found in translation; How Kirna Zabete, the hip little store that could, has conquered the East.

Byline: Mark Holgate

When Sarah Easley and Beth Buccini flew to Tokyo for a whirlwind 72 hours to inaugurate their newly opened Japanese outpost of Kirna Zabete, nothing could faze them. Not being chased by armed guards for taking an early-morning run too near a shrine. Not the view from their hotel of the country's other latest American import, Krispy Kreme, where Tokyoites line up for hours to sink their teeth into a glazed cruller. And certainly not the brilliantly off-the-wall dinner party thrown to celebrate Kirna Zabete's arrival at the sixteen-story Takashimaya department store in the Shinjuku district. The fete was Tokyo in microcosm. Conceived and produced by Cyril Duval, a young French cultural provocateur in Comme des Garcons and Chicken Little glasses, and art-directed by conceptual artist Nagi Noda, it featured waitresses serving caviar off their crinoline dresses and a Damien Hirst-meets-Robert Isabell pig constructed from roses, then chopped in half, sitting atop the banquet table. The dinner attracted many of the city's hippest luminaries, whose fame and notoriety were so lost on Easley and Buccini that the two had to assign celebrity code names-"Lindsay Lohan," "Richard Gere"-to the guests.

There is, however, no danger of your typical fashion-obsessed Tokyoite's not knowing Kirna Zabete. The SoHo location receives hordes of Japanese visitors every day, who tick off a visit on tour itineraries and proclaim the store to be kawaii ("cute"). Easley and Buccini are thrilled to be given the chance to set up shop in Japan, especially since they view it as the opening gambit in their expansion campaign, which includes another boutique on home soil, an expanded online presence, and their own label of the perfect, fill-the-gaps-in-your-closet pieces. Right now, though, it is Tokyo that represents the first step toward fulfilling their desire to grow bigger without losing the beauty of being smaller. Which basically means Buccini and Easley signed on with one caveat. "We had to keep control of our image," Buccini says. "So we had a bulletproof contract drawn up."

Not that they really needed it. Takashimaya was interested only in its Kirna Zabete's being near identical to the original. In the end, there are really just two differences. One, the size: The Tokyo store is smaller. Two, the designers they are stocking: The selection skews toward the younger, predominantly American talents that they believe in, such as Proenza Schouler, Peter Som, Lutz & Patmos, and Thakoon. Currently, they don't carry any Japanese designers, but the pair hopes that will change in time. Nor are they averse to using their second home as a springboard for new labels-Grai, designed by a former Rick Owens assistant, will debut in Japan, not America.

Takashimaya's desire to replicate Kirna Zabete makes sense to anyone who has shopped in Tokyo, the Madame Tussauds of retail. Western stores are lovingly copied but not exact clones: Cutting-edge Paris boutique L'Eclaireur is here; Comme des Garcons brought 10 Corso Como from Milan and Dover Street Market from London, and it partnered with Colette on a guerrilla-style store open only for a few months several years ago.

Why the endless paying of homage? In Japan, shopping, it seems, is not merely about acquisition but is inextricably linked with the authentic store experience itself. (An experience infinitely improved if you can walk out with an inexpensive souvenir of your visit. Kirna Zabete will have a doll; other stores offer everything from matchbooks to-strange but true-specially printed toilet paper.) And in a culture where new stores appear superfast, wholesale importation allows for a constant influx of the fresh and the novel. One other thing: It's quite possible to be considered small back home yet big in ...