Seven years later, in 1991, Ogori Shoji became Fast Retailing and the rest, as they often say, is history. But it wasn't until 1998 that the company's first store was opened in the Metropolitan Tokyo area – in Harajuku, near Shibuya.

Just three years later, with the numbers of stores opening in the capital ever increasing, (currently there are 99), the total number of Uniqlo stores nationwide reached an incredible 500!

International expansion went hand-in-glove with the domestic success the brand was enjoying, with the first four overseas stores opening in the English capital London. This didn't really seem a wise business decision at first as the company struggled to carve a niche in the British market. By 2005, though, they had turned things around and were also expanding into the US, Hong Kong and South Korean markets.

The following year Europe once again fell under the spotlight, and today – as the sidebar shows – the company is today represented in the UK, France and Russia to the tune of 18 stores. Domestically, things were picking up too as the store approached 700 domestic outlets by the mid-2000s. Ninety-nine of these stores are in Tokyo alone.

Predominantly focusing on high quality, often brightly colored and highly visible, affordable clothing, Uniqlo today operates around 850 branches across three continents, including outlets in China, France, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, the UK and US. Today, the former men's retailer focuses in large part on changing fashions, often using in-your-face TV ads more colorful than a kid's crayon set, and starring one or two of Japan's ubiquitous talents – Norika Fujiwara (Miss Japan 1992) arguably the most famous.

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