Uniqlo’s UT shop becoming…a Uniqlo?

Written by: Michael Keferl on September 16, 2007 at 5:42 am | In 03 Fashion & Lifestyle Trends |

For a guy like me who wears jeans and t-shirts almost everywhere, having a broad selection is a necessity. Being past the “ironic t-shirt” phase of my geek life, Japanese clothes brand Uniqlo has been a trusty source of decent shirts that don’t cost more than twelve bucks.

Three years ago, getting a Uniqlo t-shirt meant getting the same Andy Warhol banana shirt as everyone else, but their foray into limited editions made them into a relatively cool brand. The debut of the the UT shop in Harajuku sealed the deal.

The UT shop’s attraction was that it was full of shirts, and only shirts. Lots of them, and with a cool touchscreen menu to find them in their plastic tubes. Now, the UT store is making the next logical step and including jeans and jackets to go with the shirts. A smart move perhaps, but that opens up a question: Why stop there?

Don’t people need socks too? And belts for the jeans? Underwear? The UT shop may be slowly moving from t-shirts-only to being a hip Uniqlo, and possibly pushing the brand in two directions: Hip stores for jeans and t-shirts, and relatively conservative stores for everything else. It’s hard to fill three floors with only t-shirts, so this may be the natural progression, but the presence of anything besides t-shirts completely changes the atmosphere.

There certainly seems to be less customers these days at UT, so the novelty may have already worn off. In addition, an increasingly eco-conscious Japanese society may not be too comfortable getting each t-shirt in a thick plastic container. Perhaps they could work on a similar concept, but on a paper-bag model and using “green” materials and design?