In late March, the team is busy preparing for the official opening of the hotel, which is set across four floors. Soho House Tokyo’s headquarters, on a busy street in the Aoyama neighbourhood, is a hum of activity. Artwork is being installed, furniture is being moved in. The lobby vending machines—“a big part of Japanese culture”, notes Tom Russell, chief membership officer at Soho House—are still empty, waiting patiently to be filled with Japanese snacks. Although the design is maximalist Soho House through and through, there are plenty of details drawn from its location. Cushions have been fashioned from recycled kimono fabric. Minibars feature matcha Kit-Kats and bottles of local Wagyumafia beer. Onitsuka Tiger designed the staff uniforms: slouchy T-shirts in thick white cotton and dark Japanese denim jeans and aprons. The deep brown walls in the main bar were inspired by the tobacco-stained wood interiors of a traditional kissaten—a Japanese tea room.
“We don’t open Soho House for expats,” says Russell, seated inside the cabaret room on one of the low-slung, moss-green velvet lounges. “Soho House, first and foremost, is a home away from home. It is a community for like-minded creatives.” For Russell, who is responsible for nurturing Soho House’s unique communities in more than 80 destinations around the world, as far-flung as Mumbai, Milan and Mexico City, building a social network always begins on a small scale. “We start with that first person,” Russell says, “someone who we think would be great for membership, who might already have some experience of community-building in a city.” Beyond that comes the membership committee, whose role it is to ensure diversity in gender, ethnicity, industry and age. Russell calls out age specifically, pointing to the value for, say, a young filmmaker to have a space to connect with an established director in their field. “You’re surrounded by people you might learn something from,” he says. “What you want is to walk into a room where there’s vibrancy, where there’s energy.”