Onitsuka Tiger Opens Champs-Élysées Flagship as It Sets Its Sights on a Century
Paris holds historical significance for the brand. It was Onitsuka Tiger's first international retail location outside of Japan following the brand's revival in 2002. Due to this history, 'Paris is really close to our heart,' Ryoji Shoda, head of Onitsuka Tiger, told WWD.
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After celebrating its 75th birthday last year with an activation titled 'Onitsuka Tiger Hotel' in the same building, the brand is now expanding its retail presence and looking toward category expansion.
'This new store on the Champs-Élysées marks the beginning of our third generation. This is going to be the first stepping stone towards our 100th anniversary. This will be an important store for us,' said Shoda, speaking through an interpreter.
Located at 25 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the new store has taken over the space of a former restaurant at the base of the historic Hôtel de la Païva building below the legendary Travellers Club. The 5,500-square-foot space features 3,800 square feet of sales floor drenched in Onitsuka Tiger's signature black and yellow palette.
'Our brand has a lot of history. History is something that is important, that is close to our heart. It also needs to be modernized,' Shoda said. '[The store is a] collaboration between Japanese modernism and history. It's a message we are sending.'
The renovation was led by Milan-based architects Filippo Dini and Gianluca Cataldi, who have worked on four Onitsuka Tiger stores in Europe and one in Japan. 'We always like to have a crash between Tokyo style with European culture,' Dini said. The result is a layered space that combines preserved 19th-century architectural features, including original arches and pillars, with glossy black shelving units reminiscent of traditional Japanese lacquer boxes, as well as custom concrete crafted from Japanese mortar.
'We're trying to give an identity to each capsule of the brand with their own materials to make them live in their own world, and then live also together with the other stories,' Dini added.
Each area within the store reflects a different aspect of the Onitsuka Tiger range. One room features a bookshelf-style display that highlights the 100 percent handmade 'Nippon Made' collection. To celebrate the opening, a special 'Nippon Made' edition of the classic Mexico 66 rendered in the colors of the French flag will be available.
Another room dedicated to ready-to-wear is bathed in the traditional bright yellow hue of the brand's signature sneaker. The rooms will also offer heritage models, bags and accessories.
Meanwhile, a former bank vault has been cleverly transformed into the store's dressing rooms.
Adding to the lifestyle experience, the store includes a café serving Onitsuka Tiger's own branded coffee blend, as well as specialty drinks and snacks. If the beans prove popular, they may eventually be added to the brand's expanding product categories.
Onitsuka Tiger is making its first big move into new categories with the coming launch of its fragrances. The fragrances were teased during the brand's show at Milan Fashion Week in February, and are expected to roll out at retail by early fall. Shoda sees it as part of the brand's evolution from sports shoes, to fashion and now lifestyle.
He emphasized that the brand sits in a unique position between luxury and high street — a balance reinforced by a strict full-price model. 'To me, luxury means when a product holds its value…We do not do discounts or sales. For me, that's the definition [of luxury],' he said. 'And unlike fast fashion, we are brand driven. It's not about pushing product; it's about building a fanbase of people who love our brand.'
Brick-and-mortar retail remains central to the company's strategy, and that like-for-like sales have been growing at a steady clip. 'We can see that the sales per store are growing,' he said. 'The revenues of our stores is really doubling.'
Fragrance, Shoda believes, can continue to boost those per-square-foot numbers, and the brand is exploring additional categories.
A potential hospitality concept is under consideration, following the popularity of the 'Onitsuka Tiger Hotel' activation last year. The pop-up included branded pillows, bath products and stationery, all of which are now under consideration as new categories, alongside cosmetics and sleepwear.
Shoda confirmed that a return to the U.S. market is in the pipeline, though no firm date has been set. Current economic conditions and the uncertainty around President Donald Trump's tariffs are being analyzed, he said.
'It's really going to be not so far away in terms of time, but when we decide to do it, it will have to have a great impact on the market,' he said. 'We have to wait and see [when] the time will be right, when the American market stabilizes.'
Globally, Onitsuka Tiger is leaning into physical retail.
During the pandemic when most brands were betting on e-commerce, Shoda believed the future would be 'real, human communication,' he said. He put that at the core of his strategy and planning, and moved quickly to open new outposts in London and Milan post-pandemic.
The approach has been winning. Onitsuka Tiger is now the most profitable category within parent company Asics. The most recent financial results showed sales up 58.3 percent year-over-year, with profit increasing 8.5 percent over 2023.
The company currently operates 192 own-brand stores across the globe, including 48 in Japan, 83 in China, 32 in South Korea, 19 in Southeast Asia, seven in Europe and three in Australia. Many other locations operate through partnerships, though company strategy is concentrated on direct-to-consumer retail.
'As a brand we are extremely popular in Asia, and our products really sell well in Asian regions,' Shoda said. 'That's our strength compared to other luxury brands.'
One of those key markets is India. With 11 stores there run through local partnerships, Onitsuka Tiger is considering opening domestic production facilities soon.
'The Indian market is known for being a bit difficult [to break into], but we take pride in the fact that we've been able to achieve great success in that market,' he said. The brand's popularity has been boosted by ambassadors such as Bollywood star Rashmika Mandanna, who was among the celebrity guests invited to the Paris flagship opening night.
For dinner in the private Travellers Club, Michelin-starred chef Ryuji Teshima created a four course meal with each course paired to one of the four fragrances. Each course was accompanied by an interpretive dance inspired by the fragrances' characteristics.
Onitsuka Tiger's ready-to-wear is now regularly on the Milan calendar. While Shoda declined to provide sales figures for clothing, he said its momentum is steady. The brand's only competition is itself. 'The clothing category is increasing — but shoes are growing so exponentially, it's hard for clothing to keep up.'
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Palace's starting point is likely to be that Textor, whose Eagle Football Group still contains his controlling stakes at Brazilian side Botafogo, Belgian's RWDM Brussels (rebranded from Molenbeek earlier this year) and Lyon, did not have what UEFA calls 'decisive influence' at Selhurst Park, and that they have never been part of his multi-club group. Advertisement This, you would think, is supported by the fact he has just sold his 43 per cent stake in Palace to Woody Johnson, the billionaire owner of the NFL's New York Jets and former U.S. ambassador to the UK. Furthermore, that 43 per cent stake only gave Textor one of four voting shares at Palace, with Parish and two other American investors, David Blitzer and Josh Harris, also holding one each. As Textor has previously explained to The Athletic, decisions at Palace very rarely, if ever, went to a vote, as Blitzer and Harris are silent partners who trust Parish to run things. So, Parish would always have 75 per cent of the votes, and he had no interest in Textor's plan to integrate the Londoners into the Eagle multi-club universe. Blitzer, Harris, Parish and Textor all went to UEFA's headquarters in the Swiss city of Nyon last month to make this point but the Club Financial Control Body (CFCB), the arms-length unit that decides which teams can and cannot be licensed to play in the three European competitions, wasn't buying it. Instead, it ruled that Textor's influence was decisive at Palace because he has injected more than £100million ($134m at the current rate) into the club since 2022, money that helped them finish their new-look academy facilities and sign players, and was the largest single shareholder which meant he must, at the very least, have had a say in what they could and could not do. A decisive say? Well, that is why CAS exists. Dr Antoine Duval is the head of Asser International Sports Law Centre in the Netherlands and a seasoned watcher of CAS's decision-making. He believes it's possible the CAS panel will disagree with the CFCB assessment but says the 'quality of the evidence provided by Palace about its internal management structure and the role, or lack of it, of Textor/Eagle will be crucial'. Textor's voting rights will be a key consideration for CAS, but so will his financial contributions and influence on recruitment and commercial strategy. For example, he was a strong advocate of appointing Oliver Glasner, the Austrian head coach who led Palace to their FA Cup triumph, in February last year, although he recently insisted on UK radio station Talksport that the notion he 'made the hire (at Palace) happen… that's not true at all. I tried to get him at Lyon — if he spoke French, he'd be there. I told UEFA that a suggestion is not decisive influence. Nobody tells Steve (Parish) what to do, he's as stubborn as anybody.' Palace, no doubt, will say the only player to be transferred between them and Lyon was centre-back Jake O'Brien in 2023: beyond some young players going on loan to Molenbeek (including O'Brien, earlier in his career), they had no other transactions with an Eagle Football Group club, despite Textor's frequent suggestions. Advertisement But Dr Gregory Ioannidis, an experienced campaigner at CAS and an associate professor at Sheffield Hallam University, is not sure this will be enough to sway the panel. He believes Palace will try to argue that a 'more flexible and purposeful interpretation of the regulations' should be applied, with the club's lawyers asking the panel to think about what UEFA is trying to achieve with its MCO rules, fair competition, and whether the English side pose any threat to that legitimate aim. 'But if the panel decides the rules are clear, and therefore a strict and literal approach needs to be applied, the chances for a successful appeal will be minimised,' explains Ioannidis. While each case is considered on its own merits, precedents can be helpful, and two CAS panels have recently made very quick decisions on MCO cases involving Slovakian team FC DAC 1904 and Drogheda United from the Republic of Ireland. Both were blocked from playing in the Conference League by the CFCB and then lost their appeals, DAC unanimously and Drogheda on a majority verdict. The two cases were different but both argued they simply did not have enough time to create the separation UEFA requires between them and their MCO sister clubs. As MCO groups have proliferated across Europe, UEFA has given owners two options: reduce your stake in one of the clubs that want to compete in the same competition to less than 30 per cent, step down as a director and halt whatever player-trading strategy you are pursuing with the two teams, or put one of into a blind trust, so you have no influence over day-to-day operations. Crucially, UEFA moved the deadline for doing one or the other of these workarounds from early June to March 1. DAC, Drogheda and Palace all missed this memo. However, in both the DAC and Drogheda cases, the CAS panels backed UEFA. Advertisement 'What is of immense importance here is the panels' findings that the current regulations do not require evidence of actual influence, but rather only the possibility of such influence,' says Ioannidis. 'This, in conjunction with the finding on the procedural aspect of submitting the changes in the club's ownership structure on time (or not), may cause serious difficulties for those arguing Palace's case.' Parish has explained in recent interviews that Palace were too busy playing Championship neighbours Millwall in the last 16 of the FA Cup on March 1 to be thinking about what might happen if they were to win the whole thing and play in Europe for the first time in their history, but Duval says the deadline argument is doomed. 'It seems to me that a possible argument about the new deadline has already been rejected, thus the main focus will probably be on whether Textor had decisive influence,' he says. And while Palace will come armed with evidence that shows Textor was routinely ignored, UEFA's lawyers will no doubt point to the letter CFCB chair Sunil Gulati sent to the club licensing managers at UEFA's 55 member associations last May which spells out what 'decisive influence' means. A literal reading of that document — the 30 per cent shareholding threshold, significant financial support, being a director, the ability to influence recruitment decisions and so on — would suggest Palace's legal team are going to have their work cut out. Given all that, it might make sense for Palace to make a more general argument that a strict application of the rules in this case simply make no sense, as there is obviously no threat to the integrity of the competition, which is the entire point of article 5.01 in UEFA's rulebook, the regulation that deals with MCO clubs. And there is some encouragement here, in that the concepts of fairness, integrity and sporting justice are all enshrined in Swiss law. But there are risks attached to this approach, too. 'Swiss law does protect such principles and both CAS and the Swiss Federal Tribunal (where any appeals over a CAS verdict are heard but rarely upheld) have ruled accordingly,' says Ioannidis. 'However, I wouldn't run this argument, because the panel may take the view that it is precisely for these principles that UEFA's decision may be upheld, as the other clubs in the competition acted promptly and ensured they followed the rules and deadlines.' Advertisement That said, the Drogheda case shows that one of the panel disagreed with his colleagues. The written judgment has not been published, so we do not know why they disagreed but it is possible the Irish club's plea for a more common-sense-based assessment of the rules was persuasive. Palace may think that if they can do the same, they are halfway there. 'Not everything is negative for Palace,' says Ioannidis. 'I would argue that the intention of the regulator is to ensure fair competition. As such, the fact that Palace may have realised their mistake and acted in compliance with the rules, albeit late, shows a genuine and honest approach to the legitimate aim pursued by UEFA. 'In this instance, it would be fair, just and reasonable for UEFA to allow Palace to be admitted to the Europa League.' Another possible line of attack for Palace is the apparent inconsistencies in the application of UEFA's rules — and this is where the decision to make Forest a party in this appeal is intriguing. The argument, presumably, would be that Evangelos Marinakis, owner of both Forest and Greece's Olympiacos, did not place the former in a blind trust until the end of April, a move he reversed when they eventually failed to join their cousins from Athens in next season's Champions League. It is a moot point now but Marinakis seemed to miss the UEFA deadline, too, and, if literal readings are important, you either meet it or you don't. If Palace wanted to be really mischievous, they could ask what Marinakis was doing on the pitch at the end of Forest's home draw against Leicester City on May 11. While he may well have been checking on the health of an injured Forest player, the episode suggested the Greek billionaire still exerted some influence at the City Ground despite that blind-trust move. And, just to add some further spice to the pot, Parish has suggested that Forest played a part in Palace's demotion to the Conference League. But an argument that effectively depends on the panel accepting that it is OK for a club to be confused about the regulations is unlikely to pan out. 'The rules and deadlines have always been there, and Palace had to act promptly, irrespective of what other clubs did,' says Ioannidis. 'The panel might say that a professional club, with an army of expert lawyers, ought to be more diligent and proactive. If confused, they could have asked UEFA for clarification.' And with that sensible advice, we should probably wrap this up and wait for CAS to make sense of it all. Hopefully.
