Japan richest man Tadashi Yanai’s journey to transform Uniqlo into global fashion empire

The brand’s parent company Fast Retailing, which he also built, now has a market capitalization of 16.09 trillion yen (US$106 billion) and rakes in trillions of yen in annual sales.

This massive fortune, which placed him at the top of Forbes’ Japan rich list, surpassed what Yanai, 74, could have anticipated when he started out in the 1970s.

Yet, his path to success has not been all smooth sailing, as both he and his company have endured their fair share of failures.

Tadashi Yanai, chairman and CEO of Fast Retailing and Uniqlo. Photo courtesy of the company

Yanai was born in 1949 in southern Japan, where his father was a tailor and his mother was a housewife, according to Bloomberg.

His father opened a men’s clothing store a month after his birth, called Men’s Shop Ogori Shoji, in the town of Ube, Yamaguchi Prefecture. The store occupied the ground floor of the house his family lived in at the time, and later expanded with multiple locations in the next two decades.

Yanai went on to graduate from the esteemed Waseda University in 1971 with a degree in economics and politics. After a year selling kitchenware and men's clothing at a Jusco – now known as AEON – supermarket, he joined his father’s business.

Within two years, all but one of the staff had left due to tensions with his management style, which he later admitted was arrogant in a 2016 interview with The Business of Fashion.

Due to the lack of staff, he had to handle most tasks at the store back then. He would view these early years as a crash course in business.

"I needed to clean the store, brush the jackets, source products — I literally had to do everything myself because there was nobody else. It was a huge learning opportunity," he recalled in the interview.

In 1984, he opened a store in Hiroshima named Unique Clothing Warehouse, which was later shortened to Uniqlo.

It was originally meant to be registered as Uniclo, but the staff at the time misread the "c" as a "q," leading to the current spelling of Uniqlo, the New York Post reported, citing a statement from the brand.

Yanai renamed his father’s business to Fast Retailing by 1991 and grew the company to over 100 stores within three years. By 1996, the store count had doubled.

The firm’s turning point came in 1998 with the opening of its first store in Tokyo. The launch introduced a fleece jacket priced at just $15, appealing to budget-conscious consumers in the post-bubble economy, according to TIME magazine.

Around one in four Japanese purchased a fleece item from Uniqlo that year, with the chain selling 26 million fleece products across more than 400 stores in 2000.

Following its success in Japan, Uniqlo ventured abroad, launching its first international store in London in 2001.

But by 2004, the chain had to close most of its stores in the city and faced a similar challenge in Shanghai, China. It launched its first three U.S. stores in New Jersey in 2005, but all were closed within a year.

Yanai remained resolute though. "If you succeed the first time, there is no learning. But if you fail, you think: Why did I fail? So, although failures are not fun, you learn from those," he told Forbes India.

The firm eventually returned to Europe with great success, opening flagship stores in London and Paris in 2007.

The difference this time, according to Yanai, was that it worked with its global headquarters to create products that not only meet local demands but also have global appeal.

Uniqlo’s success can be attributed to its focus on innovation, having spent years investing in developing materials that meet consumer needs, according to Forbes.

While its competitors race to release new styles to chase trends, Uniqlo has built its reputation by creating wardrobe essentials that emphasize daily functionality and durability. As consumers increasingly prioritized sustainability and longevity, this approach proved to be highly successful, this approach proved successful.

Customers shop at the Uniqlo store in Hanoi, March 6, 2020. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy

Yanai transformed his family's modest clothing store into a global fashion empire that now has nearly 3,600 locations worldwide.

In the 2024 fiscal year ending in August, Fast Retailing reported 3.1 trillion yen in sales and 500.9 billion yen in operating profit. This marks the first year that its sales surpassed 3 trillion yen and its operating profit exceeded 500 billion yen.

Throughout the company’s meteoric rise, Yanai has remained steadfast in his commitment to innovation and quality.

To this day, he still maintains the drive he had when he launched the business in 1984, according to Yukihiro Katsuta, Fast Retailing’s group senior executive officer, who has been working with Yanai for 19 years.

"If I were in his place, I think the money might have changed me," he told Forbes India. "But Yanai has not changed at all. I’m not sure how many people can do that."

After work, he would be home by 4 p.m. to play some golf and spend time with his wife, according to Financial Times.

The billionaire reportedly is an avid golfer and owns two golf courses in Hawaii, where he spends a few weeks playing each summer. Yanai reportedly bought the first, Plantation Golf Course, for $50 million in 2009, and the second, Kapalua Bay, for $24.1 million in 2010.

He has two sons who are both on Fast Retailing's board of directors.

A man of ambition, Yanai has made it clear he wants his firm to be the world's largest clothing retailer.

Following this year’s record revenue, he said the company is focused on dominating Western markets as it strives for annual sales exceeding 10 trillion yen, as reported by Reuters.

Fast Retailing projected that its operating profit will increase to 530 billion yen in fiscal 2025.

"If we want to be truly the top global brand, we would not be able to claim that unless we can become number one in both of those regions, North America as well as Europe," he said.