,
Osaka as a modern architecture built on 1922 Daimaru at night Daimaru Interior Daimaru traces its history to
Dai-Monjiya, a
dry goods store in
Kyoto founded by Shimomura Hikoemon Masahiro in 1717. The name "Daimaru" was first used for a store in
Nagoya called
Daimaruya, which opened in 1728. The chain was incorporated in 1907 and reincorporated as Daimaru Dry Goods K.K. in 1920, changing its name to Daimaru in 1928. For several years in the 1960s, Daimaru was the largest retailer in Japan. In 1960, Daimaru established a
subsidiary called Peacock Sangyo. Now known as Daimaru Peacock, it operates 49
supermarkets in the
Greater Tokyo Area, 28 in the
Kansai region and 8 in the
Chūbu region.
International expansion and closures Daimaru expanded to
Malaysia 1942 opening in
Penang and later
Singapore establishing a presence in November 1983 when
Liang Court was opened. Daimaru would later close and reopen in 2003. Its opened in
Hong Kong in 1960 lasting until its exit from Hong Kong in 1998, In the late 1964, it was the first Japanese department store to open in
Thailand, under the name
Thai Daimaru. It opened its first store outside of Asia in
Melbourne, Australia in 1991 operating across six levels of the
Melbourne Central (in direct competition with
Myer and
David Jones). A second Australian store announced in 1996 opened on the
Gold Coast in 1998. Daimaru announced its departure from the Australian market after nearly a decade of low profits in September 2001 commencing closure of both stores in late 2002. In 1998, Daimaru entered into a partnership with the French
grand couturier Dominique Sirop to produce
Dominique Sirop for Daimaru, a high fashion
prêt-à-porter (ready-to-wear) label. ==Locations (Japan)==