‘It is a competitive market,’ says Hiroe Imai, the founder of Japanese beauty brand Shiro, when asked why she chose London as the destination for Shiro’s first store outside of Japan. On the surface, expanding into a city that’s hardly short of luxury skin-care shops might seem like a risky venture, but when said business comes with a distinct Japanese heritage and 22 stores to its name, Imai’s conviction carries considerable weight.
Visitors to the Shiro store on King’s Road can expect an extensive skin-care and fragrance range, comprised of natural ingredients that have been expertly sourced and sampled from Japan for their rich cleansing properties. Herein, the most frequently-used ingredient is kombu, a type of seaweed commonly used as a cooking ingredient in Japan. Its high viscosity and moisture content forms the foundation of the skin-care range.
Vintage aged woods were utilised for the store’s warm interiors
Sake kasu – the edible, fruity-tasting residue from sake production – is also used for its skin hydration properties, as well as being nutrient rich and high in amino acids and minerals. Imai once again enlisted Naoki Mizushima – the in-house architect/executive director of Shiro – to realise the company's vision. Consistent with his design of the previous 22 stores, Mizushima here continues Shiro’s carefully considered aesthetic, using vintage aged wood for the flooring and Manchurian ash wood for the shelves – a tree native to northeastern Asia.
The pendant light fixtures – made from oxidised brass – and the freestanding bathtub are both antiques. Mizushima used aged materials to mirror the purity and timelessness of Shiro’s skin-care formulations – design details that scrub up well.
Shiro specialises in skin-care and fragrance ranges comprised of natural ingredients that have been expertly sourced and sampled from Japan
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Shiro website
ADDRESS
Shiro
33E Kings Road
London SW3 4LX
-
Premium patisserie Naya is Mayfair’s latest sweet spotHeritage meets opulence at Naya bakery in Mayfair, London. With interiors by India Hicks and Anna Goulandris, the patisserie looks good enough to eat
-
Discover midcentury treasures in Marylebone with Álvaro by AppointmentLondon is full of sequestered design havens, and Wallpaper* knows them all. Allow us to point you in the direction of Álvaro González’s shop window on Nottingham Place, home to a bonanza of beautiful 20th-century antiques
-
Beach chic: the all-new Citroën Ami gets an acid-tinged, open-air Buggy variantCitroën have brought a dose of polychromatic playfulness to their new generation Ami microcar, the cult all-ages electric quadricycle that channels the spirit of the 2CV for the modern age
-
Tranquil and secluded, Lemaire’s new Tokyo flagship exudes a sense of homeIn Tokyo’s Ebisu neighbourhood, Lemaire’s tranquil new store sees the French brand take over a former 1960s home. Co-artistic directors Christophe Lemaire and Sarah-Linh Tran tell Wallpaper* more
-
In Kyoto, COS celebrates the ancient art of shibori dyeing with a colour-soaked collection‘We can’t take this type of craft for granted anymore,’ says COS design director Karin Gustafsson, who worked with Kyoto shibori artisan Kazuki Tabata on the airy summer collection. Wallpaper* heads to Japan’s former capital to find out more
-
Inside John Lobb’s sumptuous new Kyoto store, housed in a traditional wooden ‘machiya’John Lobb’s inviting new Teruhiro Yanagihara-designed Kyoto store is introduced with a series of images starring lauded Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda
-
Le Labo’s Kyoto flagship blends wabi-sabi with the art of slow perfumeryLe Labo has a new flagship in Kyoto’s Shimokorikicho, Nakagyo-ku neighbourhood, a celebration of Japanese heritage and craftsmanship
-
Kiko Kostadinov’s Tokyo outpost is a fashion store like no otherBulgaria-born designer Kiko Kostadinov tells Wallpaper* why he chose Tokyo to open his first store, which sets to ‘pervert the traditional mould’ and features collaborations with artists such as Ryan Trecartin
-
Ya-man’s Tokyo store is ‘an immersive, almost psychedelic experience’Ya-man, the Japanese beauty brand known for its tech-focused devices and gadgets, opens an otherworldly HQ in Ginza, Tokyo
-
Year in review: top 10 beauty and grooming features of 2023, selected by Wallpaper’s Hannah TindleOur top 10 beauty and grooming features of 2023 span from Prada’s make-up debut to Japanese hair styling and the secrets of Björk’s nail artist
-
Japanese hair art: Yumeko Yume’s retro Osaka salonAn Osaka salon is the next stop in this photographic odyssey, exploring vibrant and varied Japanese hair art
