Glass is a material modern day designers love to work with.

So when the store's product is glass, too, the possibilities are endless.

Swarovski's Tokyo showcase on the prime Ginza shopping strip is not the newest of the retailers to make our top 20 rankings this year - but in design terms it is so striking, it's still unrivalled - except, perhaps, by a newly opened sister concept store in New York.

The Ginza flagship was one of the first Swarovski stores worldwide to break out of the brick-red coloured hackles for which the Austrian crystal manufacturer has become so widely known world wide.

Like any specialty retailer in Japan, floorspace is at a premium. Where flagship stores in Europe or the US may occupy large footprints soaking up shoppers in wide open indoor showrooms, Tokyo flagships face the challenge of making the most of small footprints with eye-catching designs, a feeling of interior spaciousness created at the expense of having broad product ranges on display.

Swarovski's store creates an impression of space thanks to almost every single fixture, material or fitting in the store comprising glass or painted white. From the glass 'precipitation' descending before the front windows, to the crushed glass on parts of the floor where you're not supposed to tread, there's no escaping that this store is all about glass. Or rather crystal if we're being pedantic, as we should be... (this is Tokyo after all).

There are few products on display - and those that are fall into the showpiece category (but not necessarily price bracket). In fact one gets the impression there's less on show here than in a typical Australian shopping mall store.
The photos do this store more justice than words. Here's a store where the designers have taken their cue from the very core of its product - and come up with something 'truly aglazing'!