The final collaboration between Japanese fashion company UNIQLO and American artist and designers KAWS, which launched on Monday, has become the latest craze in mainland China.
A number of images and video clips uploaded to Weibo and later circulated on other social media platforms proved how Chinese shoppers are going crazy over the latest collection – online sales reportedly sold out in seconds and a 99-yuan (US$14.3) T-shirt was snapped up for almost 400 yuan on Taobao, sina.com.cn reported.
Video captured people slithering beneath security gates to get into the store, barreling through store aisles, dismembering mannequins and pulling down entire in-story displays to get the T-shirts. There were a few physical conflicts in the process.
A salesperson at a UNIQLO store on Nan Jin Xi Lu in Shanghai said people had queued in front of the store from 4 am, forcing them to open the store one hour earlier, thepaper.cn reported.
The Japanese fast-fashion label had 678 stores in mainland China alone. China has become the second largest market for UNIQLO after Japan in 2018. The company makes it convenient for Chinese consumers to order online with a one-click order button via WeChat, Weibo and online shops and arranged in-store pick-ups from any outlet.
In March, UNIQLO’s share of the online retail market in women’s clothes was 0.6%, ranked top and followed by CHINSTUDIO, VEROMODA and ZARA, according to figures on Chinese market research website askci.com.