Short videos on Chinese social media went viral as they depicted shoppers shoving, wrestling, and fighting with all of their might, just to get the latest T-shirt from Japanese fashion company UNIQLO.
The T-shirt, priced at almost $15, along with the viral videos, had Chinese netizens calling the shoppers crazy and said they felt sorry for them.
The hashtag “UNIQLO cooperation collection T-shirt was snapped up” had over 440 million hits on Sina Weibo as of press time.
In one video, a group rushes toward a UNIQLO store. Their pace did not slow as some lost their cell phones during the sprint.
Another video depicts shoppers crawling through a gap as the door to one store slowly opened and scrambling to beat the other shoppers.
Fights and chaos escalated as shoppers made their way into stores. A few videos show people fighting over the T-shirts.
Shoppers who were able to get a shirt held on to them like trophies as they paid for them at cashier stands.
Store mannequins weren’t safe as the shirts were ripped from their plastic bodies and they were then thrown to the ground disfigured, missing arms and legs.
What makes this T-shirt so desirable is that it was designed by American graffiti artist KAWS.
Although KAWS has designed T-shirt for UNIQLO in the past, a rumor spread online that this latest release would be his last design for the Japanese company.
The National Business Daily reported that one shop owner said they weren't sure if this was going to be the last cooperation between the two, but UNIQLO will not replenish the shirts in the short run once the first run sells out.
The online sales, which started on Monday, were sold out within seconds.
Many waited outside one shopping mall as early as 1 a.m. Monday morning;, while others snuck inside to wait.
After online sales began, store owners seized upon demand and some charged upwards of $90 for one T-shirt.
Netizens said the shoppers should be ashamed. Some also said this was just a cheap attempt at marketing on behalf of the company.
In a survey published by Shanghai Morning Post on Sina Weibo, 294,000 out of 484,000 respondents believed the buyers were just following the crowd and were influenced by people around them.
One shopper told Shanghai-based news portal thepaper.cn that KAWS has also worked with Dior, who sells his T-shirt designs for roughly $160. The UNIQLO version is more popular because of the lower price.
