Bijo

Bijo is a Paris-based concept and retail business devoted to Japanese beauty and well-being, founded by the Tokyo-born journalist Keiko Suyama. Styled by the company as "Bijo;", the name is an acronym for "Beauty Innovative Japanese Originality". Most of what Bijo does is curation: it selects Japanese skincare, haircare, beauty devices and lifestyle brands and presents them to a European public, first through seasonal pop-up stores and later through an online shop and permanent counters in Paris. Alongside this multi-brand selection it sells a small own-label line, Bijo; Paris, made up of beauty tools, skincare accessories and well-being objects rather than formulated cosmetics.

The company dates its founding to 2015 [2], while its own 2024 retrospective places the start of Bijo at a pop-up store in November 2016 [6]. Bijo remains active: in 2026 it ran a Japanese beauty bar of nearly 100 square metres at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche during the department store's SUPER JAPON exhibition [5].

Bijo's founder is Keiko Suyama, who is named in that role both on the company's website [7] and by the Paris magazine Fresh Mag Paris [9]. A 2025 profile in LH à Paris describes her as a Japanese journalist born in Tokyo who has lived in Paris for more than 20 years, and says she created Bijo to bring Japanese beauty brands to Europe [10]. In an interview with the Japanese culture magazine TOKION, Suyama is described as holding an MBA in brand management from the Institut Français de la Mode and as having set up a consulting company, Dessigne, in 2010 [8]. TOKION adds that her clients have included around 150 stores in 20 countries, among them Harrods, Le Bon Marché, the Ritz Paris and Sephora. Suyama also writes TOKION's "J-Beauty Report from Europe" column, so the magazine is not fully independent of its subject.

The company's own account of its founder is more personal than biographical. It says Suyama grew up surrounded by Japanese philosophy and aesthetics, and that travelling to discover wellness traditions around the world led her to combine holistic rituals into her own beauty and wellness lifestyle.

The founding date is not consistent across sources. Bijo's concept page states that the company was founded in 2015 and describes it as having explored beauty and wellness brands for more than ten years [2]. The company's journal retrospective, published in November 2024, instead says Bijo "began in November 2016" as a pop-up store [6], and TOKION likewise says Suyama launched the "Bijo" conceptual project in 2016 [8]. The two dates may refer to different stages, with 2015 marking the creation of the concept and 2016 its first public opening, but no source states this directly.

Bijo's first public appearance was a pop-up at Atelier Blanc Manteau in the Marais district of Paris in November 2016. According to the company, it introduced nine selected brands covering skincare, hand care, hair care, crafts and beauty accessories. The pop-up format became the company's main vehicle for the next few years.

In April 2017 Bijo moved to the Japan Store Isetan Mitsukoshi, part of the Paris House of Culture of Japan, with fourteen brands gathered under the theme "Uruwashi Beauty", a Japanese expression the company links to graceful aesthetics. Its first pop-up at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche followed in August 2019, accompanied by summer workshops on subjects such as anti-ageing massage and the appreciation of incense. Bijo returned to the department store in the following years.

The online shop launched in November 2019. During the pandemic year of 2020 the company held wellness-themed pop-ups, and in October 2020 it took the format abroad for the first time, to the Pantechnicon in London. A holiday pop-up that December added a furoshiki wrapping bar, using the traditional Japanese cloth for gift wrapping. The "Natsuyasumi" edition in July and August 2021, named after the Japanese word for summer holidays, featured more than thirty brands.

The shift from temporary to permanent retail came in 2022. In January, Bijo installed itself permanently in Le Bon Marché's Loft de la Beauté, with a rotating selection built around layering products and stimulating the facial muscles. In May 2022 Fresh Mag Paris reported that Bijo was established at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche with about twenty Japanese brands, naming Ya-Man among them [9].

On 4 November 2022, Suyama opened Biën; (Biën), a concept store in Paris's 6th arrondissement near the Odéon Theatre, co-founded with the fashion designer Sadaharu Hoshino [6]. TOKION explains that the name combines the Japanese "bi" (beauty) with "ën", a sound written with characters meaning link, circle or space. The store is organised around a "beauty, clothing, food and housing" idea, with workshops in self-massage, furoshiki wrapping and herbal medicine, and a counter made from Japanese cypress. Bijo's journal says that bar was developed with Ryuichi Sakamoto's More Trees organisation. Hoshino is documented as a co-founder of Biën rather than of Bijo itself.

In July 2023 the company opened the Bijo; Beauty Studio within Le Bon Marché, a space inspired by Japanese tea salons, offering services organised around what it calls the "Five Senses of Japan". It has since added a Japanese Beauty Market at La Samaritaine, which it presents as a new space for popular Japanese brands with a mask bar.

Bijo frames its work around the Japanese character 美 (bi), meaning beauty. The company says its mission is to introduce the Japanese well-being lifestyle to the European public through that concept [2], which it treats as a holistic idea: beauty brought out from within as well as shown on the surface. In its own words, this takes in inner beauty, organic beauty, traditional skincare, healthy food, nail art, technology-based beauty accessories and traditional handcrafted tools. Its stated goal is to help customers "get the Japanese Glow".

The company also positions itself as a discoverer of lesser-known names. It argues that many Japanese beauty brands are unknown outside Japan, and says each brand it carries is selected for its effectiveness and design. Its range is broad, covering face, hair, body and hand care, makeup tools, incense, tea and Japanese textiles. Brands it has featured include Ya-Man, COREFiT, Ruhaku, Decorté and Curél. The LH à Paris profile ties this approach to principles drawn from oriental medicine that connect inner and outer beauty.

The company's activity is closely associated with J-beauty, the shorthand for Japanese beauty products and routines. Much of its programme is hands-on: demonstrations of facial devices, massage and face-yoga sessions, and workshops on Japanese rituals at its Paris locations.

Bijo's own label, Bijo; Paris, is a small line of tools and accessories rather than skincare formulas. The company describes these "original creations" as inspired by Japanese rituals and customs, combining "artisanal tradition, modern efficiency and minimalist aesthetics", and says each item is tested and validated by its team in Paris [3].

The line includes facial tape, gua sha stones (flat stones used for facial massage) in heart and mushroom shapes, terahertz gua sha tools, the TAWASHI body brush, a long body-cleansing brush, a silk night mask, a flaxseed heat bag, a tongue scraper and purifying charcoal sticks. It also extends into food and gifting, with a Kakegawa matcha, matcha shakers, pouches and furoshiki for wrapping. One set pairs the face tape with the French book "Ma Révolution Beauté du Visage". No third-party certifications are documented for the line.

Coverage of Bijo has come mainly from Paris and Japanese culture media rather than major beauty titles. Fresh Mag Paris reported on its arrival at Le Bon Marché in 2022, TOKION covered the opening of Biën in early 2023, and LH à Paris profiled Keiko Suyama in its "Chroniques Parisiennes" series in April 2025. No awards are documented.

Bijo is active. Its physical points of sale are in Paris: the Biën concept store in the 6th arrondissement, which the company also calls the Bijo; Lab, the Japanese Beauty Bar at Le Bon Marché Rive Gauche, and the Japanese Beauty Market at La Samaritaine. It also sells online. From 29 August to 18 October 2026 it ran the Bijo; Bar à Beauté Japonais in the L'EXPO space of Le Bon Marché during SUPER JAPON, with demonstrations, treatments and masterclasses scheduled for 7 and 17 October 2026 [5]. No parent company is documented.