Japanese cities. They are best known for their women's fashion and accessories, which are aimed at the 25–35 age range. In 2003–4 the company generated

US$ The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...

2.75 billion in revenues. Its president is Hiroshi Aoi.

Name and logo

The company's name () is a combination of the name of its predecessor's parent company "Maru-ni" () and the name of its president "Ao-i" (). The name of the department store is customarily written in Japanese as "", in

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

. The department store's famously ambiguous present-day logo is a symbol resembling "○I○I", and read "marui". The Japanese symbol "○" (not to be confused with the

Latin letter The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...

"O" or "o") is read "maru", meaning "circle" or "zero". The symbol "I" ostensibly represents the numeral "1", which can be read "i" in Japanese (note that the Latin letter "I" is also the

romanized In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and transcription, ...

representation of the Japanese hiragana "", a third visual pun). Despite being read as numerals, the symbol is written "OIOI" in Latin letters on the company's website, though the address of the website itself is "www.0101.co.jp". The "○I" in the logo is repeated, partly for aesthetics and also as an inference to the "0101" ending of the phone number of all Marui department stores.丸井のロゴはなぜ「0101」と繰り返すのか
Excite.co.jp.

MARUIONE.JP

In December 2007, Marui Co., Ltd. launched an international shopping and information website, maruione.jp. The site operates in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, simplified and

traditional Chinese A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examp ...

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

, English, and French. The shopping site offers

Japanese street fashion Japanese street fashion refers to a number of styles of contemporary modern clothing in Japan. Created from a mix of both local and foreign fashion brands, Japanese Street Fashion, street fashions tend to have their own distinctive style, with s ...

and traditional goods while their LiveJ information site provides information on fashion, culture and

visual kei , abbreviated , is a category of Japanese musicians that have a strong focus on extravagant stage costumes that originated in Japan during the early 1980s. Koji Dejima of '' Bounce'' wrote that visual kei is not a specific sound, but rather it " ...

music.

References

External links

*
Marui Co., Ltd. financial information

MARUIONE.JP
*
LiveJ
Department stores of Japan Clothing retailers of Japan Japanese brands Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Companies in the Nikkei 225 Japanese companies established in 2007 Companies based in Tokyo Multinational companies headquartered in Japan {{japan-company-stub