Japanese fashion brand Uniqlo, a high-street favourite with stores across the UK, was not originally intended to be named Uniqlo. In fact, it used to have a different name.
The brand that shoppers have grown to adore was named after a typographical error. Uniqlo amusingly confirmed this news, reports the Mirror.
Explaining the blunder, which turned out just fine in the end, @uniqlocanada shared the story behind its name in an informative post on TikTok. “Did you know our name is actually a typo?” the brand asked followers.
“The company is originally called Unique Clothing Warehouse. We wanted to register the brand under ‘Uniclo’. But in 1988 the staff in charge of registering misread C for Q! The name stuck and now we’re known globally as Uniqlo.”
As expected, the story amazed customers and raised several questions. In the comment section of the video, which has been viewed more than 700,000 times, shoppers were curious about what happened to the staff member who made the mistake.
“Did the staff get a raise?” one intrigued viewer asked. Another added: “Woah. Amazing! so what happened to the staff?”
“Give that staff a raise,” someone echoed. A witty shopper joked: “Well.. that’s uniQue!!” Another replied: “You guys are so Qute.”
Meanwhile, a commenter confessed: “I used to watch Federer wear Uniqlo and thought it was UniQld (University of Queensland Australia). Didn’t realise until couple of years ago”. A second revealed: “I thought it was Q for Quality. Like Unique Quality Clothing.”
It also sparked a debate over how to pronounce the brand name. One customer questioned: “If it started as unique why do ppl say it’s pronounced u-nick-clo instead of u-neek-clo? ” Another enquired: “Is it pronounced U-NEEK-LO or U-NIK-LO?”
Luckily, Uniqlo has anticipated the confusion amongst its customers, having previously released a video demonstrating the correct pronunciation for anyone uncertain about saying the name, addressing any typos along the way.