In The Four Decades Of Bringing Japanese Clothing Culture To The World, UNIQLO Has Never Strayed Too Far From The Fundamentals

There’s a delightfully unexpected story behind UNIQLO’s iconic name. It was born from a little error. “When we were registering our trade name, it was going to be ‘UNICLO’ derived from Unique Clothing Warehouse until a clerical error made it ‘UNIQLO’ instead,” confesses Mr. Tadashi Yanai, the founder and president of Fast Retailing, UNIQLO’s parent company. He found the new moniker more compelling and adopted it instantaneously.

The brand’s design DNA, which has captured the imaginations of textile scientists and designers alike, is based on simple ideologies stemming from age-old Japanese culture.

Their LifeWear philosophy serves as an antidote to fashion, making clothing that promises to last and encourages building a sustainable wardrobe. “LifeWear is more than just clothing; it’s a way of living and embodies the Japanese value of simplicity, quality, and longevity,” expresses Mr. Yanai. In their body of work spanning four decades, the team has developed a thick dossier of intriguing research that remains a signature of the brand’s cultural identity. This dedication to craft and technology demonstrates UNIQLO’s penchant for creating mindful clothing that simplifies life.

Most importantly, its unique partnership with Toray Industries has aided the brand’s growth in innovation and technology. “Toray is fundamental to our HEATTECH success. While we don’t own the manufacturing, our joint investment in research, customer insights, and in-store testing ensures that we’re at the forefront of thermal technology,” confesses UNIQLO’s R&D head, Mr Yuki Katsuta. With the launch of HEATTECH, you’ll hardly find someone dreaming of snow without their UNIQLO thermals. Meanwhile, in the tropics, AIRism t-shirts have become the ultimate passport to all-day freshness. The ubiquitousness of the brand, in part, lies in the original opus of celebrating individuality and culture. UNIQLO has its own state of mind, a thought process that goes beyond fleeting trends and into a space of utility, comfort, and minimalism.

The brand’s cornerstone is empowering individuals to express their unique style through clothing, and Mr. Yanai has an uncanny ability to spot that out. With 40 years at the helm, he has crafted a formula that he believes will keep his legacy relevant: make comfort clothing, encourage design thinking, understand the needs of the consumer, and innovate. Unlike his European and American counterparts, who swathe their brands with a spray of ostentatious excess, Mr. Yanai focuses on bringing out one’s individual style rather than chasing fashion fads. Catering to such a diverse crowd is a balancing act. Yet, there’s a code of universal appeal, delivering quality that resonates with people from all walks of life.

In July 2018, UNIQLO signed tennis champion Roger Federer as their global ambassador, adding other sports stars like Adam Scott, Ayumu Hirano, and Gordon Reid to its growing talent pool. They view collaborations not as transactions but as creative partnerships, revealing a new perspective that’s deeply ingrained in the country’s subculture. In 2017, UNIQLO signed JW Anderson to create a collection that brought British design sensibilities to Japanese functionality—a masterstroke that reinvented classics like the trench coat, quilted jacket, and broadcloth shirt.

Sustainability has always been at the forefront of this Japanese fashion powerhouse, with a core philosophy centred around creating clothing built to last. RE.UNIQLO, embodying the Japanese art of Sashiko sewing or mending old clothes, is what Mr. Yanai considers a true sustainability model— extending a garment’s lifespan rather than fuelling the fast fashion frenzy.

Mr. Yanai launched his brand in 1984. To hear the man himself tell the story—he was hardly interested in school or college and honed most of his skills as a business leader on the job —feels rather inspiring. “I thought I could potentially reach phenomenal success, you know,” he recalls. In the decades since, his confidence in that early gut feeling has only burgeoned.

Relationships are important to this 75-year-old Japanese billionaire, and perhaps none more so than the one he shares with his customers. In another interview, Mr. Yuki Katsuta discusses how UNIQLO’s in-house customer centre helps them stay ahead of the curve. “Ultimately, our goal is direct, open communication with our customers. I use it every day, and we’ve found it’s a goldmine for valuable insights that drive improvement,” he confesses. From the moment its doors first opened in 1984, Mr. Yanai welcomed his customers with snacks—a humble gesture that resonates with the brand’s core values. Even today, the ethos hasn’t wavered, and countless UNIQLO products bear the imprint of customer desires and feedback that fuel their success.

As he dissects this core philosophy, the vision from four decades ago about wanting to create highquality products at accessible price points is almost identical to what the brand offers to the world now. Today, on the 40th anniversary and their five-year milestone in India, the UNIQLO empire towers over the global fashion landscape with a formidable network of over 2500 stores. Their first store in Delhi, India, still stands tall in pride of their gleaming legacy. While the journey has been remarkable, the man behind the legacy attributes a significant portion of his success to learning from failures. “Success wasn’t a straight line for me; it was more like two steps forward and one step back.