How long has it been since Uniqlo had a new technology hit?

Text by He Zhexin

Edited by Qiao Qian

"Like Apple"

In 1997, Tadashi Yanai closed the last store located in the suburbs of Tokyo and began to seriously consider the future of Uniqlo for the first time.

At that time, Japan's economy was in a slump, the middle class that once supported the society was rapidly shrinking, and young people generally had little aspiration, were unwilling to strive, let alone spend money on consumption.

If the company continued to sell high-priced custom suits or stuck to the small markets in rural and suburban areas, it would probably not be far from bankruptcy. Tadashi Yanai began to seek a new breakthrough. He decided to "replicate" the then expensive polar fleece and sell it to residents in Tokyo at 1/5 of the price of an American brand.

The inventor of polar fleece is Madden Mills, a factory in Massachusetts that specializes in making baby rompers. They hoped to develop artificial fibers that could be used outdoors, so they wound ultra-fine polyester yarn into a dense fabric similar to terry cloth. After brushing, the volume of this fabric increased significantly, and it also had the functions of heat preservation and water absorption. Patagonia and GAP made polar fleece popular in the United States, and Tadashi Yanai brought it to Asia.

Since then, Uniqlo hopes to promote that every peak performance is driven by technological inventions, "just like Apple". Although it is engaged in the oldest traditional textile industry, Tadashi Yanai hopes that Uniqlo in everyone's eyes is a technology company.

In 2003, Uniqlo collaborated with the Japanese fiber manufacturer Toray to launch HEATTECH, which uses the principle of "moisture-absorbing and heat-generating fibers" to keep the body warm by retaining the moisture evaporated from the human body. The initial annual sales target of HEATTECH was 1.5 million pieces, and within 10 years, the sales volume reached 300 million pieces. It has also become the main product for Uniqlo's autumn and winter clothing sales and the so-called first hit product.

Seven years later, Uniqlo launched Ultra Light Down, a lightweight down jacket. It is a filler that combines natural down and artificial fibers, and the products made with it are not as bulky as traditional down jackets. Uniqlo claims that an Ultra Light Down weighs only 206 grams, which is only "about the weight of an apple", and can be easily stored in a triangular handbag, so it is widely popular. In 2020, Ultra Light Down was selected as one of the "100 Great Inventions" by Forbes magazine.

However, since then, Uniqlo has not had a new technological hit for a long time.

Bruce Boyer once said in "Style Forever" that it is not a new format or design that liberates humans from the suffocating animal fur coats, but technology, "from then on, clothing has developed towards a comfortable and lightweight style". But more people are gradually realizing that technological inventions related to wearing do not change our lives as imagined.

It may seem a bit outdated to discuss the durability of clothes in 2025, but when LINYUN found that the HEATECH underwear she had only worn for one winter had already pilled and had holes, she was still a bit disappointed. "Nowadays, clothes are less and less durable." LINYUN sighed. She believes that the increasingly frequent changes in trends are one reason, and the quality is also really getting worse.

What many people don't know is that HEATECH actually has a shelf life. This year, Uniqlo stated on its official social media platform that the shelf life of HEATECH is three years, and it is recommended to hand wash and replace it in a timely manner. The reason is that "frequent wearing will cause wear and tear, which may make the fabric of the heating clothes thinner and the heat preservation effect not as expected." Some netizens wonder if the label of the product shows that the production date is in previous years, does it mean that the shelf life will also be shortened?

"The biggest difference between Uniqlo and other fast fashion brands is that it promises a kind of longevity," Hirotaka Takeuchi, a Harvard Business School professor who has long studied the brand, believes, "It gives the impression that the clothing materials are exquisite and the cuts are timeless. Buying a shirt is like buying an investment."

Whether Uniqlo is quietly moving away from its original intention is unknown, but such a replacement frequency has invisibly increased the wintering costs of consumers. LINYUN is not a person who easily discards old clothes, and dealing with these "seasonal" clothes troubles her a lot.

"Have similar inventions made our lives better?" LINYUN used to be certain, but now she is also hesitant.The Threshold of Technology is Also Increasing

In addition to the gap between the technical capabilities in the promotion and the actual experience that makes consumers question, Uniqlo's challenges also involve more extensive changes in the market pattern - the number of peers playing the "technology card" is unprecedentedly increasing, and with the popularity of the Corpcore style, consumers are no longer easily convinced by technology promotions.

Buying a coat is more and more like buying a precision instrument: warmth, wind resistance, how to take care of it, how to clean and store it, and if necessary, it needs to be sent back to the factory for coating maintenance. The research and development process of these warming technologies seems to be no different from the scientific research difficulty of aerospace (in fact, their initial uses may be in the polar regions or space).

Therefore, when 20-something young people wear Patagonia wool vests to talk to the bartender, and the latter wears a Columbia coat to make cocktails, and young white-collar workers who never stepped out of the city before line up to climb mountains on the weekend, and there is a raspberry-colored montbell冲锋衣 (montbell outdoor jacket) ready in the Goyard bag, people are no longer surprised by such a contrast.

Justin Chan, a 29-year-old designer living in Shanghai, tells us that at any time, wearing an Arc'teryx climbing jacket is like telling the outside world, "I can completely survive outside the city - and with style."

It is not difficult to imagine that even the once best-selling technological items of Uniqlo seem somewhat inadequate in comparison. John H Smith, a fashion critic for The New York Times, said, "Consumers are becoming more picky. If a brand's technical promotion fails to deliver on its promises, it will be difficult to win trust.

Recently, the Swiss sports brand ON Running has invented a kind of sprayable fiber and successfully turned it into a pair of running shoes. The entire production process does not require human participation. The founder said that if such technology can be successfully mass-produced and launched into the market, their factory may be moved from "Vietnam to France".

Shoes have many components and a complex manufacturing process, and are a typical representative of the global precision division of labor in the textile industry. If ON Running's ambition can be realized, it is no different from disrupting and reorganizing the current global textile division of labor chain.

Such scientific research is obviously something that Uniqlo cannot and does not want to complete. But when we once asked whether Uniqlo has the possibility of shifting its focus to the outdoors or sports, insiders denied this to us, stating that Uniqlo's focus is always on casual categories.

It's just that under such a premise, Uniqlo's innovation seems not to be impressive enough.

In 2023, Uniqlo and Toray once again collaborated to develop PUFFTECH, hoping to replicate the success of the lightweight down jacket. PUFFTECH is an extremely fine hollow fiber, and the "air cotton jacket" made from it is initially priced at 499 yuan, the same as the lightweight down jacket series.

However, the sales of this PUFFTECH cotton jacket are not optimistic. According to the statistics of the third-party data platform Zhiyi, during the Double 11 period in 2024, the PUFFTECH cotton jacket was not among the best-selling warm clothing items of Uniqlo. On the homepage of Uniqlo's simplified Chinese official website, we did not see any recommendation for this new series in the warm clothing section.

Uniqlo once posted a care guide for the PUFFTECH cotton jacket on its official Xiaohongshu page, which is divided into nine steps, from reading the instructions to "filler restoration" after drying. It can be said to be meticulous, but it has attracted netizens to leave a message in the comment area, "In 2024, is there still fast fashion clothing that cannot be machine washed?"

From September to November 2024, Uniqlo's operating income in China was 178.6 billion yen, the same as the same period in the previous year, and the operating profit decreased by about 10%. In the financial report, Uniqlo's parent company has repeatedly attributed the weak business in the Greater China region to the weather and the insufficient regional differentiation of the product portfolio. According to the monitoring of a third-party platform, last year was the first time that the number of Uniqlo stores closed in the Greater China region was greater than the number of stores opened, and it was the first time in history that there was a net store closure.

Constrained by the nature of fast fashion and the positioning of basic casual clothing, but expecting technology to become a selling point to convince the market, perhaps from the beginning, Tadashi Yanai has given Uniqlo an impossible answer.