Uniqlo to launch collection with Carine Roitfeld

Fashion retailer Uniqlo is collaborating with fashion editor Carine Roitfeld for autumn/winter 2015 with a womenswear collection that reflects her “broad experience” showcasing new styles and designers to a global audience.

Set to launch at the end of October, the Carine Roitfeld Collection is part of the Japanese fashion retailer’s LifeWear concept, which features innovative high-quality clothing that promotes comfort to enhance everyday life. The collaboration will consist of around 40 items and will be overseen by Roitfeld and Naoki Takizawa, Uniqlo’s design director.

Commenting on the collaboration, Carine Roitfeld said, "I feel joy at creating new mode expressions. I am constantly asking myself what these are, and creating new clothing within the Uniqlo LifeWear concept is a great challenge".

“I started from the idea of clothes that I would want to wear myself, and developed this into clothes that anyone would want to wear, a woman's ideal of clothes that make her feel transformed when she wears them."

Uniqlo partners with Carine Roitfeld for new designer collaboration

Further details of the collaboration has yet to be revealed, just that the collection will range from “stylish outer to feminine innerwear”, and will feature “everyday clothing that is functional, comfortable, and reasonably priced”.

Takizawa, added: "Carine goes to see collections all around the world, and the visuals that emerge from this relentless pursuit of leading edge fashion have had a tremendous influence on the fashion industry.

“The clothing depicted in these fresh and innovative visuals, produced with the fashion world's most influential creators, seems somehow triumphant. I believe that a new type of LifeWear will be created through her work."

Tadashi Yanai, Fast Retailing chairman, president and CEO, commented: "Roitfeld is a charismatic fashion editor and influential figure in the fashion world, and we are extremely happy to present this collection with her as our collaborative partner. I am pleased that this new collection will allow us to present our customers worldwide with a new type of Uniqlo LifeWear."

Uniqlo has more than 1,500 stores in 16 markets including the UK, the US, Japan, France, Germany, and Australia, and has partnered with numerous brands before including French fashion icon Ines de la Fressange, German designer Jil Sander, British designers Lulu Guinness, Orla Kiely and Laura Ashley.

Roitfeld is a respected fashion editor and founder of CR Fashion Book, which combines the collectible aspect of a book with a curated fashion magazine, as well as being the global fashion director of Harper's Bazaar internationally. Prior to this she spent ten years as editor-in-chief of French Vogue.

Image: Carine Roitfeld by Fe Pinheiro for Uniqlo