Last Updated: 2008.08.01
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Creating Clothes with Style
To this day, there are still situations where clothes are not something we put on but something that puts us on. UNIQLO’s role is to offer clothes customers want to wear now in the way they feel comfortable. In other words, we want to keep offering clothes that all our customers feel they must have in their wardrobes.
In the jeans market, UNIQLO is becoming an established brand. Our goal is to have UNIQLO become an established presence in each apparel category. When customers think of cashmere, they think of UNIQLO, and the same for T-shirts.
I have asked our R&D staff members to develop clothing that takes account of coordination and styling. Our apparel offerings now are predominately items that look attractive when worn, rather than just being appealing when displayed in stores. I believe that, when all of our stores are able to suggest exactly the right styling, UNIQLO’s apparel will shine even brighter.
Developing Clothes through Our Global R&D
There was a time when fashion trends began with European collections originating mainly in Paris and Milan and then gradually spread to the Americas, Japan, and the rest of Asia. However, now, along with the globalization of apparel markets, fashion trends move around the world simultaneously.
At UNIQLO, we inaugurated a global R&D Center in autumn 2005 that links the key fashion cities of Tokyo, New York, Paris, and Milan. At these four fashion centers, we identify worldwide trends and latent needs, decide on season concepts, and then create designs simultaneously in each center. Selecting from these designs, we structure and arrange product lineups suited to different markets, and, beginning with the fall and winter seasons of 2006, we began to offer in earnest apparel that was created through this very global R&D.
One of the representative hit products generated by this approach is skinny jeans that closely fit the wearer’s leg line. Based on this idea, provided by our global R&D people, we went to great lengths to create the right silhouette and carefully select the best materials. These efforts were rewarded, because after these skinny jeans went on the market, UNIQLO sold more than four million pairs in fiscal 2007, and skinny jeans became associated with UNIQLO in our customers’ minds.
Recognizing UNIQLO’S Core Competency
As we worked to develop our international operations, we recognized that UNIQLO’s strengths lie in creating basic casual clothes. Along with the development of products linked to trends and latent customer needs, it is necessary each season to evolve our basic items, which are UNIQLO’s core competency. Even with standard items, we insist uncompromisingly on reviewing and evolving materials and details to breathe new life into each and every item.
In addition, to continue to grow in Japan and establish a brand that appeals to customers around the world, standard items are increasingly necessary in each category.including cut-and-sewn, outerwear, knit, and inner wear.to drive sales.
That is why developing merchandise that customers can only find at UNIQLO is important. Thus far, we have drawn on our strengths in materials to develop our fleece, “Heat-Tech”, and other original products. In the case of “Heat-Tech” inner wear, we are working with TORAY INDUSTRIES, INC., our strategic partner, and are now marketing our “Heat-Tech Moist” series, which, in addition to having high heat retention properties and stretchability, has improved moisture-retaining properties.
