Since March 1949, a Yamaguchi-based company, Ogori Shōji (which, until then, had been operating men's clothing shops called "Men's Shop OS") existed in Ube, Yamaguchi.

In May 1984, they opened a unisex casual wear store in Fukuro-machi, Naka-ku, Hiroshima under the name "Unique Clothing Warehouse". Initially, from the contraction of "unique clothing", the brand was going to register under "uni-clo". However, in 1988, during administration work between Hong Kong in relation to the brand, staff in charge of registration misread the "C" as "Q", and that is how the brand name was born. From then, Tadashi Yanai changed the store name to "uniqlo" across Japan. In September 1991, the name of the company was changed from "Ogori Shōji" to "Fast Retailing", and by April 1994, there were over 100 Uniqlo stores operating throughout Japan.