Seemingly out of nowhere, their cheap, skinny rainbow-colored basics became a kind of New York uniform. Just how did the Japanese discount brand become the hottest retailer in the city?

Karmand Ahmed starts folding at eight o’clock in the morning. He works on the mezzanine of the three-floor Uniqlo flagship store in Soho, just north of Spring Street on Broadway. If the Uniqlo store were a ship of the line—and, at 37,000 square feet, it kind of is—the mezzanine would be the poop deck, the most important part of the vessel, from which all can be surveyed. With its 22-foot-tall LED banners and a wall of merchandise equally high, it’s the showpiece of a store built to overwhelm with a sense of ordered abundance.

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(C)UNIQLO

(C)UNIQLO