Tadashi Yanai is living out his dream. Of all the many art books lining his wood-panelled office in Tokyo, the most “sacred text” turns out to be a Next catalogue from 1987, shot by the now famous Vogue and Vanity Fair photographer Koto Bolofo. “This inspired me most, back in the Eighties,” says Yanai, who at 77 is Japan's richest man with a fortune put at around $69bn. “Ordinary people looking cool and casual… I wanted to deliver this kind of clothing for current times. Clothes to make people happy.”
You know when a brand has conquered the zeitgeist when the vocabulary around it goes mainstream. For Uniqlo – the fast-fashion phenomenon with a mission to dress the world in its anonymously chic “wardrobe building blocks” – that moment came when the word “unibare” entered the lexicon, says The Times. It expresses the moment you realise that someone is wearing Uniqlo, “rather than anything more expensive”.
In April, shares in Fast Retailing – Uniqlo's parent company – hit a record high on the back of roaring overseas growth in the US and Europe, says Bloomberg. They've now gained 45% year-to-date. Fast Retailing is the third biggest apparel company in the world after Zara's Inditex and the H&M stable, and its humble brown paper bags have become a fixture from Oxford Street to Fifth Avenue.
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In a business culture “famed for grey conformity”, Tadashi Yanai “can't help but swim against the tide”, says Time – happily flaunting his success despite local taboos against ostentatious wealth. He owns two golf courses on the Hawaiian island of Maui alone. Yet when you walk with him through Uniqlo he reveals some “quintessentially Japanese traits”, says Bloomberg Businessweek: “attention to detail, supply-chain prowess, minimalist aesthetics” – and frugality.
Tadashi Yanai was born into the rag trade
Tadashi Yanai grew up in the trade – his parents ran a menswear shop in Ube on the main Japanese island of Honshu. The event that changed his life was the Vietnam war, which interrupted his studies in political economy at Tokyo's Waseda University because of a student walk-out. The break enabled him to travel to the US and UK, where the proliferation of mid-market clothing shops planted a seed. In 1972, after a brief stint selling men's clothes for a supermarket chain, Tadashi Yanai was handed the keys to his father's now expanded business.
In 1984 he opened the first branch of the Unique Clothing Warehouse in Hiroshima to pursue a more casual style. The firm's big breakthrough came in 1998 – as Japan was reeling from its burst economic bubble – when Yanai opened Uniqlo's first Tokyo outlet and sold a lightweight fleece for just £15. “Every fourth Japanese consumer bought one.”
When Tadashi Yanai published his autobiography, One Win and Nine Losses, he had a cathartic time describing his many mistakes down the years – not least overhasty expansion efforts, which necessitated a humiliating retreat. These days, Uniqlo's expansion is more measured, but has a relentless quality, says The Times. Having targeted national capitals, it's going for the regions – in the past year, opening new British stores in Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol. A series of designer collaborations – with minimalist Jil Sander and, latterly, Dior maestro Jonathan Anderson – has boosted the brand's appeal.
Tadashi Yanai, who is building sponsorship programmes with art galleries globally, has strong ideas about being “a force for good” and giving back to society. Yet he runs his own fiefdom like “a dictator”, says Time. With two sons now working in the business, questions about the succession abound. But he's giving nothing away. “When I get older my dream is to take a walk every day on the streets of London” – a continuing source of inspiration, he told The Telegraph in 2015. No sign of that happening any time soon.
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