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Kyoto · Japan · To shop

Issey Miyake Kyoto

Location & practical

Grey walls, loud bags

  • Daylight comes through the timber lattice in strips.
  • Homme Plissé trousers fan out at the knee.
  • Across the pebbles, the old storehouse is a gallery.
  • Tsuchiyachō, Sanjō, Nakagyō-ku

From the pavement on Yanaginobanba-dori, there’s very little to see of the shop. Two concrete buildings crowd the low tiled roof. A white curtain hangs over the entrance, with a black stroke across it. Inside, the street comes through the wooden lattice in thin strips. It takes a moment for the glass table to come into view.

The townhouse was already 132 years old when Issey Miyake moved in. Naoto Fukasawa kept the dark beams and took his greys from sumi ink. Under the spotlights, the Bao Bao bags are pink, green and gold. When Kanako Noda visited for SSENSE in 2018, two shoppers went straight to that wall. A Bao Bao tote, flat on a table, looks like a drawing exercise in triangles. Drop a wallet inside and it acquires cheekbones.

Long before the shop opened, Miyake had brought an exhibition of inventive clothes to Kyoto’s National Museum of Modern Art. He was from Hiroshima, and his studio was in Tokyo, but it was in Kyoto that he accepted a prize for a career spent thinking about what happens between a piece of cloth and the person wearing it.

  • Urban setting Tsuchiyachō, Sanjō, Nakagyō-ku

Good to know.

Location
89-89 Tsuchiyachō, Nakagyo Ward, Kyoto, 604-8112, Japan
Open map & directions
Getting around

About seven minutes on foot from Karasuma Oike Station, exit 5, on the Karasuma and Tōzai subway lines.

Arriving

The white noren marks the entrance at 89 Tsuchiyacho, just south of Sanjō-dori on Yanaginobanba-dori. The shop lists 11:00–20:00, Kyoto time. Call +81 75 254 7540 for holiday hours or to check a particular item.

Accessibility

The upper floor is reached by a narrow staircase. The route to KURA crosses the courtyard on slate slabs. Call +81 75 254 7540 to confirm step-free access to the shop and gallery.

Worth knowing

  • Some release dates use a visit-reservation lottery. The shop is listed for 15–17 November 2026, with applications open from 12 November at 11:00 to 13 November at 20:00, Kyoto time.

  • KURA is in the former storehouse behind the shop. The gallery programme is listed separately.

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