The chairman of Japan’s biggest clothes retailer probablynever wants to see another fleece again. After casual clotheschain Uniqlo sold more than 2.6million of the warm butubiquitous jerkins in one year, Tadashi Yanaii’s best-sellingitem became a victim of its own success and symbol of thecompany’s rise then demise both in Japan and famously inthe uk. A 26-shop expansion venture there in the earlynoughties led to the company’s near collapse.Image was a big part of the problem. Originally a pile

’em high, sell ’em cheap c&a of the East, a resurgent Uniqlohas now remade itself as a more upmarket, hip, cashmere-toting, internationally-minded store while tapping Japan’snewly acquired cool and some of its edgiest creatives to do it.Renewed success has been the result. Following the

reinstatement of Yanaii as chairman (he resigned after the ukfailure) and a shift in Uniqlo’s marketing focus, the brand’ssales have soared oncemore. Buoyed by his phoenix-like riseat home, Yanaii is now back on trackwith his new look

Uniqlo and has grand plans tomake it a truly global brand.Dozens of stores are set to open worldwide, while Yanaii

promises he will make Uniqlo the world’s number oneapparel retailer by 2010. This time he, says, there will be nomistakes. Though there were plenty.“Uniqlo failed to builda uk business in part because of serious cultural differences,but equally because it badly misjudged the market,”saysJapan retail consultant Michael Causton.To help overcome previous failings in his marketing

strategy Yanaii was advised to hire one of Japan’s top creativedirector talents, Kashiwa Sato, to help him rebrand andreposition the label, though initially he says he was deadagainst the idea.“When a mutual acquaintance told me that I should

meet withMr Sato, I was rather reluctant; wary of meetingwith a ‘creative’. Those who call themselves creatives mayor may not always be creative. There are so many self-proclaimed ‘creatives’ out there,”says Yanaii.“But I was veryimpressed when I saw a tv special about Mr. Sato. So, I setout right away to meet him.”Sato, who established his award-winning studio

Samurai in 2000, has made a name for himself as a designerand art director of some distinction. His most recenttriumph was to oversee both the product design and adcampaign for one of Japan’s now iconic mobile phones,the retro styled foma n702id.After the meeting, Yanaii hired Sato as head creative

1-3. For the UT project,Uniqlo consultant CD MarkusKiersztan invited notabledesigners, artists andmusicians to create T-shirts.The results were shot byTerry Richardson andcompiled in this book,

T-shirt Love, which wasavailable in stores.For the US and Europe, theold Uniqlo logo (4) has nowbeen replaced with thisdual-language pair (5&6).7. The impressive façade ofUniqlo’s Ginza store in Tokyo

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UniqlorebornOver-ambitiousexpansionandover-relianceononeproductnearlyruinedUniqlo,butnowtheJapaneseretailer isback instyle, asMichaelFitzpatrickreports

director for the Uniqlo brand. Immediately the directorset about picking a team to overhaul the tired-lookingUniqlo dna.Tokyo-based web designer Yugo Nakamura, noted

for the wit and complexity of the interactive animationshe creates for his Flash-driven sites, was hired to bringfresh ideas to Uniqlo’s websites and other digital content.Markus Kiersztan, of mp creative in NewYork was alsohired (on the recommendation of Yanaii’s friend,Wieden +Kennedy creative director John Jay), as consulting creativedirector, with a remit to develop marketing and brandstrategy. Together, Uniqlo’s team created new shopinteriors, a new global logo, a new ad campaign anddesigned a new flagship store for NewYork that would bea blueprint for subsequent outlets. A widely acclaimedintegrated marketing campaign, and new fully e-commerce-enabled websites spread the word.It seems to be working. Uniqlo has now become

symbolic of a new Japanese take on a global brand which,unlike the past – think of Toyota’s dreary image – is notafraid of stamping its Japanese-ness on the brand, saysTokyo-based brand consultant PatrickWilliamson.“They have done a tremendous job with their brand

identity. It’s part of their strategy of creating a verydistinctive brand image that generates some buzz. It is notonly limited to their ads and websites, either. They arebringing in rising stars of design to create limited edition �

UNIQLO: A HISTORY1984 Opens a unisex casual wearstore in Hiroshima called ‘UniqueClothing Warehouse’, latershortened to Uniqlo.1991 Ogori Shoji becomes ‘FastRetailing’.1994 Over 100 Uniqlo storesoperating throughout Japan.1997 FS adopts strategy fromAmerican clothes retailer The Gapto produce and sell their ownclothing, outsourcing manufacturingto factories using cheap labour inChina. To the recession-hitJapanese the low cost, high-qualitycasual clothes are a godsend. Theirhighly rated advertising campaignsalso push sales up.2001 With over 500 domesticstores, sales and profit reach apeak. Uniqlo decides to expandoverseas, First opening inShanghai and then initially fourshops in London.2003 After two years of poor � 7

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10-11. The brand’s US site(uniqlo.com/us/) housesYugo Nakamura’s UniqloExplorer microsite. The baseimage is transformed into amosaic of Uniqlo products.Each square gains access toa different item. Click on

one and a new mosaicof hundreds more piecesof clothing is formed.12-13. The UK site, by pod1,uniqlo.co.uk, featuringimages from the brand’scurrent People ad campaignshot by Maciek Kobielski

and art directed by MarkusKiersztan of mp creative.14-15. At Uniqlo Grid,another Nakamura creation,users can play around withthe new logo and uploadtheir own versions.uniqlo.com/grid/

16. The first ever Uniqlostore, or Unique ClothingWarehouse, as it was knownin 1984.17. The SoHo, New Yorkstore, opened last year.18. One of the new Londonflagship stores

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1-9. Devised and artdirected by MarkusKiersztan of mp creativein New York, Paper isUniqlo’s in-house bi-annualmagazine. Contributorsinclude photographersBen Pogue (4) and

William Selden (withpuppets by Gary Card, 5),illustrators Paul Davis (6)and Bernd Schifferdecker(8), and designer DamienPoulain (7, photograph byJoe Lacey)

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� T-shirt runs, and the parent company, Fast Retailing, istrying like mad to borrow equity through ballsy moves liketheir attempt to buy out Barneys NewYork.”The Barneys bid might have failed but its New York

store, opened earlier this year, has been a success. Previouslyknown for his interior work for the cult brand Bathing Ape,the hiring of Masamichi Katayama for the ny store interiorsignalled the final blowing away of the old style cobwebs.Critics of previous Uniqlo overseas stores had commentedsharply, in the past, on the blandness of their design.Withnew designers no longer afraid of flaunting Japanese designcredentials, the result in ny is one shoppers might expect toexperience in downtown Tokyo rather than SoHo.There are minimalist hints at the spareness of traditional

Japanese design, with nods towards Manga, hi-tech andindustrial chic but with some softer Japanese trad elementssuch as tatami. Directed by Sato, the look he wanted forthe store and the Uniqlo brand overall was“the ultra-contemporary cool aspect of Japan, its pop culture ratherthan something traditional and Japanesey,”he says.Katayama calls it: “beauty conscious, ultra rational

style”. Each element, from advertising to the new logo, tothe shop floor is designed to reflect this fusion and theclothes themselves.“I considered how this concept and the brand identity of

Uniqlo could be expressed as a space. Since the store has anabundance of variety of merchandise, I resorted to creating

an environment with their products with very little‘designing’of the actual space. The interior design was basedon how to enhance the merchandising,”says Katayama.Uniqlo’s American invasion is a successful blend of

Japonism with creative marketing techniques saysWilliamson.“Just a decade ago, because of trade friction,Japan was happier to disguise its Japanese-ness, nowcompanies like Uniqlo can trade on a new taste for Japanesepop culture.” The brand’s new global logo, for instance,spells out Uniqlo in Japanese ‘katakana’ script. The Japaneselogo, in Roman letters only, doesn’t have that.Sato says that transferring this look from Japan was an

important part of raising the brand abroad and a matter ofexploiting those design elements he sees as Japanese: “Theyare logical, clean, high-quality, speed, flat, graphical,” he says.Personifying this resurgence of pride in Japanese design

and craftsmanship is Uniqlo’s newwebmeister YugoNakamura.When Sato decided to rethink Uniqlo’s internetpresence and fire up a series of viral marketing campaigns,untried by big name Japanese retailers until then, he chooseNakamura to come up with websites and programmes thatwould spread the Uniqlo name worldwide.Already noted in Japan for its consistently stunning

and engaging promotional sites, perhaps Uniqlo’s biggestinternational success to date has been the ‘Uniqlock’ viraladvertising campaign.Such a campaign is a big departure for a large Japanese �

� sales in the UK, forced to close16 of its 21 stores in Britain.Profits drop sharply at home too.2004 Begins joint ventures withJapanese fashion magazines, hirescelebrities to appear incommercials. Teams up with newdesigners.2005 Overseas expansion to theUS, Hong Kong and South Korea.2006 First flagship store in SoHothe largest Uniqlo store in theworld. New fashion designers jointhe team to boost and rebirthfashion concepts cateredto the American market.2007 Profits rise. RemainingLondon outlets finally enter theblack. Series of M&As helps thestruggling company to get backon its feet. Expected to logconsolidated sales of about 535billion yen for the fiscal year, hasset a target of 1 trillion yen in salesby 2010 and has hopes to be thenumber one clothing retailerglobally in same year.

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1-4. Uniqlock is adownloadable ‘blog part’.It’s a simple clock thatanyone can place on theirblog to give the time andlocation of the blog’s writer.Each hour, it plays aspecially written chime

by DJ/producer TomoyukiTanaka, aka FantasticPlastic Machine. Nearly20,000 are in useworldwide. Uniqlo recentlyupdated the concept withthe addition of video: in thenew version, each hour is

marked by a short dancepiece performed by dancegroup, Core of Woomin, anddirected and choreographedby Yuichi Kodama andAIRMAN. uniqlo.jp/uniqlock

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concern such as Fast Retailing, which tend to take aconservative approach to marketing.The embrace of boutique agencies, such as Nakamura’s

Tha Co., which produced Uniqlock, and the use of edgyviral marketing marks a striking shift for Uniqlo. Quite agamble, in fact, say Japan retail industry insiders, for acompany that up to now sold cheap tame clothes for no-onein particular. Now, it seems, Uniqlo is determined to throwits lot in with the distinctly cool and cutting edge.Launched in June, theWorldclock section of the

imaginatively wrought interactive site will inform you thatmore than 19,000Uniqlocks have been set, and the site hasbeen viewed nearly 46million times by visitors from 204countries. Impressive for one of Japan’s behemoth’s first stabat viral marketing. The attraction? Nakamura and Sato’sexceptionally sticky blend of neat graphic tricks,performance art—dancers in Uniqlo garb moving instaccato—and the hipster sounds of Fantastic PlasticMachine’s catchy modern jazz mix. The clock can bedownloaded as a screensaver or incorporated into blogs.Priding himself on being ‘an internet craftsman’,

Uniqlock and other sites created for Uniqlo are executed inNakamura’s trademark playful but ingenious interactivestyle. This is Flash work that stands head and shouldersabove the often diabolically slow sites of others.“Since Flash4 appeared on the scene,”says Nakamura,“the rules as towhat a web page should be no longer apply.”

The Uniqlo Explorer microsite, an infinite voyage intothe company’s products, expresses the Nakamura philosophybeautifully with his usual mix of wit and invention. Theother Uniqlo sites (including the uk site, designed by pod1)maintain the same playful ingenuity that will do no harm forUniqlo’s image. Likewise the ut Project, overseen byMarkusKiersztan. Launched in April, the project will eventually seeUniqlo produce over 1000 unique styles of limited editionT-shirts by renowned artists, designers, photographers andmusicians, such as TerryRichardson, Nobuyoshi Araki, PeterSaville, and Sølve Sundsbø. Each season,Richardson willshoot musicians, artists and actors wearing the shirts, theimages appearing in the retailer’s self-promotional magazine,Paper (also designed by Kiersztan) and in a book. Kiersztanalso devises Uniqlo’s print advertising, including the currentPeople campaign.But the question is, do such activities really reflect what

Uniqlo is actually selling? Determined to put its ‘fleecepeople’ image behind it Uniqlo’s rebranding has certainlyupped its cool quotient and is bound to create interest in thenew shops it is poised to open worldwide butWilliamsonwonders if the product will nowmatch the skillfulmarketing.“They have done a tremendous job with theirbrand identity. But I still think they need a better product.I don’t see large-scale success in foreign markets for themunless they apply the same creativity to their product asthey do to their marketing.”n

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