Designer collaborations went to the next level last night with the news that Jil Sander will be taking over creative control at Uniqlo. The designer announced yesterday with chairman Tadashi Yanai at the Four Season in Tokyo that she will effectively be the creative director, without the actual title, of all of Uniqlo’s lines. In addition, she will be designing a signature collection set to debut in fall.
Considering the recent success of her line under the creative direction of Raf Simons, it is exciting to see the original throwing her hat back in the ring. Uniqlo is not new to designer collaborations, having previously featured collaborations with Phillip Lim, Alexander Wang and Alice Roi. Sales for the company are also still rising, having gone up 4.2 percent in February despite drops nearly everywhere else.
“The challenge for me is to establish a premium quality in a democratically-priced range,” Sander said of the partnership. And we, for one, could not be happier to see where she takes the Japanese brand.
