Uniqlo’s Younger, Trendier Sister GU Enters The US With A New York City Flagship Store

Have you ever walked through a store and felt completely overwhelmed by the endless options? Do you feel like you need a stylist to shop for even an everyday outfit? Do you worry about your carbon footprint after a shopping spree? “Mini edit max,” the philosophy behind Japanese brand GU is all about changing that, and they are now opening in the US.

GU is part of the Fast Retailing Group, and sister brand to Uniqlo, and equally beloved in their native Japan. They just opened their very first store stateside in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan, making it the first permanent GU store outside of Asia. “GU is a Japanese brand started in Japan by Japanese people, for Japanese customers,” says GU CEO Osamu Yunoki. “But from the beginning, we wanted to accelerate our globalization, and decided to jump to New York, which is the center of the world for culture, lifestyle and, of course, fashion.”

Though the location and country are new, GU’s philosophy of “mini edit max” is the same. The brand credo is to bring max style and quality with mini prices and tight collections. Each collection is designed to be simple to style and wear, and created to be mixed and matched with other GU pieces, resulting in more outfits with fewer products.

“Our mini edit max fashion is a very convenient, smart wardrobe,” Yunoki says. “People can enjoy fashion with minimum time and money. We wanted to make fashion enjoyable. Our concept is unique compared with other low price fashion brands. We deliver max style and quality with the minimum number of items and prices.”

Throughout the store are mini edit max displays—both physical and digital—to show shoppers how to wear pieces. All GU stores are designed to be easy to shop, organized by similar colors and styles that naturally flow into one another. In other words, even if people aren’t aware of the mini edit max motto, they can feel and see the concept.

“New York is the most updated version of our mini edit max store,” Yunoki says. “Each item is displayed so that the product itself can attract people. We try to offer as many styling [examples] as possible so that people can understand how these items are well combined.” The staff will also dress to put the mini max edit on display.

In the past, GU never explicitly told customers about mini edit max—instead, they designed stores and collections based on the concept. New York marks the first time they’ll be using the term. “For the launch of New York, I thought we need to introduce ourselves more clearly,” Yunoki says.

Many fast fashion brands offer an extraordinarily large number of pieces to shop, but GU keeps a tight edit, offering less than one-tenth the number of items of their competitors. By narrowing down the number of items, their supply chain is far more efficient every step of the way, from material procurement to sewing logistics to sales and marketing.

“That's why we can deliver a high-quality product with the lowest price,” Yunoki adds. “We try to minimize the number of items and all items are well designed so that as many people as possible can wear them and we make it as easy as possible to combine them with each other,” Yunoki says.

Nailing fit is crucial for GU, so for barrel jeans, for example, which are a major trend for fall, they use an array of fit models with a range of body types to calculate the best fit for as many customers as possible. To make each item get loads of mileage and expand wearability, they share styling examples with tops and accessories in stores, online and in their social media channels.

“We are trying to create a wardrobe for everyone, so the GU wardrobe lineup is updated to the latest trend,” Yunoki says. “It’s very easy to understand which to choose and how to combine. And everything is very high-quality and low price, so you can purchase whatever you want. Our mini edit max concept is based on our philosophy, which is to try not to create any single item that is not necessary. Supply and demand coordination is very well calculated. We tune up the supply chain every time when we look at the start of the sales.”

Mini max edit also decreases GU’s carbon footprint through efficiency and reducing the need to shop more by minimizing the need to make, transport, sell and transpose of clothes as much as possible. To reduce waste, once an item has run its course with a customer, it can be brought to any GU store and placed in a donation bin. From there, it will be given to refugees, orphanages, unhoused people or others in need.

Aesthetically, the GU spin is putting a trendy touch on elevated basics. Yunoki shares that customer feedback often celebrates the unique pieces that can’t be found elsewhere. For the current fall collection, the GU design team looked to vintage fashion for inspiration. “It's a reinterpretation of classics,” Yunoki says. “There is an uncertainty in the world with so many wars, conflicts, divisions and economics, so people are looking for something certain. That's why they wanted to have something with roots or history coming from the 80s and 90s. Also, after COVID-19, we want to enjoy our lives again, and we want to enjoy fashion again.”

Though this is GU’s first permanent store stateside, they aren’t strangers to the New York retail landscape. GU opened a small pop-up in downtown Manhattan about two years ago to test the waters. “We had a good response from the customer, and we found a good property, so we decided to open a flagship as well as e-commerce in the United States,” Yunoki says.

Like its sister brand Uniqlo, GU’s offerings are the same all over the world. However, for merchandise sold in the US, the sizing has been adjusted to better fit the American customer. Additionally, some colors in essential items like their heavyweight sweater will be exclusive to the US. They will also offer some exclusive items for collaborations with designers worldwide.

The GU team learned about the American shopper and how it differs from the Japanese customer from their pop-up and applied those learnings toward the line and permanent store. “I would say the Japanese preferred style is very unique from the world perspective,” Yunoki says. “Japanese people tend to prefer to hide their body shape [and show little] skin. Also, preferred colors are a little bit different.” Additionally, American customers tend to be sportier and more casual.

For their foray into the US market, Yunoki is most excited to see how customers will react to GU, especially Gen Z. “Will they feel the essence of mini edit max, and will they think it's an elevated, smart way to enjoy fashion, but exciting at the same time to express themselves?” he says. “That's my first interest, and the other one is how other generations think about it. Gen Z is many times described as a special generation, but to be honest, I like what Gen Z likes. That's why maybe it's an ageless era.”

The name GU comes from the Japanese word “ji yu” that means “freedom.” Yunoki says, “We would like to deliver freedom to find a new you through style, through fashion, so please enjoy—that's my message.”