Muji was born in Japan in the early 1980s out of a radical impulse: to create a brand that refused to be a brand. Consumer culture was accelerating into maximalism, and logos were becoming inescapable. As Naomi Klein wrote of the period in her book No Logo (1999): “Competitive branding became a necessity of the machine age – within a context of manufactured sameness; image-based difference had to be manufactured along with the product.” Yet from the outset, Muji positioned itself as an intentional absence – a company committed to “no brand, quality goods,” with anonymous packaging, neutral tones, and design so stripped back it verged on invisibility. Who amongst us doesn’t have a Muji polypropylene storage stacking case or a tiny travel bottle for conditioner, or one of their cult gel ballpoint pens? When Muji filed for bankruptcy in the US in 2020 (don’t worry, American readers, they still maintain stores and an online presence in the country), a typical response on X read, “muji pens are elite pens i would die for the muji pens i would cross oceans for a muji pen”. In skincare, products like the High Moisture Light Toning Water have found a devoted following, while Muji’s food range is catered for the elegant but low-effort urbanite, with standouts including the instant Butter Chicken Curry in its air-sealed bag, which only needs seven minutes in a pot of boiling water. Practical household items like compact furniture pieces, kitchen utensils and aroma diffusers are ubiquitous in households around the world. If you’re shopping online for a women’s skirt, the “often bought together” suggests a handheld electric fan, and cheese cream sandwich crackers. Impressive, if not entirely logical adjacencies, that demonstrate the totality of the Muji offering. In this photo series, that totality is expressed in sets constructed of Muji products, worn by current Muji employees, wearing Muji clothes.

Founded as a private label within the supermarket chain Seiyu in 1980, Muji launched with a modest range of products – household goods and food wrapped in unadorned packaging, sold under the slogan “Lower priced for a reason.” Muji’s approach was rooted in a philosophy of simplicity, quality and utility. By rigorously rationalising manufacturing processes, carefully selecting materials, and eliminating unnecessary embellishments, the brand projected a sense that these products were simple, reliable, well-designed and accessible to all. Muji was the first Japanese brand to integrate such an extensive lifestyle offering under a single, cohesive “no-brand” aesthetic, and now, if you visit Japan, you’re likely to pop into a MUJI500, in which nearly every item is under 500 yen, for your everyday essentials. The Muji Hotel Ginza in Tokyo, which opened in 2019, is located in the heart of the Ginza shopping district and occupies the upper floors of Muji’s global flagship store. It features 79 rooms designed to offer “anti-luxurious” and “anti-cheap” accommodations that prioritise environmental consciousness and simplicity. They’ve since expanded and opened hotels in major cities, including Shenzhen and Beijing. The Muji Hotel concept continues the brand’s core principles of restraint and functionality, offering guests spaces designed with Muji’s signature minimalist approach and furnished with its own products – of course.

When it launched, this scale and cohesiveness were unprecedented in Japan, and truth be told, the world. Muji not only questioned the consumer obsession with status but also established a completely new retail experience where functional beauty reigned. Its quiet, humble presence reshaped Japanese retail (and inspired other Japanese retail behemoths too, ahem) and continues to challenge global consumer culture today while enjoying a sort of renaissance as logo and brand fatigue hits harder and harder.

“We don’t follow trends,” says Uriel Karsenti, who was appointed managing director of Muji Europe in September 2023 after having spent a career in luxury fashion brands. “This ‘no branding’ concept was very radical to me.” And yet in a landscape populated by viral livestream shopping, copycat Scandinavian minimalism, and mega marketing budgets poured into the influencing world, how does a very quiet brand like Muji regain its rightful crown as the original, the innovator and the essential? This silence was a challenge, but has now become one of Muji’s greatest strengths: “The market has changed so much that this restraint … has become a positive asset. We don’t need to shout. Our lack of branding becomes a form of presence today, because it’s just about not doing what the others do.”

Despite this refusal to participate in the visual noise, Muji has emerged as an unmistakable aesthetic and distinct way of life. Karsenti describes how Muji “occupies a very unique position in a retail landscape where everyone is branded, everyone is telling a story, everyone is calling for attention, and we just are being humble with our plain packaging or neutral tones and no labels, no drops, no collaborations. We offer tools for living, and this is simply what we do. We don’t sell an image.” This posture, he explains, “gives Muji a strategic advantage. We’re not imposing a lifestyle; we leave room for people to project their own vision, their own life.” In offering this space, Muji invites a kind of identity “without excess” – one that privileges ownership by the user over prescriptive consumption.

Karsenti connects this ethos to Japanese cultural ideas such as Shintoism, highlighting “the concept of emptiness” that allows products to be reviewed and repurposed by customers themselves. This radical openness places power in the hands of the consumer, allowing them to “express themselves” on their own terms. “Muji offers an alternative,” he says, “whereas other stores and brands are more prescriptive about how I as a consumer should look, behave, and be.” Muji’s neutrality resists the pressures of lifestyle as spectacle. 

“I think Muji has a unique way of creating objects and products – highlighting the essential, or removing the unnecessary, and always thinking about what is enough,” Karsenti shares. A connection to nature is key. When you look at the fashion offer from Muji Labo – a recent introduction that is more experimental in its design and elevated in its fabrics, while continuing its use of natural materials and functional silhouettes – you’ll find a simple, gathered skirt crafted from ramie, a fabric treasured in Japan since ancient times for its airy and durable qualities. Ramie is a biodegradable fibre that’s derived from a plant in the nettle family. The waist of the skirt boasts an impressive and exact pleated gathering that flows into a minimalist yet generous silhouette, and you double-take when looking at the price point if you are used to the four figures of other Japanese brands with a similar product.  

Muji’s arrival in London caused a sensation with the cool arty crowd, and soon every happening home had a telltale trail of products. The 1980s excess had already created a backlash against the yuppie culture of brash cash, and Muji’s brand message connected with the emerging cultural wave. Since then, its reach has broadened, from students wanting to build a starter home to the price-conscious elders seeking alternatives to fast fashion and over-designed objects. As culture and lifestyle increasingly intertwine yet diverge – lifestyle accelerating change and spectacle, culture enduring and shaping – Muji stands as a powerful alternative. It challenges us to consider: what if the things we own were tools rather than trophies? What if identity were something projected from within, not imposed by commodified narratives? Through its radical origin and ongoing refusal to shout, Muji offers not just products, but a philosophy of living that asks us to rethink how we relate to both objects and ourselves. .