Thursday, 24th May 2007 (2476 views)

Tokyo's latest luxury department store, situated in Swatch's Nicholas G Hayek Building in the Ginza district, offers customers the chance to shop in a gold boutique as they ride the elevator.

The 14-storey building, which was designed by Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, contains a number of boutiques, each of which have their own exclusive glass elevator. The elevator for luxury watch maker Breguet displays a number of fine gold watches that shine while classical music plays in the background.

Ban said that the design means that ground floor boutiques did not have an unfair advantage, because each store had its own unique entrance. Swatch subsidiaries Omega, Breguet, Leon Hatot and Jecquet Droz all feature in the luxury department store.

"We have located one booth for each brand in this street rather like market stalls," explained Ban. "The people stroll along this street past the booths. I've turned the ground floor into a street or a public thoroughfare."

Breguet's luxury catalogue features a number of luxury 18 karat yellow and white gold watches for both men and women.

Breguet watches have been worn by such notables as Marie Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte, Leo Tolstoy, Winston Churchill and new French president Nicholas Sarkozy.

 

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