Bode is setting down roots in Asia.

On Friday, the New York-based brand will open a store in Yoyogi-Uehara, Tokyo, its first on that continent.

Emily Adams Bode Aujla, founder and designer, said the brand has been carried in the region for nearly a decade and today, its collection is sold in 20 high-end stores in the Asia-Pacific region including eight in Japan, with Dover Street Market and Joyce among them. But this marks the first that will be owned and operated by the company.

“It’s common in Asia to partner with a wholesale account to open stores, but we wanted to do it on our own,” she told WWD. “We love retail. I grew up working retail before I started Bode and because we’re so passionate, we felt we could do it on our own.”

This marks the fifth store for the company. There are two in New York, one in Los Angeles and one in Paris.

And Bode Aujla is not concerned at the long distance between her headquarters and Tokyo. “We have an amazing team there,” she said. “And we just opened the Paris store so we know we have the experience it takes operationally to run a store in a different country.”

The 2,150-square-foot Tokyo store is on the ground floor of an apartment building in a residential neighborhood, similar to the locations of the other units.

“It took so much time to find the perfect space,” Bode Aujla said. “We walked around the city looking for a similar experience as in New York, L.A. and Paris.”

Green River Project LLC, or GRPLLC, a company cofounded by the designer’s husband, designed the Bode Tokyo store, which was inspired by the work of Czech-American architect Antonin Raymond, who built some of the most striking institutional buildings in Tokyo.

For furniture, objects, and decoration, GRPLLC selected a range of works including a reproduction by Matt Kenny of a painting that hung in the Oval Office during the John F. Kennedy administration. The dressing room features an Egyptian landscape painting by Kurt Beers, flanked by two Iranian brass vases filled with dried hydrangeas from Bode Aujla’s Connecticut garden. The floor is covered with custom wool carpeting similar to that found in office lobbies and the dressing rooms sport reclaimed wood doors with green glass windows, sourced from Hayama, Kanagawa.

At the center of the space stands an American black walnut dining table with matching chairs upon which sits a 1920s French ceramic vase by Edmond Lachenal. There is a desk with an Arts and Crafts-era bronze envelope holder and inkwell, and a desk lamp from Bode Aujla’s home. Toward the checkout is a room made entirely from reclaimed cypress wood that was built by hand using historical techniques.

The Tokyo store will stock the full Bode men’s and women’s collections along with one-of-a-kind pieces made from vintage and antique textiles. Among the store’s exclusive offerings are bras and pillows sewn from midcentury National Parks souvenir pillowcases, appliquéd T-shirts and other keepsakes.

Bode Aujla said she’s learned a lot about her customer since opening her stores. In L.A., for example, top sellers include welding and fringe jackets and other outerwear, which she said is “counterintuitive” to what she had expected.

There may be surprises in Tokyo as well. “I assume we’ll learn a lot,” she said. “It’s important to have product exclusive to that market such as souvenir scarves, drop-cloth outerwear and trousers and some men’s and women’s cut-and-sewn Ts. We saw that in Paris: people really want souvenirs from us.”

Bode Aujla said she will continue to seek other locations in Asia and Europe and is scouting sites in Kyoto and Seoul as well as London as she focuses more heavily on the direct-to-consumer channel. In the U.S., Miami, several cities in Texas and the Hamptons are also possible locations for future stores, she said.

“Brick-and-mortar allows you to get the full Bode experience,” she said. “Opening stores is more important than runway shows.”

And with several of her wholesale accounts such as Bergdorf Goodman and Ssense facing financial challenges, it makes even more sense for her to turn her attention to her own stores.

“Our retail is working so we’re going to be pushing that forward,” she said. “But we have to fall in love with a space.”