INDEX: UNIQLO Retail Fixtures

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This UNIQLO Retail Fixtures index page aggregates links
to all post and photos of retail merchandising, display, and outfitting
as well as deep Background courtesy of Wikipedia.

BACKSTORY: Uniqlo Co., Ltd. (株式会社ユニクロ Kabushiki-gaisha Yunikuro) (US: /ˈjuːnikloʊ/ EW-nee-klo^[1] Japanese pronunciation: [jɯɲikɯɾo]) is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer.^{[citation needed]} The company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd. since November 2005.^{[citation needed]} The company operates in Japan and several other countries.^[2]

Since March 1949, a Yamaguchi-based company, Ogori Shōji (which, until then, had been operating men’s clothing shops called “Men’s Shop OS”) existed in Ube, Yamaguchi.^{[citation needed]}

In May 1984, they opened a unisex casual wear store in Fukuro-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima under the name “Unique Clothing Warehouse”.^{[citation needed]}Initially, from the contraction of “unique clothing”, the brand was going to register under “uni-clo”.^{[citation needed]} However, in 1988, during administration work between Hong Kong in relation to the brand, staff in charge of registration misread the “C” as “Q”, and that is how the brand name was born.^{[citation needed]} From then, Tadashi Yanai changed the store name to “uniqlo” across Japan.^[3] In September 1991, the name of the company was changed from “Ogori Shōji” to “Fast Retailing”, and by April 1994, there were over 100 Uniqlo stores operating throughout Japan.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997, Fast Retailing adopted a set of strategies from American retailer The Gap, known as “SPA” (for specialty-store/retailer of private-label apparel), meaning that they would produce their own clothing and sell it exclusively.^{[citation needed]} They engaged the retail brand consultancy, CIA, Inc. / The Brand Architect Group, to guide the company through the realization of this strategy, including consulting on merchandise, visual merchandising and display, store design and a new logo designed by Richard Seireeni and Sy Chen of The Brand Architect Group’s Los Angeles office.^{[citation needed]} Uniqlo had begun outsourcing their clothing manufacturing to factories in China where labour was cheap, a well-established corporate practice.^{[citation needed]} Japan was in the depths of a recession at the time, and the low-cost goods proved popular.^{[citation needed]} Their advertising campaigns, clothing quality and new retail layouts also proved fruitful.^[4]

In November 1998, they opened their first urban Uniqlo store in Tokyo‘s trendy Harajuku district, and outlets soon spread to major cities throughout Japan.^{[citation needed]} In 2001, sales turnover and gross profit reached a new peak, with over 500 retail stores in Japan.^{[citation needed]} When Uniqlo decided to expand overseas, it separated Uniqlo from the parent company,^[1] and established Fast Retailing (Jiangsu) Apparel Co., Ltd. in China. In 2002 their first Chinese Uniqlo outlet was opened in Shanghai along with four overseas outlets in London, England.^{[citation needed]}

2005 saw more overseas expansion, with stores opening in the United States (New York City), Hong Kong (Tsim Sha Tsui) and South Korea (Seoul), their South Korean expansion being part of a joint venture with Lotte.^{[citation needed]} As of year-end 2005, in addition to its overseas holdings, Uniqlo had around 700 stores within Japan.^{[citation needed]} By 2006 sales were $4 billion.^[1]By April 2007, the company had set a global sales goal of $10 billion and a ranking among the top five global retailers, joining what at the time was Gap, H&M, Inditex, and Limited Brands.^[1]

Fast Retailing signed a design consulting contract for Uniqlo products with fashion designer Jil Sander in March 2009.^[5]Shiatzy Chen has been approached by Uniqlo to produce a capsule collection of ready to wear pieces to launch in November 2010 while Asia’s largest Uniqlo store outside Japan opened its doors in Kuala Lumpur in the same month.^{[citation needed]} (SOURCE: Wikipedia)

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