HighSnobiety recently got a chance to chop it up with newly appointed creative director of Uniqlo UT, Nigo. Having an integral part of the founding and molding of A BATHING APE, Nigo brings with him an abundance of knowledge of fits, materials, as well as experience to Uniqlo. Peep the candid interview below and check out Uniqlo UT's first drop slated for the early spring.
You are the first creative director that UNIQLO has appointed specifically for UT — How did the conversation begin?UNIQLO approached me this spring, about six months ago, and I was interested.
How do you feel about being a part of UNIQLO?
I’m really pleased to be working on a project where it feels like there’s a lot of work for me. The scale of UNIQLO is global and it’s got customers all over the world. It’s a great project for me to do. And it’s a new kind of discipline to me, to make something that can have really broad appeal. In the past, I’ve been able to appeal to a very hardcore group and bring them to me, but now I have to learn to study broad customers and work for them.
What was your attraction to the UNIQLO brand?
I respect UNIQLO’s ability to be out there in the rest of the world, because at the moment, there are not many Japanese brands that are able to. And the scale of it is interesting to me. I was specifically asked to do the UT brand, and t-shirts is something I felt I could actually bring something to.
What is the brand aesthetic and attitude that you want to bring to UT?
Basically, I’ve changed everything. I wanted to create a new standard for the brand, starting with the t-shirt itself. UT has been using the same shape and cut for a long time. All of them had side seams, and I wanted them to be tubular-knit. The quality was all good, but it looked good flat and [boxy] when you wore them. I wanted it to be [comfortable] and breathy when you wear them. From that point, [it was just] using the actual graphics and I’m used to working with graphics.
Are you using any higher-quality materials? Will the price point stay the same?
The price point will not change. The fit is changed to how I envisioned, but the quality was always good. [My quality] is just different. I really tried to use all of the resources available at UNIQLO that I wasn’t able to [use] before [UNIQLO] — for example, printing the whole shirt rather than printing on the front of the shirt. There are a lot of new options.
Check out the rest of the interview on HighSnobiety's wesbite.
The UNIQLO UT Spring/Summer 2014 collection will be available in stores at the end of this month, with prices ranging from $19.99 to $29.99.
