There’s been a lot of buzz out on the interwebs and the blagoshpere lately about UNIQLO. For those not already in the know, UNIQLO is a purveyor of inexpensive, high quality, conservative fashion here in Japan. Recently they garnered attention in the US when it was announced that they would open a store in New York. Most notably though, they are also well known for their stylish t-shirts, whose designs are cycled throughout the year.
The store itself has a wonderful style, consisting mainly of plain white surfaces mixed in with brushed metal. It gives the impression of being inside Mac OS X. In addition to the touch-screen catalogues on tables, there are these cool wall street style LED tickers that appear to be giving real time information about sales trends of certain types of t-shirts. Along with that, are plasma displays showing these sales, and relationships to other shirts via a dynamic graphical hoo-ha of awesome. it all adds up to a pretty nifty, and seemingly real-time experience. (Or something out of an Orwell novel, but that’s up to the reader to figure out.)
The pictures you often see of the UNIQLO UT, are of the vending machine like walls of tubes, and as a concept, this strikes me as “Pretty Damn Cool”™. However, this effect of a multi story vending machine, is betrayed and, in my opinion, cheapened by what is not shown in the photos; the conventional clothing rack displaying the t-shirts themselves.
UNIQLO was so close to doing something new, interesting and different, and blew it in the execution. Everything about this store, from the racks of tubes, to the flat panel displays about the racks and in the tables, to even the walls themselves scream “I am modern, I am new, I am not a clothing store”. All that taken away by a rickety old rack in the middle of every aisle. I can just imagine the board room scene where this decision was made.
The idea of a Hanko, or personal stamp, will probably be fairly familiar to anyone who has lived in Japan. Hanko are usually circular, or oval stamps, with the person’s name written in Kanji, and are the equivalent of a signature in western terms, on all sorts of legal documents. When a foreigner comes to Japan, usually one of the first things they have done is have one made up, with their first or last name in katakana. These days, they’re not asked for much, as the signature is making some major inroads, but every now and then, you’ll run into someone or some business that demands a hanko.
So you’re probably all familiar by now about the fact that most of transportation that goes on in Japan is done by an elaborate system of local trains. Unlike public transportation in North America, this is a finely tuned system, where everything works perfectly in sync with everything else; except when it doesn’t. This is a story of one of those times.