Which Japanese billionaire is the founder of the clothing company Uniqlo?

Tadashi Yanai is the Japanese billionaire who founded the clothing company Uniqlo. He is also the founder and longtime leader of Fast Retailing, Uniqlo’s parent company.

Yanai joined his father’s roadside tailor shop after briefly working at a JUSCO supermarket. He transformed the family business from a local clothing operation into an international retailer. In 1984, he opened the first Uniqlo store in Hiroshima, introducing the brand’s focus on affordable, practical casualwear.

The name Uniqlo is derived from “unique clothing,” and the company’s model combined large-scale production with relatively simple store formats and tightly controlled product lines. Fast Retailing changed its name from Ogori Shoji in 1991 as Yanai pursued a broader corporate expansion strategy.

The wording can cause a minor technical confusion: Yanai founded Fast Retailing, while Uniqlo developed as the company’s flagship retail brand. Nevertheless, he is the standard and canonical answer to questions identifying the founder of Uniqlo. Masayoshi Son founded SoftBank, not Uniqlo.