WWD went and profiled Tadashi Yanai, who you definitely know of, but might not actually know. He's the chariman of Fast Retailing, the parent company of not just Uniqlo, but the likes of Theory, Helmut Lang and J Brand. In the piece, Yanai makes no bones about the company's goals: BECOME THE LARGEST APPAREL RETAILER IN THE WORLD BY 2020 AND REACH YEARLY SALES OF $250 BILLION BY 2030.
That number is fucking ginormous in basically every conceivably measurable way. For perspective's sake, it would put the company's sales at roughly half of Walmart's annual revenue, which is the modern day benchmark of Retail Goliath. Yanai isn't just some guy responsible for Uniqlo's colorful wardrobe. No, he's an actual person with real interests. Most notably, he loves western culture and history—he has black and white prints from New York City, models of ships from World War II and books about traditional fashion focused on Europe. He's worked in clothing for basically all of his adult life, starting at his family business that imported the likes of Givenchy and Levi's, eventually becoming the CEO and opened the first Uniqlo store in 1984 in Japan.
Uniqlo and Fast Retailing's sales are expected to rise about 15% this year, but financial experts think it's going to acquire another business to get an immediate jolt to their portfolio. Rumors had J.Crew as the next target last year, until talks broke down. Yanai also loves Jil Sander, a former Uniqlo collaborator saying, "She's such a perfectionist. She wants to do everything herself, and she's right about everything. But because of that we couldn't meet our planned delivery dates" and couldn't comment on her working with the brand moving forward. He also said Alexander Wang is perhaps the "best designer working today." Maybe a collaboration with him could be on the horizon.
Moral of the story? If it wasn't already obvious enough, Uniqlo and Fast Retailing, as a whole, are fucking killing it.
