Don’t Panic! No Name Japanese Retailer Comes To America

Muji expanded into the European market over ten years ago with there simple, no frills-high design products and we at PSFK remember the public’s euphoria for the London store with its Japanese products in 1991. A euphoria which has only been matched since, we suggest, by the roll out of Ikea.

Now it’s America’s turn: Inside the SoHo branch of the MoMA Design Store you’ll find the new Muji, the first in North America. A consumer-goods chain with 280 stores in Japan, the name Muji is a shortening of Mujirushi Ryohin, which translates to ”no-brand goods.”

After starting out as the in-house brand of Seiyu department stores in the early 1980’s, with low cost as a major selling point, Muji spun off in 1989, emphasizing quality design, sensible use of materials and utilitarian practicality, under the slogan ”Lower Priced for a Reason.” As an innovator of entirely new uses for materials that might otherwise have been discarded, unused, left over or ignored the chain has grown across the rest of Europe and through Asia.

With its utilitarian, no-nonsense design, we just know that the chain has even greater success in the US and Canada.

(Check It Out: Muji@MoMA – 81 Spring Street, New York, NY (646) 613-1367)

Muji’s UK Online Store
New York Times Article