Japanese casual clothing brand Uniqlo, operated
by Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., has expanded
its Peace for
All
charity T-shirt project, launched in 2022, in a powerful way. In September and
October 2024, the label partnered with renowned international photographic
cooperative Magnum Photos to hold photography
exhibitions in 10 cities around the world. In Japan, the exhibitions took
place in Tokyo and Hiroshima, a city that epitomizes the desire for
global peace.
A T-shirt with the power to spread peace
With its motto of “It’s time for action, in the name of world peace,” the Peace
for All project asks well-known figures who share this vision to voluntarily
provide their own personal peace message, which is then designed onto a T-shirt
and sold for charity. Fast Retailing donates all the profits from the T-shirt
sales (approximately 20 percent of the retail price) to three humanitarian
organizations — the United Nations Refugee Agency
(UNHCR), Save the Children and Plan
International — to help support their
activities (5,240,022 T-shirts have been sold and ¥1,668,037,500 donated through August
2024).
In Fall 2024, a new project called the Global Photo Exhibition – Peace for
All
was launched by Uniqlo’s Peace for All team together with Magnum Photos so that
people could see for themselves the difference they were making, and the kinds
of people their action was benefiting around the world through simply buying and
wearing a T-shirt. Three renowned Magnum photographers visited several locations
around the world to depict the innate strength of people living in difficult
circumstances and capture moments of Peace for All-funded activities from their
own perspective. Those images have been turned into T-shirt designs to generate
fresh donations, and also compiled into the first ever Uniqlo global photo
exhibition.
We caught up with Eiko
Sherba, Uniqlo’s Director of
Global Marketing, at the Hiroshima photo exhibition.
Leveraging the combined power of clothing and images
“We felt we hadn’t fully illustrated how financial donations raised through
Peace for All were actually being handled by people on the ground, and how
things were progressing overall,” Sherba explained. “So, we enlisted the help of
Magnum Photos — which documents local scenes through iconic images and authentic
storytelling — and created a photo exhibition that conveys our underlying
approach and the actual physical support activities themselves.”
The exhibition showcases 63 photos from three Magnum photographers: Cristina de
Middel, Olivia
Arthur and
Lindokuhle
Sobekwa.
“Rather than simply document the humanitarian aid site, these vivid photos taken
by Cristina, Magnum Photos president, in Vietnam depict the children’s rich
expressions,” Sherba said. “Olivia, the previous Magnum Photos president,
photographed children in Romania who had fled from Ukraine. Her
impressive photos shot in a custom-made studio skillfully highlight the
children’s imagination and the gentle attention of the therapy dog offering
mental health solace.
“Lindokuhle took photos of the refugee camp in Ethiopia. His photos don’t
simply evoke a sense of sadness about the daily lives of refugees, but instead
express the inherent strength of the people living there in terms of their
determination to maintain precious family ties and their will to survive and
thrive even in difficult circumstances. They are messages of hope, dreams, and
resilience.”
Apparently, this first exhibition was the result of a chance encounter with De
Middel.
“When Cristina participated in the Peace for All project in 2023, she mentioned
how wonderful she thought the project was and how Magnum often took photos in
the places that need humanitarian aid,” Sherba explained. “She suggested getting
professional Magnum photographers to visit different frontline sites to create a
unique record of those activities. The end result was this great exhibition,
which has enabled us to combine our power of clothing and Magnum’s power of
pictures to convey our common desire to change the world.”
‘Our responsibility as a global company’
According to
UNHCR,
forced displacement continues to rise — with over 120 million persons around the
world having been forced to flee their homes due to conflict, persecution, war
and oppression. Uniqlo began providing support for refugees in collaboration
with UNHCR in 2006 and signed an official global partnership with the
organization in 2011.
“In the early days, we offered clothing aid; but as the number of refugees
worldwide
surpassed 100 million, we asked ourselves if there was anything more that Uniqlo
— with its unique skillset — could offer,” Sherba said. “The Peace for All
project was one idea about which our company president, Tadashi
Yanai, was passionate. He was
determined to donate all the profits from the T-shirt sales, which is a
considerable commitment for a private company. I think our earnest commitment
has been effectively conveyed to our collaborative partners and customers.”
We asked Sherba about the thinking behind the Peace for All project motto: “It’s
time for action, in the name of world peace.”
“In a sense, this is our responsibility as a global company,” Sherba emphasized.
“Clothes are an indispensable daily commodity, and our company can only operate
effectively in a safe and peaceful society. We have to take positive action as a
company to help create and maintain such a society — and to conduct business
that, in turn, benefits society at large. It is vital that we continue to do
everything we can to encourage peace. That has always been our view, and I don’t
think it will ever change.”
Some issues cannot be solved by one company, but there are always things that a
single company can do. Uniqlo believes it can leverage clothing to help make
the world a better place
and is determined to keep evolving its activities to achieve that aim into the
future.
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Published Nov 22, 2024 8am EST / 5am PST / 1pm GMT / 2pm CET