Sign up for our newsletters
Receive the latest in Footwear, Fashion, Music and Creativity in our newsletters.
You have successfully signed up.
Uniqlo
Uniqlo is a major casualwear producer and retailer, wholly owned by parent company Fast Retailing. The brand has its beginnings as a tailor shop in Ube, Japan known as Ogori Shoji, opened in March 1949. Currently, Uniqlo has 1,400 stores in 16 markets worldwide and boasts collaborations with the likes of Jil Sander and Pharrell Williams, as well as NIGO as its Uniqlo UT creative director.
2016
Christophe Lemaire joins Uniqlo as Creative Director of the Uniqlo U collection
2014
April - Collaborated with Pharrell Williams on a capsule collection entitled “i am OTHER”
2013
Streetwear mogul NIGO is appointed Creative Director of UT, Uniqlo’s t-shirt division
2012
May - Tennis player Novak Djokovic beings endorsing for Uniqlo
2009
German fashion designer Jil Sander joins Uniqlo as Creative Director
2007
April - Uniqlo sets a global sales goal of $10 billion
2006
Sales hit $4 billion
1998
November - Uniqlo opens their first urban Uniqlo store in Tokyo’s trendy Harajuku district, and outlets soon spread to major cities throughout Japan
1997
Fast Retailing adopts 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
1991
The name of the company is changed from "Ogori Shōji" to "Fast Retailing"
1988
During administration work between Hong Kong in relation to the brand, staff in charge of registration misreads the "C" as "Q", and that is how the brand name is born
1984
May - Ogori Shōji opens a unisex casual wear store in Fukuro-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima under the name "Unique Clothing Warehouse"
1949
March - A Yamaguchi-based company, Ogori Shōji (which, until then, has been operating men's clothing shops called "Men's Shop OS") is operating in Ube, Yamaguchi
