Uniqlo chief designer Yukihiro Katsuta: "Everyone is tired of things"
Attitudes towards clothes change. On the one hand, people's wardrobes are already crowded with clothes and the trend towards conscious consumption of clothes is gradually developing, for example, the use of recycled materials, the purchase of vintage items, and the exchange of clothes with friends. On the other hand, it seems to be deliberately fashionable to become a sign of bad taste, and young people in normal fashion tend to wear clothes very conditionally and out of necessity, devoting more time to personal development, work, and relations with relatives. We spoke with the director of the design studio of the Japanese mass market Uniqlo about who needs clothes today, how to sell things, when there is a global abandonment of clothes, and who need collaborations.
You work in a mass market giant whose task is to create clothes that everyone should like, which everyone can and will want to buy. How do you handle it?
We think of clothing as a tool. And how these tools will be used by people, where they will wear it and why. Of course, clothing must have a positioning, an idea. Without this, there is no modern fashion. However, if you start from the root cause, the question "why wear clothes?", The creation of clothes that will be understandable to everyone becomes not such an impossible task. After all, the needs of people around the world are similar.
Recently you are promoting a new concept - clothes for life. What is the difference from casual or sports things?
Now the border between sports and casual wear has become blurred. Sportswear should be primarily functional, but the same requirements have long been made for everyday clothes - it should be comfortable. In addition, in the field of sports there are the most advanced developments in the field of technology, and in design and fashion. Therefore, it turns out that all that people need is beautiful, functional clothing. Therefore, we are focused on the area, which is somewhere between these two areas - between sports and clothing for every day. We balance between fashion and technology and make clothes that no matter where you wear. It is always as simple and understandable clothing as possible, and there will always be a need for it. In addition, people for a long time do not divide things in their wardrobe into categories: this one is in a restaurant, this one is for an interview. On the forefront own style. If you look at the streets of New York, everyone just wears what they like, and what looks like their very personal look. Apply in sweat and sneakers for brunch - in the order of things. Therefore, it does not matter to us where you go in our odezh: for breakfast, for yoga, for work. Globally, fashion is now becoming more realistic and easier. Consumers need less trends and reasons, become more practical.
There is a feeling that people are tired of consuming clothes. That the wardrobes are crammed to the eyeballs, all basic clothing has already been purchased, and fashion casts boredom because it is too aggressive in exploiting trends and advertising. How does the mass market feel, given that its task is to encourage people to buy a lot and often in these conditions?
Yes, indeed, everyone is tired of things. I am also tired of clothes, I do not like shopping! The Japanese mass market, for example, therefore does not exploit trends so much. We do not put pressure on the psyche of people, we change gradually, like a snail, while maintaining a certain constancy in consciousness. People should enjoy the process of styling more, of how and with what they combine clothes, rather than trying to grab an elusive trend and buy more fashionable things. We do not care with what you will combine our clothes, it becomes a constant in the wardrobe - a certain unit of constancy around which you can experiment. In addition, it is noticeable that people are tired of the need for someone else's assessment. They generally do not want to be evaluated, and begin to dress, first of all, for themselves, and here we are again returning to comfort and functionality. People are tired of comparing products and thinking which white T-shirt will look better, which pants will fit better. There is a trend for consistency: here are pants, and they fit me well, or I just like them - I will always wear them. We see our task just to provide such clothes, to which there will be no questions and doubts. So, we can improve a certain fabric or thing for several months to make it perfect and meet all the requirements. That is, we are working on the value, usefulness of things. For example, to the fabric did not form the pellets. By the way, this is our innovation of the next season in the line of woolen things. Or think over the landing of things for months, improve its silhouette. In this regard, we even look like luxury brands: we are interested in a long and scrupulous work on a certain thing to make it perfect - but we keep democratic prices for things. For example, high-quality cashmere, which is inexpensive, it will always need among children, and among adults and the elderly.
I suppose this is achieved at the expense of huge production volumes and large orders for the factories with which you work?
Of course. All the factories we work with are our partners practically from the foundation of the company. In addition, we make large orders for several years in advance, and factories are always confident in the future and prices do not increase.
People are tired of being evaluated and start to dress, first of all, for themselves.
I want to go back to the styling. Basic things with a good styling acquire character. your clothes, including, are INTERESTING with the fancy styling: You often use multi-layeredness Or you can tie a denim shirt like a scarf around your neck. You have a large team of stylists headed by ex-stylist Lady Gaga and creative director of the Italian brand Diesel Nicola Formichetti, who, by the way, was born in Japan. What role does Formichetti play in your brand?
Styling is very important to us. We have been working with Nikola since 2006. He is really a talented stylist and we always consult him. Our relationship with Nikola looks like this: every season he comes to a big Uniqlo-wardrobe and shows how you can mix familiar things in a new way. He is a chef in the kitchen who works with ingredients known to him. In addition, of course, he works directly with our design studio, with marketing, with merchandisers. It can affect the appearance of a particular color or silhouette in the collection. The usual gray sweatpants and funny-print T-shirts in the spring-summer collection include his work. But we all work in a bundle. If our office in Los Angeles marks the trend for the normcore, we will, of course, react to it.
It seems that now all companies are doing just that they produce collaborations. Adidas can release up to 5-6 different capsules in one season. it is clear that mainly collaborations are a pretext for news, marketing, warming up interest in a company.
Collaboration is a chance to tell a little more about the brand's philosophy, without changing the general vector of the company. But, really, everyone is tired of endless collaborations. In Uniqlo, we rarely, but what is called, aptly produce such collections. We think for a very long time before starting a new collaboration, since we don’t want to confuse the buyer. For example, a couple of years ago, there was a peak in the popularity of prints, and we noticed cool British designers who work with prints - this is how collaborations with the British appeared. She enjoyed immense popularity. Now people are less interested in prints, respectively, there are no such collaborations anymore. The most difficult thing is to produce basic things from season to season and think about how to submit them in a new way in the next season. For example, for two seasons we released a collaboration with a Japanese designer, in which clothing was presented for the whole family at once. Or, picking up the interest in art, we made a collaboration with the New York Museum of Modern Art, but we thought that besides clothes, it might be interesting to our customers, and we made free entry to the museum on Fridays throughout the year. It's not just marketing, but a social aspect: you buy coffee in the morning, go to a museum, watch art, and then buy a T-shirt from a collaboration. Now we are working on a separate line of clothes in Parisian style with a Frenchwoman, a writer and the Lagerfeld muse - Inés de la Fressange.
Here again. You are working on a specific style, not a design.
Inés de la Fressange is the author of the very popular book Parisian and Her Style. This is a bestseller. And the book contains clear codes, tips for girls, how to work with ordinary things. How, again, to stylize basic things, how to file them. At the same time, Ines herself says that she buys the basic things for herself in our Paris store. In collaboration, it is important for us not with whom we produce it, but what product we end up with and will be understood by the buyer. And we help him file unbanally.
BUT DOESN'T YOU THINK IT HAS THE PARISIAN STYLE HAS SUCH A STONE AND LOOKING AGING? If you wear sandals with NIKE socks in Paris, you will surprise everyone. I'm not kidding, everyone is paying attention to my socks with sandals. I explain to the French that in Russia we all walk like that. I'm joking here, of course.
I thought that the French were a bit old-fashioned. But it cannot be denied that the conservatism of the French is good just in the fact that they are strong in the combination of the basic ordinary things. They know how to dress easily, without bothering. This is what you can and want to strive for.
So, it turns out that the mass market launches from year to year the most extensive goods: white t-shirts, jeans, gray trousers. BUT IF I ALREADY HAVE five BASIC T-SHIRTS, MAEK, WELL-SEATED JEANS AND LIKE THAT, WHY DO I GO TO YOU AND BUY THINGS?
It's like an iPhone. You have it, but you still continue to buy it every time a new version comes out. So we slowly and gradually improve the clothes, their cut, fabrics. And as with the iPhone, the same story with technology - we are improving them and every season we release a new version of this or that thing. That seems to be you have a white T-shirt, and we offer the one that will not be crumpled. Of course, she wants to buy. In addition, we are for a conscious relationship between the environment and clothing. Let's say our line of Heattech thermal underwear is more than clothes for walking in the cold. These are thin T-shirts, turtlenecks, which are felt like a second skin, practically imperceptible under clothing and which can be worn as an independent piece of clothing. These clothes are comfortable, they are not hot, they can be worn in an unheated room and save on heat energy. For example, in Parisian apartments they do not drown in winter, you can wear thermal underwear at home and feel comfortable. The fashion world must respond to the requests of the planet and think about the future generation - what will they have when we are gone.
Photo: Uniqlo