Clare Waight Keller’s Uniqlo is a Fashion Reality Check

At a time when several European fashion houses are eying new talent for their top roles, one would be remiss not to throw Waight Keller’s name on the list of worthy contenders. She is and always has been a quiet force in the industry and one of very few leading women at the top. But Waight Keller was less interested in continuing to work within the glamorous halls of those luxury fashion brands. And she’s not the only former luxury designer to make the move this year: Zac Posen became creative director of Gap Inc. and Natacha Ramsay-Levi took charge of design at Ecco. What Waight Keller says she was after was something more grounded in the everyday, something that could give more people a spark of inspiration or a feeling of aspiration for many, not just the few who can afford.

As Waight Keller explained, “I think with something like Uniqlo where the prices are affordable, more people can actually play with fashion.” She added, “I don’t think people should be denied great items because something is more affordable.” Waight Keller’s approach to designing for Uniqlo is not about trend and it’s not about imaginative storytelling. It’s completely intuitive. In that sense, she feels a lot more free in the way she creates, noting that “great product is great product,” whether it’s a sweater like hers, a pair of wide leg jeans, or an oversized anorak.

She points to a simple tote bag, one she thought would work best for a laptop, that went viral in Korea after TikTok users discovered that it was the perfect size for holding a motorbike helmet, one of the more popular modes of transportation there. It sold out in ten minutes. “Those things just take a life of their own. I think it’s really a bad thing to design stuff just for social media or for a trend. If it’s a great product, people will take what they want from it.” She added, “I guess that’s the joy of fashion, right? People all have their own ideas about and ways to play with what you’re putting out into the world.”

Her vision for Uniqlo comes at a moment of inflection for fashion, when many consumers are rejecting trends in favor of a more personal, more instinctual way of dressing. Ironically, what Waight Keller is proposing about the importance of quality and accessibility is similar to what so many luxury designers have been saying backstage the last two seasons when describing their collections, using words like “reality” and “approachability” and “everyday woman” when, mainly because of pricepoint, those clothes are so far beyond the average person’s needs and wants.

Waight Keller believes that having options is the ultimate luxury, as in the perfect three or four $40 knits or $15 tee to swap in and out with your designer jeans or a buttery leather bag worth thousands. Because of the breadth of product and customer, she also feels like she has much more creative freedom, untethered to narrative or trend or exclusivity. “I think that’s that special thing about Uniqlo,” she said. “The quality is so great that these pieces work beautifully with whatever level of product you style them with.”

None of this is to say that Waight Keller doesn’t still appreciate the finer things. She has an archive of her own designs, but also a collection of pieces from some of her heroes, including Helmut Lang, Guy Laroche, Saint Laurent, and James Galanos. “It’s eclectic,” she said. “There are always those pieces that are just great in terms of fabrications, the sweaters or coats you go back to time and time again. You can always give a new take on it and I often go back and look at colors or silhouettes to refresh some ideas.” She also finds inspiration in her three children, two girls in their 20s and a teenage boy, and the way they put clothes together. They sometimes like to raid her closet, taking their own pieces or secondhand pieces plus their Mom’s things and making them their own. They know where the key is to her closet, but she keeps a close watch. “There are some untouchables,” Waight Keller says with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘no that is not going to the pub with you on Friday night.’”

Mixing, whether across price points or genders, is something that drives Waight Keller. “I shop the men’s at Uniqlo as much as I do the women’s,” she said, noting also that data shows many customers across the globe are doing the same. “I love that. I think that’s also something that’s almost impossible to do in luxury–you don’t really shop across in luxury.” She added. “Everything is meant to mix together and that just feels very fresh to me, the idea of putting merchandise out there and letting the customer pull the look together.” “It’s a friendlier way to shop than in the luxury market. In luxury it feels very much one thing or another.”

Uniqlo, as Waight Keller pointed out, has a particular hold on shoppers who are in their early 20s and 30s. When she was in Paris at the end of September, she noticed three very young men wearing one of the wool coats she designed, all in different ways. “It was really nice to see it out there in the wild,” Waight Keller said. “It was nice to see that youthful spirit, to see young people really wearing the clothes because in the end, I mean, we all imagine as luxury designers that this cool, 22-year-old will wear our pieces.” She added, “No one can afford it, in reality. The dream is not the reality in the end. At Uniqlo, the dream is very much the reality.”

Brooke Bobb is the fashion news director at Harper’s Bazaar, working across print and digital platforms. Previously, she was a senior content editor at Amazon Fashion, and worked at Vogue Runway as senior fashion news writer.