Rich guy: “Karl, Karl, is it TRUE!?”
Karl Lagerfeld: “Of course it’s true”
Rich guy: “But it’s CHEAP!!”
Karl Lagerfeld: “What a depressing word. It’s all about taste. If you’re cheap, nothing helps”
An excerpt from the film that introduced H&M’s collaboration with Karl Lagerfeld in 2004, the first in its series of designer collaborations and one of my all time favorite commercials. And Karl is right: cheap is really a depressing word, if it relates to an ambition rather than a price tag. H&M’s ambition was of course to offer exclusive designer pieces at a low price, and have done so quite successfully through their 10+ collaborations since. They have been inexpensive, but far from cheap
However, I would argue that H&M, as a brand of its own, lacks one of Karl’s proclaimed virtues: Taste. H&M has no taste. They design beautiful clothes, but they have no taste, at least none that is distinct, personal and recognizable. Instead they have loads of different tastes, and as a result their style lacks integrity. You would never spot a garment on someone in the street and think “hey, that piece must be from H&M”. There are no icons, no marks of identification. H&M wants to offer something for everyone, and those everyones are in fact very different. The strategy helps driving curiosity (what might they have in store today?) in a wide target group, but it also means that H&M is stuck being a follower. To follow rather than leads is likely the plan, but another effect that is more outright negative is that their brand is not imitatable. Not in the same way as competitors with more distinct design languages. Strangely enough though, quite few of H&M’s competitors in the “affordable fashion” segment have a design language of their own, and we all know that imitation is the strongest of all marketing forces.
That’s what makes Uniqlo stand out. I love Uniqlo, because they are inexpensive, but far from cheap, all the time. The brand rose to fame in Japan in the mid-80:s and since 2005 they have expanded aggressively all around the world (Stockholm next please). Like H&M, Zara, Gap, American Apparel an others they’re using an SPA (Specialty store Private label Apparel) strategy, meaning that they sell their own brand exclusively in own stores, and thus have end to-end control of the brand experience.
But unlike H&M, Uniqlo has taste, and it’s one of their own. They pick the best pieces of Japanese design tradition, simplicity and technology, and mold them into a slim (compared to its competitors), authentic and well-crafted collection of very affordable clothes. Best of all, the collections are evolutionary, meaning that they don’t change with the fast swings of fashion. Instead they are nurtured and consistently refined to improve little by little. This is the highly important difference between trendy (H&M) and modern (Uniqlo), and an explanation why Uniqlo manages to be equally popular among guys, something H&M never seems to get right. Because guys, even fashion loving ones, generally don’t like trendy stuff. They prefer basics, a conclusion that can easily be drawn by looking at some of the hottest brands in higher men’s fashion, like Martin Margiela, Marni and Jil Sander.
Jil Sander is also a collaborator of Uniqlo, through the “+J” line that she designed between 2009 and 2011. +J, with its mantra “luxury will be simplicity”, further helped raising the profile of Uniqlo. Not by offering something completely different (like H&M does with its collaborations), but through further refinement of the brand’s essential style. Unlike H&M’s collaborations, Uniqlo never advertised Jil Sander’s name in the marketing of +J. It was to be seen as natural part of Uniqlo, rather than a limited edition one-time-only effort. But of course fashionistas and mere mortals alike know about Sander’s involvement. It’s a case of implicit endorsement, much like Mini’s relationship to BMW, rater than the explicit endorsement of H&M. On a whole, Uniqlo are experts at taking their brand one step further through “concept lines”. The most interesting ones right now are “Heattech”, a series of thermostatic basic wear , and “Innovation Project”, an effort to offer high tech urban functional wear at a tenth of the ”normal” (shit expensive) price of Arc’Teryx Veilance, ACRONYM and other ”originals” in the category. Still, these initiatives feel like natural extensions of the brand’s simplicity & technology essence.
Uniqlo may be inexpensive, but because it has taste it is far from cheap.
