Japan’s Uniqlo to set up shop

Blair Speedy
October 01, 2013
The Australian

JAPANESE fashion giant Uniqlo is the latest international retailer to set up shop in Australia, with plans to have multiple stores in Sydney and Melbourne by 2015. Uniqlo Australia chief executive Shoichi Miyasaka said Uniqlo wanted to open “as many stores as possible”, once it had established a beachhead in the country with its first store opening early next year in Melbourne’s Emporium shopping centre in the city’s central Lonsdale Street.”The Australian market is quite a big one for us, it’s important both in terms of size and quality,” Mr Miyasaka said.”For the next four or five years we expect to see our business grow in Australia.”Mr Miyasaka said the company aimed to open several stores in Melbourne and Sydney during the next two years, with other capitals including Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth likely to be added later. “Our way of expanding is pretty simple: we try to create multiple stores in the most important markets to brand ourselves,” he said.Melbourne had been chosen as the site of the first store for its reputation as a fashion mecca.”The city is a great centre of style and we hope to make Uniqlo an essential stop for fashion-conscious Melbourne shoppers looking for high quality, affordable clothes,” Mr Miyasaka said.The store will be spread across four floors and include men’s, women’s children’s and baby clothes.Recognising that the average Australian was somewhat fuller-figured than their Japanese customers, Mr Miyasaka said Uniqlo had a different range of sizes to suit local body shapes.”We already do business in the US and Europe, as well as Russia, so we have the different sizes, both larger and smaller, so we’re prepared,” he said.Uniqlo is the latest in a series of major international fashion retailers to enter the Australian market, with Spanish fast-fashion group Zara, British competitor Topshop and US chain Gap all opening stores here in the past three years.Swedish fashion retailer H&M confirmed last month that it would open its first Australian store next March, in Melbourne’s GPO Building.Mr Mr Miyasaka described Uniqlo as casualwear. Unlike Zara, which can have its version of high-end fashions on the rack within weeks of their first appearing on the catwalks of Milan, Uniqlo spends a full year taking products from concept to production and sale.”Our motto is ‘made for all’, which means that we want to sell to as many customers as possible regardless of their sex or age. We’re basic fashion apparel,” he said.”We don’t like the word ‘cheap,’ but we always try to be affordable, that’s one of the values we can offer.”Uniqlo is owned by Japanese group Fast Retailing, the world’s fourth largest clothing retailer, which also owns the Comptoir des Cotonniers, GU, Helmut Lang, J Brand, Princesse tam.tam and Theory brands.Uniqlo has more than 1200 stores in 14 markets including Japan, China, Britain and the US.

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