Uniqlo Liverpool Is Now Open – But What Is It?

Such is the nature of Liverpool as a city that most of the biggest brands are constantly looking to have at least some sort of presence there.

Whether it be LEGO or Marks & Spencer, John Lewis or River Island, you can find the majority of the best-known companies in the country with a shop on the high street.

Not everyone will have known the name of Uniqlo when it opened a new store in the city centre recently, but those that do know it are more than aware of the fact that it tends to offer quality clothing at a reasonable price.

The question is, where did it come from and is it worth visiting if you’re in town?

The History of Uniqlo

In the city of Ube in the Japanese Prefecture of Yamaguchi, Hitoshi Yanai founded Men’s Shop OS. That was then rebranded to become Ogori Shōji in the March of 1949. Tadashi Yanai, the son of the founder, joined the company in 1972, but it took until the June of 1984 for the first store to be opened.

That was in Fukuro-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima, where a store named Unique Clothing Warehouse opened its doors. The plan was to register the shop as a shortened contraction of unique clothing, but during administration work for the registering of the brand in Japan, ‘C’ was misread as ‘Q’ and it was called Uniqlo, which stuck.

@finworlds Uniqlo‘s success story 👚👕🇯🇵 #uniqlo #fashion #fastfashion #japan #clothing #finance #investing #financialeducation #financenews #finroam ♬ original sound – finworlds

The result was that the shops were rebranded as Uniqlo across Japan, with the parent company changing from Ogori Shōji to ‘Fast Retailing’ in the September of 1991. Three years later, that parent company went public, also opening its 100th store, all of which were in Japan.

The first store to open in the United Kingdom arrived in London in the September of 2001, but within two years most UK stores had been closed. Even so, the brand continued to expand into the likes of the United States of America and France, generating more than 2 billion won when a flagship store opened in Seoul in the November of 2011.

The Liverpool Store

Had you been in Liverpool on the 24th of April 2025, you might well have wondered what the banging of the drums and the large queue of people in the Liverpool ONE were all about. The answer came in the form of Uniqlo’s new store opening in the city centre, delighting shoppers thanks to the wealth of different clothing options on offer.

From ‘gender-neutral’ clothes to items for kids, the fact that a reasonably priced clothing store was suddenly on offer to the people of Liverpool was widely considered to be a good thing. The brand itself said that it was delighted to be opening up a store in a ‘vibrant and thriving’ city like Liverpool.

Sephora and Uniqlo set to open in Liverpool. This is great news, I wish Cos and Arket would come back though.

— Jeff (@ellibin.bsky.social) Apr 3, 2025 at 8:27

Located on Paradise Street, Uniqlo is easily accessible for anyone travelling through the city centre, selling men’s and women’s clothing as well as items for kids and even babies.

Open until 8pm every day of the week except for Sundays (and public holidays), you can do everything from ordering ahead in order to simply pick up your item when you’re there through to browsing the shelves to see what’s on offer that might suit. The Liverpool store is open over a couple of floors, so you will almost certainly be able to find something there that suits your style and is much more affordable than some of the more high-end shops in the city.

Why Shop There

If you’ve never been to a Uniqlo store, you might be wondering what it is about the brand that appeals. The answer is a complex one, but the entire point is that the brand looks to ‘make life better for everyone’ through their clothing.

One of the brand’s main selling points is that the clothes that they produce are aimed at being more than just clothing, instead looking to be thoughtfully designed alongside being well made. The LifeWear aspect of the brand doesn’t immediately look to follow the various fashion trends from one minute to the next, instead looking to make life easier for the weather whilst still being an everyday clothing item.

Not that Uniqlo is entirely without its critics, of course. In the May of 2011, a weekly tabloid in Japan, Shūkan Bunshun, published an accusation that Uniqlo had forced workers to work for long hours and little pay. Although Uniqlo successfully sued for libel, it seemed to kick-start similar accusations being made elsewhere.

In 2019, for example, workers in Australia suggested that there was a toxic working culture there, declaring that everyone left with ‘some form of PTSD’. These are, of course, accusations that the company itself has denied and fought against, but it is important to offer a balanced view of the shops.