UNIQLO

Do you know UNIQLO? According to them, UNIQLO is a retail apparel phenomenon from Japan that has recently hit the shores in the US. According to me, well yes as a retail store, maybe it’s a phenomenon, but it does do quite well. Many of my Japan friends know UNIQLO well as the store that carries items too small for our waists and too short for our arms, being they are specifically tailored for the Japanese body type, although recently I can fit into it!

If you enter a UNIQLO in Japan, you will find that it resembles the GAP in many ways,i ncluding store atmosphere and layout, except for two major differences. First, it’s much cheaper. A decent pair of pants will run you about 3,000 JPY (about 30 bucks) while a wide variety of shirts, fleeces and pullovers run between 1,500 – 2,500 JPY (about 15 to 25 bucks). The major difference is while the clothes even resemble the GAP styles, they are all very mono-toned. You can find a nice sweater, fleece, or shirt but don’t expect to find more than one color throughout the whole thing. Still they seem to come in all colors of the rainbow from dark black to bright pink.

Now since many of my current readers are from or in Japan, they know about UNIQLO. So why am I writing this? Well, on Friday while roaming through Soho looking for a store I discovered on of the newest branch of UNIQLO, on Greene St. between Broome and Spring. I watched many Japanese businessmen walking in and out while I snapped a few shots for this. It had a grand opening yesterday and is advertising heavily as I found out that they have another branch in a shopping mall in New Jersey.

It seems I left Japan to return to America, but Japan followed me.

Wisdom of the Day: You can take the girl out of Brooklyn, but you can’t take the Brooklyn out of the girl.