Samsonite BLACK LABEL Ginza

Ginza values more than just size when it comes to brands. While global companies may present large flagship stores and familiar logos, the district seeks a deeper connection: a true understanding of the significance of their chosen location. For Samsonite Black Label, this challenge is particularly intriguing. The brand has spent over a century creating products for travel, movement, and returning home. Its largest flagship store in Asia now stands in a Tokyo neighbourhood characterized by permanence, tradition, and meticulous attention to detail. SPACE CO., LTD. has creatively utilized this contrast to shape the store's distinctive character. The project embraces a flexible interpretation of Japanese themes. Its references are well-known, yet they serve practical purposes within the store. The façade, inspired by shoji screens, gracefully manages the connection with the street. At the entrance, the Samsonite swirl exudes a sense of presence, akin to a crest. Inside, a garden provides a serene contrast to a brand that celebrates constant movement. This flagship store highlights the deeper significance behind retail design. Travel is often celebrated for its speed, freedom, and novelty, but much of its emotional significance lies in the preparation involved. Choosing a suitcase becomes an exciting part of the journey: envisioning the adventures ahead, selecting the essentials to carry, and welcoming the suitcase's marks and memories. SPACE has designed the store to reflect the tension between precision and real-world experience. Samsonite luggage is engineered to withstand the controlled environments of airports, train stations, and hotels. However, once it is purchased, the luggage enters a far less predictable life, characterized by delays, unpredictable weather, crowded platforms, and constant handling. The store's interior harmonizes these two conditions. The bent metalwork symbolizes manufacturing accuracy, while the use of timber, washi paper, and plants introduces elements that are appreciated for their texture, variation, and age. This contrast provides the products with an appropriate setting without transforming the store into a mere decorative display of Japanese craftsmanship. At the center of the store, a garden creates a pause in the commercial hustle of Ginza. It allows visitors to view the luggage from a distance, giving them time to appreciate the items beyond their specifications. This design choice makes the store feel calmer while still fulfilling its commercial purpose. Light gradually shifts across the metal, wood, and paper surfaces of the flagship store, giving it a unique presence that changes throughout the day. This subtle transformation complements a district that is familiar through repeated visits, where storefronts are experienced in daylight, after work, and late into the evening. For an international brand, effective localization often results in a collection of recognizable symbols. However, this project embraces a more nuanced approach. Influenced by Japanese culture, it effectively shapes the arrival experience, pacing, and overall atmosphere while preserving Samsonite's distinctive identity. The outcome is a travel store that prioritizes stillness. In Ginza, the Samsonite Black Label is prominently displayed just before departure, encapsulating the anticipation of travel when movement is still a concept and the journey has yet to commence.

This flagship store creates a coherent retail narrative by balancing industrial precision with traditional materiality. The shoji-inspired wall acts as a functional buffer, transitioning the interior from the high-energy streetscape of Ginza to a more curated, atmospheric space. Inside, the design relies on the dialogue between the rigid, conical metal ceiling and the softer, organic qualities of timber and washi. This juxtaposition provides a tactile backdrop that mirrors the essential duality of luggage: a durable, engineered exterior protecting the personal, evolving nature of its contents. The layout, centred on a dry garden, effectively organizes customer circulation, ensuring that the architectural features frame the product displays rather than overshadowing them.

Localization in a district as prominent as Ginza often carries the risk of relying on surface-level motifs. What distinguishes this project is the way it integrates traditional elements as functional components of the retail experience: the entry sequence is deliberate, the central garden anchors the floor plan, and the shifting lighting provides a subtle, temporal rhythm throughout the day. By allowing natural aging materials to coexist with the brand's high-performance aesthetic, the interior avoids becoming a static display of craftsmanship. Instead, it offers a thoughtful environment that reflects the traveller's transition-from the predictability of departure to the inherent unpredictability of the journey ahead. It is a balanced approach that honours the local context while maintaining the global identity of the Samsonite brand.

IMAGE 01 — SHOJI-INSPIRED FAÇADE Vertical lattice columns frame the storefront and reveal softly illuminated Japanese paper. The global flagship gains a measured threshold within the brightness of Ginza.

IMAGE 02 — CREST-LIKE BRAND MARK The Samsonite swirl is placed at the entrance, with the formal clarity of a monogram on a gate, creating a recognizable yet restrained point of identity.

IMAGE 03 — CENTRAL DRY GARDEN Curved planters, stone and living greenery form the compositional centre of the store. Product displays orbit the installation rather than competing with it.

IMAGE 04 — CONICAL METAL CEILING Bent metalwork rises above the garden as a precise sculptural volume. Its geometry directs attention and establishes the flagship’s principal spatial landmark.

IMAGE 05 — SUSPENDED NATURAL TIMBER Irregular wood elements appear within the engineered ceiling, giving the overhead composition grain, warmth and material contrast.

IMAGE 06 — WASHI LEAF DETAIL Lightweight paper forms hang as if caught in air. Their translucency and movement soften the transition between ceiling and retail floor.

IMAGE 07 — RGB LIGHTING CONDITION Colour changes gradually across metal and paper, suggesting a sense of time without overwhelming the product presentation.

IMAGE 08 — BLACK LABEL DISPLAY Luggage is shown with generous spacing against refined finishes. The cultural architecture provides context while brand and product remain visually clear.

The flagship begins with a shoji-inspired façade and crest-like brand threshold facing Ginza.

A central contemporary dry garden forms the principal internal landmark and organizes circulation around product displays.

The conical bent-metal ceiling aligns with this garden, creating a vertical focus within the retail floor.

Curved planters and living greenery mediate between circulation, merchandise and the central feature.

Natural timber, washi and RGB lighting occupy the overhead zone, allowing atmosphere to change without obstructing products or movement.

Display fixtures remain distributed around the centre with clear sightlines through the store.

No complete dimensioned plan set was available in the accessible material. Spatial analysis follows the original submission and documented façade, garden, ceiling and product relationships.

Samsonite BLACK LABEL Ginza

Samsonite Black Label, the luxury line from Samsonite—a specialist brand in suitcases and luggage boasting over 100 years of history—has opened its largest flagship store in Asia in Ginza. This space, befitting the Ginza location, blends premium quality with Japan's unique aesthetic sensibility, creating a hub for the brand.

Designed as a concept store, this flagship store layers Japan's historical background and aesthetics onto a global luxury sensibility. The facade columns feature a modern interpretation of shoji latticework, with lighting highlighting the delicate texture of Japanese paper. Furthermore, the iconic Samsonite swirl logo is displayed like a family crest on a gate, enhancing the brand's presence.

High-quality materials are incorporated throughout the interior, with a central “Japanese Zen Garden” installation. This fuses the brand's worldview, expressed through artificial elements, with the quintessentially Japanese aesthetic sensibility symbolized by natural beauty, embodying the philosophy of harmony.

A conical ceiling formed with bent metalwork, curved planters with true greenery, natural wood suspended from the ceiling, and washi paper decorations evoking leaves dancing in the wind combine with RGB lighting that suggests the passage of time to create a sophisticated and unique space.

These elements come together to realize a Ginza flagship store befitting a global brand.

Project Outline Project Name: Samsonite BLACK LABEL Ginza Client: Samsonite Japan Co., Ltd. Location: Chuo-ku, Tokyo Opening Date: Jun. 2025 Design Company: SPACE CO., LTD.

Project Member Direction / Project management: Hajime Misumi Design: Hajime Misumi, Yuri Ishimura Creation and construction: Tatsuya Doi, Keiju Taya Photographer: Kenji Masunaga (masphoto)

Prepared for Merci Magazine × Sky Design Awards 2026