Uniqlo: Melbourne's Newest Fashion Giant

The cult Japanese retailer opened its debut Australian store at Emporium Melbourne this morning – and there were lines around the block. 

I was lucky enough to be invited down to take a look at the store yesterday before it opened to the public. So many exciting new retailers are coming to Melbourne its hard to handle and Uniqlo is one of those fabulous internationals that is bound to shake up the local market.

Photo: Brook James

Ready or not, here they come. Emporium Melbourne’s official ribbon-cutting was scheduled for 9am this morning, but the anxious queues were already wrapped around the block well before. One of the most anticipated openings inside the new, seven-storey mega-mall is cult Japanese basics label, Uniqlo, with its debut Australian store.

Following its Swanston Street pop-up in January this year, the permanent store is the latest major foreign retailer to join a very rapidly growing party, following Zara, Topshop, A.P.C., H&M and Muji, to name a few.

When you walk beneath the glowing red sign into the brightly lit store, the first thing you notice are the meticulously colour-coordinated shelves, arranged by jeans, T-shirts, cashmere jumpers and the brand’s iconic ULD (ultra-light down) vests. Housed over four floors (that’s 2150 square metres of shopping space), Uniqlo’s range covers men, women and children. You’re truly spoilt for choice, with all key apparel items offered in a range of 24 colours.

If you have any hesitation or enquiry, you can bet on finding an eager Uniqlo employee by your side in seconds – there is 320 staff in Melbourne alone.

The store is spacious, light, and easy to navigate. Well-dressed brand ambassadors smile down at you from posters on the walls – Pharrell Williams, local street artist Rone, even chef Andrew McConnell.

With more than 1300 stores worldwide, this is the 16th market that Uniqlo will have a presence in globally. If you’ve been to a Uniqlo store anywhere else in the world – don’t expect a dramatic reinvention. It has found a formula that works, and judging by the jostling lines out the front, its Australian fans agree. 

Article: Broadsheet

Now hiring.

(This photo has nothing to do with the below post, but is fun none the less!)

Work has just been hiring, it has been my job to filter through CV’s and pick out the good ones...this task has been harder than first thought. There has been a lot of shit! I have been dumbfounded with the crap some girls think is appropriate to put in a CV and cover letter.

There are your general lazy typos which is a given, I am useless and when I am really excited about something my spelling and grammar leave for a far off place, some tropical island in Barbados. So that kind of thing is a given. However the stuff I have seen goes far beyond that, here is a little taste:

-          Emails with no explanation, just a blank email with a CV attachment. I’m sorry but seeing as you were too lazy to even address the damn email to anyone I am just too busy to bother reading it… Delete

-          Emails form people who have not read the ad properly. No this is not a position in our Chapel St store in Sydney….we don’t even have a store on a Chapel St in Sydney!

-          Girls that feel it is appropriate to include EVERY high school achievement. Really I couldn’t care less if you won an award in year 7 for picking up the most rubbish at lunch time

-          “My interests include: fashion, curly fries, fairy lights, fairy bread, interesting textures, yoga…” Babe, you sound like an air head. Let’s reassess and see what is actually relevant to a job in a clothing boutique, curly fries, fairy lights and fairy bread are not.

-          A link to a personal website, ok, this could be ok, maybe she has a blog and is in to fashion…oh no, NO, close, close, CLOSE! Just a heads up, this is an Australian Designer Boutique, who prides them self on the quality and design of their items…not a racy sex shop. I do not need a link to your ‘personal website’ of your ‘glamor modelling shots’. Do you really want a prospective employer to have seen your titties? Yeah, I think not.

-          Selfies, oh my, so many pouty selfies. I get that image is important, but if you sound good on paper then we will ask to meet with you in real life. We don’t need to have an attachment of your latest Saturday night selfies, thanks but no thanks.

-          CV’s that read like some complex road map, really girls its simple, contact details, availability, past working history, a little bit on why you want to work for us, viola, done!

-          CV’s that are essays, 5 pages is TOO LONG, I gave up after page one. When I have 50+ emails from girls who are just ‘dying to work for you’, and I open up a 5 page attachment you have lost me.

-          And by far my favourite, a photo, a lovely photo attached where this one girl was showing us that she could put her foot above her head while in a little pink leotard. I mean, yeah that’s totally going to help you sell clothes and meet budgets.

Maybe this is just me being snobby, but it is really that hard to write a professional CV? And it is really that hard to distinguish between what is appropriate professionally and what is not? I was lucky if one out of 10 emails I read were even near professional. Some people have no idea, in a world where we share every private and personal detail on social media, it seems that girls between the ages of 18 and 23 have no idea what professionalism is. They need to learn that less really is more.

Good luck to them, but if you guys want a job anywhere I would seriously consider taking out interests that include, washing my dog, going to the soli, getting loose on the weekend. It’s just not a great look, if you can’t be professional over paper than how on earth will you go at work?!