TOKYO — If you haven’t yet heard of Uniqlo, chances are you will soon.
Often called the Gap of Japan, the wildly popular casual apparel chain is turning its ambitions overseas — and upmarket. Uniqlo’s parent company, Fast Retailing, is seeking to buy luxury chain Barneys New York for $900 million.
Back home, the down-to-earth Uniqlo brand has soared to success partly because of Japan’s decade-long economic downturn that ended in early 1990s. By focusing on good-quality basics at ultra-low prices, Uniqlo weathered the slump while introducing Japan’s notoriously finicky shoppers to the world of bargains.
Now, Fast Retailing wants to woo overseas converts by going head-to-head with mainstays including the Gap Inc. and Limited Brands. It is opening Uniqlo outlets across Asia and Europe and just christened a mammoth flagship store in Manhattan’s trendy SoHo district. Japan has long been famed for its auto and electronics exports, but this is a rare case of a Japanese retailer making it big abroad.
Analysts say Fast Retailing Co. and Uniqlo need to expand overseas to keep profits climbing because the domestic market is saturated. The question is whether it will have any better luck penetrating markets in America or Europe, where homegrown brands already dominate. The bid for Barneys has been billed as both branching into new geographic territory and balancing the company’s offerings with high-margin luxury apparel.
Uniqlo’s minimalist stores brim with pared-down must-haves — like denim pants, polo shirts, cotton socks and casual blazers — stocked in a rainbow of different colors. Despite the chain’s name, a melding of “unique clothes,” its lineup is utilitarian, above all.
Then there are the prices: Polo shirts for $16, four-pair sets of cotton dress socks for $8.35, jeans at $33.67, wool sweaters for $16.80. And that’s before the clearance sales.
“As a poor student, I have to say thanks,” Satoru Takano, 20, said after window-shopping at Uniqlo’s gleaming five-story outlet in Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza shopping district. “Basically all these clothes are from Uniqlo,” he said with a wave over his polo shirt and twill pants.
Indeed, Uniqlo’s rise reflects a dramatic change in Japanese attitudes about shopping.
Gone are the bubble days of the booming 1980s-90s, when designer names and stratospheric price tags ruled. Japanese shoppers began watching their pocketbooks, $1 stores proliferated, and the ability to snag good buys gained unheard-of esteem from one’s peers.
Uniqlo, which opened its first store, in Hiroshima, in 1984, finally found its niche.
Today, it has nearly 750 stores in Japan, which together account for about 82 percent of Fast Retailing’s annual net sales of $3.75 billion. It has another 41 stores overseas, including New York, Shanghai, Britain, Hong Kong and South Korea.
Fast Retailing, which has its headquarters in Yamaguchi, is not banking on Uniqlo alone.
It recently took over the Tokyo-based women’s apparel chain Cabin Co., adding it to businesses like its lingerie brand Princesse Tam.Tam, its French subsidiary Comptoir Des Cotonniers and a shoe outlet known as Onezone.
