Impressed with Uniqlo on their sales approach!
Uniqlo Pop-up Store Targets Sweaty Tokyo Commuters
Pop-up stores aren’t new. Nor are casual-wear chain retailer Uniqlo’s ‘Silky Dry’ and ‘Sarafine’ innerwear summer lines, designed to help wearers stay cool.
- Uniqlo
- Uniqlo’s pop-up store at the Ikebukuro subway station in Tokyo.
But the March 11 disasters knocked out a significant chunk of power utility Tepco’s electricity production capacity. And the possibility that a shortage of energy this summer in Japan will leave air conditioners idle as citizens drip with perspiration more intensely than the past is a very real and new scenario.
The likelihood has Uniqlo, the flagship chain of Fast Retailing Co., mashing the two well-worn concepts to test the likely pick-up in Tokyo commuter demand for the tech-savvy clothes: A pop-up store selling exclusively silky dry and sarafine innerwear products.
Uniqlo, ubiquitous in Japan, Thursday opened a temporary shop in the hubbub of Tokyo’s Ikebukuro station, one of the capital’s busier intersections. The merchandise is strictly apparel made using the cool summer-wear lines – a counterpart to Uniqlo’s popular winter hit, “Heat Tech” innerwear that’s designed to retain body heat.
The store, which looks roughly like a raft that docked in the middle of the station, will carry the basic innerwear lineup: crew necks, v-necks, camisoles and boxer briefs, among others, typically retailing for 990 yen, or about $12. The store will be open until June 26.
Launched in March last year, the Silky Dry line is for men, while the Sarafine garb is for women. The retailer touts the material of the men’s line as being like “a second skin” that’s barely perceptible. Sarafine’s fabric is made of “breathable fibers” woven together with nylon specially produced by fibers company Toray Industries Inc. The stretch fabric of both, the company says, absorbs and removes sweat and keeps body odor at bay.
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Recent Comments