Shopping in Tokyo

Tokyo retail spans three centuries without blinking: a department store with a rooftop shrine, Ginza's vertical bazaars, and backstreets where global street style was invented by teenagers. No city takes shopping more seriously, or rewards curiosity more completely.

The walk: Tokyo — Nihombashi to Ura-Harajuku — 5 hours.

Tiered houses of Tokyo

• Isetan Icon
  Shinjuku’s fashion authority — Japan’s sharpest department-store buying, b1 food hall of dreams. mistore.jp
• Mitsukoshi Icon
  Japan’s original depachika dynasty — 1673 kimono-merchant roots, the lion statues of Nihonbashi. mistore.jp
• Takashimaya Heritage House
  Japanese department-store aristocracy since 1831 — rose emblem, impeccable service, Nihonbashi grandeur. takashimaya.co.jp
• Victoria Heritage House
  Spain’s sneaker of the people since 1915 — Gregorio named them for his wife in a Rioja village; vulcanized canvas that shod every Spanish summer since the seventies. calzadosvictoria.com
• Children of the Discordance Hidden Gem
  Hideaki Shikama's Tokyo patchwork — vintage bandanas rebuilt into coveted one-offs. childrenofthediscordance.com
• Shinya Kozuka Hidden Gem
  Tokyo's soft surrealist — painterly, oversized ease from a Saint Martins-trained hand. shinyakozuka.com
• Comme des Garçons Icon
  Rei Kawakubo’s republic — the Aoyama flagship behind the blue-dot glass tunnel, where clothing has argued with itself since 1969; enter curious, leave changed. comme-des-garcons.com