UNIQLO’s branding team was quick to capitalize on this very Japanese element in its communications, featuring some of these crustily hip tailors in the UNIQLO Paper, a brand magazine sold at stores.

UNIQLO, a fashion retailer that combines the back-to-basics approach of American Apparel, the competitive pricing of Old Navy, and the foreign edge of a Zara or H&M. If not yet Gap-like in scale, UNIQLO (its name coined from “unique clothes”) is a retail juggernaut in Japan, with 760 stores in six countries, 20,000 employees, and earnings of US$ 3.5 billion in 2004.