Yesterday while looking for photos for my baseball post, I came across a shot of the UNIQLO store we once had in Kuwait. UNIQLO is a popular and affordable Japanese clothing brand, and it’s one of my favorite stores to check out whenever I travel.
Back in 2019, someone in Kuwait decided to open a UNIQLO store. They had tried to officially bring the brand here, but UNIQLO wasn’t interested. So, the owner went ahead and opened his own unofficial store in Bida’a inside a department store. He would buy products at regular retail prices, ship them to Kuwait, and then slap a markup on them. The result was some pretty high prices. Here are a few I had written down:
Low Cut Socks
Online: KD 1.2
Kuwait: KD 2
Dry Pique Short Sleeve Polo Shirt
Online: KD 6
Kuwait: KD 17.5
Fleece Long-Sleeve Full-Zip Jacket
Online: KD 6
Kuwait: KD 24
Oxford Slim Fit Long Sleeve Shirt
Online: KD 9
Kuwait: KD 24
Women Ezy Jeans
Online: KD 12
Kuwait: KD 30
Sprz NY Basquiat Short Sleeve Graphic T-Shirt
Online: KD 4.5
Kuwait: KD 24
Only in Kuwait would we get an unofficial UNIQLO with triple the price items. It obviously didn’t last long, but it’s kind of hilarious when I think about it now.
What sucks is I couldn’t find any of my photos of the store other than the one I used for this post. But I couldn’t even find the original photo in my library, just this one which I had used for my initial post.
7 replies on “Back when we had a UNIQLO in Kuwait”
It’s such a shame Uniqlo aren’t interested opening here! Wonder why.
Please educate.
maybe they dont franchise and own all their stores. Never really dug into it.
Yeah, while on my vacation in the Philippines, I grabbed lots of good clothes from Uniqlo. The quality is very good and cheap too. I still have the app on my phone because the staff suggested we download it, and we got instant discounts plus app only discounts as well. 5 stars for that brand.
I abosolutely love Uniqlo, and appreciate their timeless fashion that just suits every day every need. Every time i travel its the first store i look for. I hope they reconsider and open in kuwait 🙁
I didn’t even know this happened, but I’m not surprised there were markups. At this point, why not just order online for yourself? 😕
Also, about your photos being missing, maybe due to the age of the file, it probably got corrupted? Have you checked all hard-drives and memory cards? Even cloud storage?
Uniqlo is the cheaper version of ‘Muji’ and don’t some of us here just love them for it. If Primark is coming soon to Kuwait there is a faint likelihood of the stork also delivering ‘Woolworth’ and ‘Uniqlo’ to the local market.
Uniqlo is strictly a fashion brand and they’re a lot bigger than Muji. I wouldn’t say they’re a cheaper version of Muji at all since other than the fact both are Japanese I don’t find them similar at all. Sure Muji sells clothes as well, but Uniqlo is more like H&M than it is Muji.