The story this week: How a man from near Hiroshima built a clothing retailer on course to become the largest in the world - while finishing work at 4pm, botching its UK launch and getting help from Meghan Markle’s wedding dress designer
Shohei Ohtani has broken the rules of baseball. He is a brilliant batter and a brilliant pitcher, which shouldn’t be possible. He has been named the Most Valuable Player four times in the last five years in Major League Baseball and won the World Series twice in a row. Ohtani is a Japanese superstar who has transformed this quintessentially American sport.
Which makes a partnership with Uniqlo perfect. Uniqlo has just agreed a deal to give its name to the stadium of Ohtani’s team - the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This is the latest part of Uniqlo’s own plan for global domination - to be the best in the world at what it does while defying convention.
At the heart of the Uniqlo story is one man - Tadashi Yanai, the chairman, president, chief executive and founder of the modern Uniqlo. He is a 77-year-old man whose autobiography is called “One Win, Nine Losses.”
Yanai had big ambitions for Uniqlo from the start. And what is extraordinary is that this was about building a clothing retailer that does not obsess over trends or fast fashion.
While TikTok and Instagram create trends that push people towards cheap clothing from Shein and other online retailers, Uniqlo ignores them and obsesses over reliability instead - being there for its customers, whether they are children, parents or grandparents.
The UK is a key part of the story. It was London where Uniqlo first arrived outside Japan. And it was London where Yanai learned harsh lessons that have shaped the modern Uniqlo. The title of Yanai’s book tells you a lot about how he thinks - the importance of learning from mistakes. One of his biggest mistakes - which he described as “devastating” - was in the UK.
The appeal of Uniqlo is that everything seems to work. The clothes last for ages, the self-service tills are actually useful, and you can get everything you need in one place. Once you discover Uniqlo, there is no going back. Then you realise that your friends, family and colleagues feel the same - and are wearing Uniqlo too.
People in Japan, where Uniqlo is from, realised this ages ago. They even have a word for it - “unibare”. This reflects the extraordinary ubiquity of Uniqlo but also the challenges the brand faces to achieve its ultimate goal - to become the biggest clothing brand in the world.
