ABSTRACT
Department stores are products of mass society. And mass society is a product of modernity which itself has structured the various ways in which department stores function and develop. One department store which has followed closely the developments taken by mass society in postwar Japan is Seibu. As part of the Saison enterprise group, Seibu has not merely reflected, but actively contributed to and planned, such developments by the injection of huge amounts of capital into the consumer market. This chapter seeks to discuss trends in postwar Japanese consumerism through the activities of Seibu Department Store and the Seibu Saison Group and focuses on two things in particular: the breakdown of Japan’s mass market in the 1970s and 80s, and the use of mass media images to create and appeal to niche markets formed around the new urban consumers in the Tōkyō-Kantō megalopolis.
