“Inside Uniqlo’s Quest for Global Dominance”:
“Uniqlo is kind of like Everlane without the moral superiority and H&M without the ickiness.”
An inadvertent moment of unibare—a Japanese word for the moment when someone realizes you’re wearing Uniqlo and not a more expensive brand.
Uniqlo is the universal donor of fashion, intended to go with any life style or aesthetic.
What was clear is that Uniqlo conceives of itself as a distribution system for utopian values, replete with mantras and koans, as much as a clothing company.
[The LifeWear messaging for Uniqlo] was deliberately enigmatic, saying that he wanted customers to “stop a moment and engage with language.”
Yanai has likened Uniqlo to K-pop, an industry that is oriented toward “what will be popular worldwide, rather than focussing on uniquely Korean characteristics.”
Under normal circumstances, the Uniqlo shopper should walk into a store and feel a sense of overwhelming abundance. Such is the logic behind Uniqlo’s power walls of thousands of sweaters on shelves that reach so high you fear that they might bust right through the ceiling, like Willy Wonka’s elevator. The display is arranged according to a precise formula, with sizes increasing from floor to ceiling, and colors darkening from left to right, as well as from the entrance to the back of the store.
Each pile is assessed for tidiness multiple times a day, using a five-rank grading system. A “B” grade might mean that a green blouse has found its way into a blue stack, while “D” is reserved for serious cases like a completely empty stack, or items that have fallen on the ground. Like IKEA, which intentionally musses and jumbles its displays, Uniqlo believes that volume is the catalyst of consumer desire. Conway explained, “We want everything to appear fully stocked all the time.”
Apparently, one of Yanai’s inspirations for this hands-off style of service was a visit that he made to a university co-op during a trip to the U.S.; Uniqlo now trains employees to sell clothes like they are selling books, letting customers browse freely.
This strategy gives customers “a chance to say, ‘I don’t need a basket, but I need help with a sweater.’ It’s an indirect way to initiate communication—low pressure, because you’re offered something specific versus asking, ‘Can I help you?’ ”
Uniqlo finishes every zipper track with a small piece of fabric known as a “garage.” It keeps gunk out of the device and protects against abrasion. Other fixes are invisible.
But much of what Fast Retailing says about its deep commitment to creating timeless clothes is undercut by the fact that it also owns GU, a lower-priced sister brand. Pronounced “jee-you,” GU offers “trend-driven styles” and “rapid turnaround times from design to retail”—with, presumably, rapid turnaround times from retail to landfill as well. And the scale of Uniqlo’s operations, not to mention its quest for endless expansion, makes real sustainability an impossibility.