Choichiro Motoyama×Chisako Takashima

2012.04.04

A talk series with the violinist Chisako Takashima and the Ginza people. Ginza holds many personal and professional memories for Takashima. In this talk series, she thoroughly explores various aspects of the Ginza culture with her guests. Today’s guest is Akira Endo, representative director of the Hatsuko Endo Group, famous for pioneering modern beauty treatments in Japan and supporting women’s beauty for more than a century.

Upholding our founding philosophy of providing the real thing

Takashima: Hatsuko Endo dresses are really splendid. I’ve been married 11 years—and I know it’s bad luck to say this—but I’d love to marry again just so I could wear such a wedding dress!
Endo: Thank you.
Takashima: Are your wedding kimonos and dresses original creations?
Endo: All the kimono are originals made in collaboration with Kyoto kimono-fabric artists. Although it makes for a lot of work, we don’t deal with kimono fabric wholesalers in order to uphold our founding philosophy of providing the real thing.
Takashima: Are the dresses originals, too?
Endo: For our wedding dresses, you could say that we’re more like a boutique.
We have a selection of couture dresses of the highest-quality fabrics and designs. We also carry our own original designs.

Takashima: How many shops do you have across Japan?
Endo: They are all in Tokyo, except for three shops in Yokohama and one in Nagoya.
Takashima: Hatsuko Endo has a long history. When was it founded?
Endo: In 1905. We turned 107 this year.
The founder, Hatsuko Endo, was my father’s grandmother, and my mother is Hatsuko Endo IV.

Hatsuko Endo pioneered beauty treatments in Japan

Takashima: Hatsuko Endo is famous as a wedding dress brand, but it was originally a beauty parlor?
Endo: That’s right. The original Ginza shop did makeup, helped customers put on their kimonos and gave facials—what we’d today call an esthetic salon.
Takashima: Were such services common at the time?
Endo: No, we were the first to provide a total-package beauty service including esthetic treatments.
We were actually the first to provide facials in Japan.

Takashima: So the shop pioneered beauty treatments in Japan? What kind of treatments were done?
Endo: The makeup Japanese women commonly used contained a lead compound that wasn’t good for the skin. Since there wasn’t a culture of skin care [as we know it today], many women had worries with skin problems.
Takashima: I didn’t know that.
Endo: At the time, Hatsuko Endo’s husband had gone to the United States, where he was surprised by how advanced beauty methods were compared to Japan. After returning to Japan, he told his wife about this, and she decided to open a beauty shop. She learned about Western treatments that brought out the natural beauty of women’s skin and began offering the first facials in Japan.
Takashima: Are the same treatment methods still used?
Endo: If you look at the original manuals, the methods have changed very little. It’s surprising to know that the tools used today are often the same as those used 100 years ago.

The entrance to a Hatsuko Endo Weddings store

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