Fast Retailing, the Japanese apparel company, is largely known to U.S. customers through its biggest brand, Uniqlo. Now, the company is introducing another one of its brands to American customers.
This fall, the company will open its first flagship store in the U.S. for GU, a Uniqlo sister brand with a lower price point and focus on a younger Gen-Z audience. The 10,000-square-foot store will be in New York City SoHo, a popular retail hub that’s seen an 84% increase in retail occupancy in the last four years. Its opening comes after a GU pop-up, also in New York City, tested the waters beginning in late 2022. The pop-up is set to remain open until the summer.
Along with the flagship store, GU’s online store will open up to American customers for the first time, as well. GU has over 400 stores in Asia and this is the first one to open in an outside market. In September of last year, Fast Retailing established an NYC-based GU product development office, which has been developing new footwear, bags and accessories for the brand’s global audience.
GU CEO Osamu Yunoki has high hopes for the brand’s prospects in the U.S., citing profitable business at the pop-up.
“We have applied what we learned from the pop-up store to establish a framework for product development and business operations at a global level,” Yunoki said.
Specifically, one of the lessons has been to recruit locally. GU plans to hire designers and pattern makers from the New York area to work at its New York product development base and bring an American perspective into the design process. Additionally, Fast Retailing will market its North American expansion with a focus on U.S.-based influencers and content creators.
As of February, there were 53 Fast Retailing-owned stores in the U.S. Twenty more stores, including the GU flagship, are planned to open by the end of August. Fast Retailing also owns Link Theory Holdings, which in turn owns fashion brands including Helmut Lang and Theory. As a whole, Fast Retailing had a revenue of nearly $20 billion last year.
And there’s already strong evidence that Fast Retailing has a lot of growth potential in the U.S.
“North America, Europe and Southeast Asia, which are all pillar growth areas for [Fast Retailing] as a whole, generated large increases in profit in the first half of fiscal year 2024,” said Fast Retailing CFO Takeshi Okazaki. “They proved the key drivers of overall growth during the period and helped us achieve a new record performance.”
North America saw double-digit store sales growth across Fast Retailing’s brands. Okazaki said that Fast Retailing is projecting a record year for U.S. sales if that growth continues. It’s been boosted, in part, by Uniqlo’s viral $20 shoulder bag, which became one of the most talked-about products in fashion last year.
