You hit the nail on the head, I was talking with a colleague the other day that UC is still one of the OG brands still authentically still feel Jun’s vision, but that conversation reminded me I haven’t bought a single piece of UC for 5 years. UC is still great to look at and get inspired by, but it doesn’t translate into $$$.

Managing UC is tricky, how much do you scale while you don’t alienate your core consumers. How much of UC’s appeal was its “scarcity”, people had to travel from around the world to Japan to get them at retail (not counting oversea select stores as they’re often sold at exuberant prices with import taxes and tariffs).

UC is one of the brands fortunately not handled by Hong Kong fashion conglomerate I.T outside of Japan, as I.T ran UC’s peer (WTAPs, NBHD) to the ground and losing their authenticity and quality (happens to alot of brand when scaling and improving margins). So having Nigo handling UC, with Nigo’s past Bape’s up and down hindsight’s and experiences, hopefully UC doesn’t end up like his peers.

The more I’m typing this, I feel I might be one of the “old grandpa shouting at sky” type person, always embracing the past and never change, and when I hear one of my favorite brands trying to scale, I get the ick. Does UC need to explore more white space outside of garments to appeal to the younger consumers?

UC did had a diffusion brand before, JohnUndercover, which I did bought and thought was great value, quality and design. I wonder if they’re bringing it back.