Uniqlo has just announced (yet) another collaboration with the American artist. Are you willing to get in line, again?

Uniqlo is really good at attracting the masses to come to their store, where they gleefully get in line, and put themselves at the risk of scuffling. From the issue of the AIRism face mask in 2020 to the relaunch of +J (queue numbers weren’t able to diminish the craze) in the same year, the Japanese brand has repeatedly aroused the feverish frenzy that other retailers watch with envy. But no debut promotional activity was as manic as the launch of the collaboration with KAWS in 2021, as well as the second issue. The former was an especially mad affair (especially in China), as many of you remember. And it looks like it is going to happen all over again, two years on.

The AIRism and Heatech retailer has just announced the upcoming KAWS X Uniqlo 2023 collection, featuring, presumably, the brand’s wildly popular UT T-shirts. On Uniqlo’s Instagram page, an animated reel shows what appears to be the hands of Companion flicking out a tee from behind a pile of books (or files?). Reportedly, the graphics this time is based on the artist’s 2021 artwork What Party: Tide, with Companion on the garment looking like he’s treading water. Apart from that, Uniqlo has not released much information about the collab. It does not even say when the tees will be available, except that they are “coming soon”. How soon? But that may be enough to get some people riled up with excitement.

Update (25 August 2023, 15:45): The KAWS X Uniqlo collaboration will be available in stores from 8 September, together with a book.

Watch this space for release dates. Screen shot: Uniqlo/Instagram