How Muji Created a Cult Following of Design Enthusiasts Its products have no visible brand identifiers -- and that's proven to be a good thing.
By Carren Jao •
This story appears in the August 2015 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
Tucked behind a CVS Pharmacy and a Marshalls on Hollywood Boulevard sits the Los Angeles outpost of Muji, a Japanese brand that is venerated by design enthusiasts around the world.
The store offers a bastion of calm amid the chaos of the boulevard, where character actors do their best Marilyn Monroe or Charlie Chaplin impersonations. Inside the 8,600-square-foot Muji space, with its exposed brick columns and reclaimed wood finishing, are orderly displays of minimalist furniture, housewares, apparel, stationery, food and electronics. The elegantly designed products, which carry no visible brand identifiers, evoke a subtle aesthetic that entices customers to come closer. It is that laid-back beauty, that determination to offer tranquility in a world of noise, that has earned the brand a cult following.
"Muji isn't actually very well-known," says Eric Kobuchi, West Coast sales operations manager. "We're known among design-oriented visitors, especially from London or Paris, but we have yet to be a household name."
