Uniqlo, the Japanese retailer of affordable casual clothing, covets the No. 1 place in the apparel world. That quest propels its first West Coast outpost, an eye-poppingly trendy store near the Powell Street cable car turnaround in San Francisco, which opens Friday and will employ 500 people.
"We chose San Francisco because it's a hotbed of global technological innovation," said Yasunobu Kyogoku, Uniqlo U.S. chief operating officer.
With its illuminated rainbow staircase, glass-sheathed roof-to-basement skylight, 91 rotating mannequins and 77 LCD screens, the new store is a symphony of tech-fueled slick marketing.
Its most cutting-edge touch: The "Magic Mirror," a virtual dressing room on a 60-inch digital monitor. A customer tries on, say, the Ultra Light Down Jacket ("It weighs less than an egg," Kyogoku said) in hot pink. Select other colors on a touch screen and an instant video feed shows the customer wearing the item in purple or green or tan.
"You can share it with your friends on Facebook or Twitter," Kyogoku said.
Standing amid the stacks of brightly hued cashmere, fleece and denim, he thrust his hand into the sleeve of a black-and-white polka-dot shirt made from proprietary Heattech heat-retaining synthetic fabric.
"You begin to feel it getting warm after just a few moments," he said. "We sold 130 million Heattech pieces last year."
That kind of volume has boosted Uniqlo - a mash-up of "Unique Clothing Co." - to the No. 4 specialty clothing spot worldwide, after Zara, H&M and Gap.
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| This Down-Feathered Jacket is to weigh less than an egg |
With 1,132 stores in 13 countries, its annual revenue is $10.6 billion.
But parent company Fast Retailing sees that as just a way station on the road to the top spot. It aspires to $50 billion in global sales by 2020, a fifth of it from North America.
CEO Tadashi Yanai, 63 - the richest man in Japan, with a net worth pegged by Forbes at $10 billion - grew the company from a sleepy clothing chain started by his father.
Dressed in a sober black suit and tie, he readily unbuttoned his dress shirt during an interview in his Four Seasons hotel room to show that he sported Uniqlo undergarments made from an engineered fabric called Silky Dry - the spring/summer version of Heattech.
"It doesn't feel like I'm wearing underwear," he said. "These pieces are very comfortable."
Personal choice
He's planting his West Coast flag in San Francisco for a personal reason, he said.
"Forty-five years ago, when I was 18, I came to San Francisco by boat and took two weeks to get here," he said. "I had a great impression. I think San Francisco is the welcoming gate for people from Asia."
Next up: Los Angeles and Seattle, he said, then Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta.
Achieving world domination in apparel would involve leapfrogging Gap, the San Francisco retailer to which Uniqlo is often compared.
It's no accident that Uniqlo's 111 Powell St. store is within shouting distance of the Gap's hometown flagship store, as well as H&M and Forever 21.
"We expect to be the largest selling store on the street," Kyogoku said. But, he added, "It's synergistic to have a critical mass of global brands here."
Yanai said he has great respect for Gap. Mickey Drexler, formerly Gap CEO and now J. Crew CEO, is among his business heroes, along with Steve Jobs, Sam Walton and Les Wexner, CEO of Limited Brands.
"We compete with other retailers for customers every day," Gap spokeswoman Edie Kissko said, noting that Gap has been in Japan for 15 years and its value brand Old Navy opened in Tokyo this summer. "No competitor is more special or more challenging than another. We welcome Uniqlo to San Francisco."
Uniqlo is already ubiquitous in Japan - where some disparage it as "unibore" - so growth must come internationally.
Uniqlo has an aggressive plan to open 200 to 300 stores worldwide every year; 20 to 30 of them in the United States. Right now, besides the Powell Street location, it has three New York City stores and just opened a mega-store in a New Jersey mall.
To Check out their fashions Jump to their website:http://www.uniqlo.com/us/
To Check out their fashions Jump to their website:http://www.uniqlo.com/us/
