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An exterior view of The Hyundai Global flagship store in Omotesando, Tokyo. / Courtesy of Hyundai Department Store

Hyundai Department Store is acceleration its international expansion by opening the first flagship store for its K-content platform, "The Hyundai Global," in the upscale district of Omotesando, Tokyo.

The retailer announced on July 9 that "THE HYUNDAI" will officially open its doors in Omotesando on July 10. This marks the first time a South Korean department store has launched a large-scale flagship branch in a major Japanese commercial hub.

The Hyundai Global is an curated platform engineered to support Korean fashion, beauty, and entertainment brands looking to establish a footprint abroad. Following a series of successful pop-up stores at Tokyo's Parco Shibuya in 2024, Hyundai Department Store has expanded its local market presence by introducing a permanent brick-and-mortar storefront alongside a dedicated shop on Japan’s online fashion portal, NUGU.

The brand-new flagship spans 620 square meters (approximately 187 pyeong) on the third floor of the Tokyu Plaza Omokado shopping complex. The layout hosts seven standalone brands cutting across fashion, beauty, food and beverage (F&B), and intellectual property (IP) content, complemented by two separate pop-up zones. The rising K-pop boy band TWS will serve as the official brand ambassador.

The store's fashion lineup includes trendy K-fashion labels such as Coiincos, Rolarola, Double Lovers, Hieta, and Stand Oil. For F&B, Camel Coffee is launching its inaugural outpost in Japan, while the K-pop and character merchandise platform WithMuu will also make its Japanese debut at the location.

To quickly introduce the latest South Korean lifestyle trends to local shoppers, Hyundai Department Store has set up two designated pop-up spaces. To commemorate the grand opening, the store will roll out a sequence of exclusive events, starting with "Secret Library"—a pop-up tied to actor Byeon Woo-seok's fan meeting—followed by the first Japanese offline pop-up for the street fashion label Thug Club.

The store interior has been crafted to evoke the sophisticated lifestyle of Seoul, giving fashion-forward Japanese consumers in their 20s and 30s an opportunity to experience Korea's vibrant shopping culture firsthand.

Moving forward, Hyundai Department Store plans to use the Omotesando flagship as a springboard to scale up its broader global operations. The company aims to open over 10 additional flagship branches across major Asian markets, including Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, by 2030.

"The Omotesando flagship will serve as a dynamic showroom highlighting K-content and a powerful launchpad for domestic brands going global," a Hyundai Department Store official said. "We will continue to bolster our international market presence by leveraging our differentiated content and space-design competitiveness."

Meanwhile, Mediquarters, Hyundai Department Store’s operational partner in Japan, is taking part as an executing agency in the "Retailers’ Overseas Expansion Support Project" backed by South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), providing localized marketing, logistics, and operational support for the participating brands.

                                                                                                      Jung Moon-kyung