Stormtroopers invade Harajuku

I mentioned a while ago that there was a Star Wars t-shirt event in Uniqlo Ginza and Uniqlo’s UT Harajuku stores. I didn’t have a chance to attend but a couple of Japanese bloggers did. Even if you can’t read Japanese you can enjoy the photos.

Check out these two Japanese Star Wars fan sites to see more pictures.

• Japanese Garrison
• STARWARS FAN

The tees that Uniqlo released are not great but they are officially licensed if that’s your thing. They do have a pretty cool vintage vibe though. Again, the site is in Japanese and you need to scroll down a little to see the 6 Star Wars tees on offer.

Dragon Ball T-Shirt

I am not too sure what has happened over at Uniqlo’s website. Fast Retailing, owner of Uniqlo, are expanding so rapidly that they are probably trying to make a tighter ship. They have pulled the UT site into the main Uniqlo store in Japan (I’m talking web here) and I just can’t find the US UT store. Anyway, they have just released some more manga collaboration t-shirts and this Dragon Ball one caught my eye.

Even if you can read the Japanese I don’t think they ship overseas. If anyone can find it in the US store please drop a link.

Star Wars T-Shirts coming to UT

Star Wars fans: mark your calendars. Uniqlo have announced that they will be releasing a Star Wars line on March 3rd 6th in the Harajuku UT store as well as Uniqlo Ginza. So if you are in Tokyo on that day you might want to check it out. They note that Boba Fett won’t be making an appearance at the stores. I’m not quite sure what that means though.

I have to go to Tokyo on that day and it is fairly close to Harajuku so I might just pop in to see what’s happening. That’s a big might though. Wrong day. Woops.

A tee with a difference from Uniqlo

Living in Japan I do see a lot of fashion that makes me look twice or sometimes even stare. In fact, just the other day I saw this lady wearing what looked like a big sofa cushion as a sweater. To be honest though I am still not convinced it wasn’t a sofa cushion. I really wanted to take a photo but of course that isn’t always easy when it comes to strangers.

Anyway this little number comes from Uniqlo and is only 500 yen (about $5) in the sale.  A cool and simple design is placed on this interesting article and of course there are suspenders attached. I have a feeling they won’t keep your pants up though.

[I don't know if it available outside of Japan.]

Sweet Zebra Tee at UT

This is a very pretty t-shirt for girls and if you like zebras all the better. This is available in the US but you have to order it by email if you can believe that. You’d think that Japan’s richest man would get that e-commerce store set up.

Shiro to Kuro means black and white…well actually means white and black.

Cost: just $15.50 plus shipping.

Cannes Lions T-Shirt Grand Prix 2009 Winners

Last November I told you about the Cannes Lions T-Shirt Grand Prix and now I present the winners to you. Sounds formal. LOL. Anyways, back then I couldn’t find any information about a cash prize and still can’t but one of my readers said there was a cash prize of about one million yen and for the Cannes Lions T-Shirt Grand Prix 2010 there is a US$10,000 cash prize which is about one million yen so he could be right.

There were 1,448 designs sent from 51 different countries. This was shortlisted to just 10 designs and finally the winner, a university student in Tokyo known as Sho, won with his design entitled KING. I’m not too sure but I think that the t-shirt above bears the winning design and is available in Uniqlo’s Japan web site for 1,500 yen.

I think it says the 10 finalists are (or will be) available in the store but as I write this there are only 5 in the showcase. Check them out.

UTGP 09 Wants You

UTGP 09 wants you to vote on your favorite t-shirts for their Grand Prix competition. It’s a little confusing over but I think they have narrowed down the 14,584 designs to just 1,000 and then to 200. I know what you are thinking. 14,584 designs is a hell of a lot of designs but the prize is pretty substantial at 3 million yen (about US$30,000) so that would naturally attract a lot of people.

■Evaluation 1st Pass
The UTGP selection committee elected 1000 applications.
Please log in this site and participate in the vote event.
We present UTGP2009 grand prix T-shirt to 100 people or less by lot.
You can vote on favorite T-shirt once on the first.
- The ranking of the vote event is not related to the examination of the Evaluation 2nd.
- The Evaluation 2nd. is executed in the UT selection committee.
- UTGP2009 grand prix T-shirt is decided in April, 2009.

■Evaluation 2nd Pass
The UTGP selection committee elected 200 applications.
We will announce the 3rd selection (20 designs) on the web at February 2009.

UT T-Shirt Competition

UT is a Japanese t-shirt store which is a part of the Uniqlo store. They have a great selection of t-shirts at bargain prices and they also have an annual t-shirt competition with great prizes called the UT Grand Prix. Uniqlo won the Grand Prix in the Titanium and Cyber Sections at the 2008 Cannes Lions advertising festival for its web-based UNIQLOCK global promotion tool so that is one of the main reasons why they have decided to hold this contest. They are going to produce an official T-shirt for Cannes Lions 2009.

There doesn’t seem to be a cash prize but a trip to Cannes and the fame associated with being the designer of the official t-shirt of the official 2009 Cannes Lion advertising festival should go a long way.

・Grand Prix design will be distributed to guests and members of the media at Cannes Lions 2009 next June.
・The winning applicant for Grand Prix will be invited to Cannes Lions 2009.

For entry details and conditions see the Uniqlo web site.

Chloe Sevigny models UT T-Shirts

I picked up Uniqlo Paper No. 4 yesterday. It’s a free magazine produced by Uniqlo to showcase their wares. There are some interesting interviews including one by cover girl Chloe Sevigny, who is in my opinion, a very cute and talented actress. She is also well known for her fashion sense so I was a little surprised to see her modeling Uniqlo. It is surely a part of Uniqlo’s attempt to make their items seem more classy. Luckily they don’t make the prices more classy though. I scanned the Chloe Sevigny pictures from the magazine for your viewing pleasure. You can click the images for a larger view.

I had a look over the UT site and couldn’t see any of these particular t-shirts for sale. Though I saw several of the others from the magazine.

Uniqlock – Don’t Ask

I came across this on the Uniqlo site but I don’t really know what it is. On the other hand, if you are happy enough to watch videos of cute Japanese girls dancing then it doesn’t really matter what it is.

*Edit: OK, I did a quick check and found out a bit more info. I posted it below the video.

What is Uniqlock?

UNIQLO blog parts UNIQLOCK first appeared on our home page in June 2007 as part of our polo shirt campaign. UNIQLOCK are blog parts with an inbuilt clock function. A group of girls wearing UNIQLO clothes introduce their original dance with the screen changing in time with the clock. The overriding aim is to transmit UNIQLO’s global view to the world using our MUSIC×DANCE×CLOCK form of communication that can transcend any language barrier.

At the same time, our WORLD.UNIQLOCK has become increasingly well known in the Internet world. The WORLD.UNIQLOCK page on our website shows a world map displaying the number and location of users who incorporate UNIQLOCK parts into their own blogs.

When we launched our second cashmere version of UNIQLOCK in October 2007, we had 33,481 blog parts established in 73 countries around the world.

We launched our third version of UNIQLOCK blog parts, “20 COLOR T”, on April 28 in which we express a strange world where live pictures and animation merge.

UNIQLO is currently aggressively expanding its global operations in New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, South Korea and China. We will continue to design promotions focusing on our key ”global” theme.

■ UNIQLOCK awards

Award Title	Section	Prize
One Show Interactive		Best of Show
	Microsite	Gold
	Integrated Branding	Gold
NY ADC	Hybrid	Cube （First Prize）
	Advertising Interactive	Intuitive Merit (Bronze)
ANDY AWARDS	Interactive	Silver
AD FEST	INNOVA LOTUS	INNOVA LOTUS (Gold)
	CYBER LOTUS	Silver
TIAA （Tokyo Interactive Ad Awards）		Grand Prix
	Integrated Campaign	Gold
	Campaign Site	Gold
	Interactive Advertising	Gold

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