The importer that brought Dolce & Gabbana to Japan lost both its leaders in two years

Misaki Shoji built its business over nearly six decades importing and wholesaling European luxury brands into Japan, including the leather goods house GHERARDINI, cashmere label MALO, and CIVIDINI. Its signature achievement was bringing Dolce & Gabbana into the Japanese market in 1996 through a tie-up with the then-young Italian house.

The company's leadership was hit twice in quick succession: its sitting president died suddenly in 2015, and the company's founder died in 2017. Sales had already been declining, falling from ¥5.961 billion in the fiscal year ending February 2012 to roughly half that a decade later.

COVID-19 struck in February 2020 just as the leadership transition was still unsettled, cutting off the in-person retail and department store sales channels that luxury imports depended on. A weak yen that persisted through the pandemic and after made imported European goods progressively more expensive to bring in, squeezing margins on a business that could not pass the full cost increase on to price-sensitive Japanese buyers.

By the fiscal year ending February 2022, sales had fallen to ¥3.11 billion against heavy losses. On August 1, 2022, Misaki Shoji filed for civil rehabilitation with the Osaka District Court, reporting total liabilities of approximately ¥4.663 billion — a company that had introduced one of fashion's biggest names to Japan unable to survive the combination of a leadership vacuum, a pandemic, and currency risk it had no way to hedge.