Stores are employing even more gimmicks to get us through their doors – supermodel, celebrity designer and popstar tie-ins. But as the competition gets more demented, one collection will be standing out from the crowd, says Josh Sims
Blink and London’s fast fashion retail scene changes. Blink again and this morning’s stock delivery has already been replaced. Once the high street seemed blighted
by a dearth of chutzpah. Now key players are trying to outflank each other in competitive times. Perhaps none has raised eyebrows higher than Arcadia Group boss Philip Green and his £3m signing of supermodel Kate Moss. She is ‘designing’ a 60-piece range for Topshop. Moss is a fashion icon, her style much admired. Come 1 May a sellout is assured.
Green’s judgement, however, has not always been so on the money. Topshop may have had sales of £600m last year, but revenues at BHS halved to just £48m and heads rolled. What went wrong? BHS is not about ‘fast’ fashion - and fashion just gets faster. The formula of the ‘catwalk influenced’ design, quick turnover and semi-disposable, clothing is now de rigeur.
It’s a pattern championed by Green at Topshop. Now though, the man who clothes three out of five British women is seeing the opposition flourish. Fellow pioneer Zara is expanding in the UK and so is New Look. In the spring, Abercrombie & Fitch opens on Savile Row, followed by the ‘Gap-plus’ format of Banana Republic on Regent Street.
Tesco’s Maverick and Asda’s George lines are now successful brands. Even Primark is opening a 6,000sq m flagship this April on the old C&A/Allders site on Oxford Street.
Competition is growing. According to Verdict Research, the top 10 womenswear retailers all grew from 2005 to 2006. However, they grew at the lowest rate for six years, with the value retailers – among them Primark, New Look and TK Maxx – responsible for what growth there has been. The value market is now worth £7.8bn, a quarter of the total clothing market.
Spending low to buy kudos has become ingrained in shopping habits. But some feel that change is nigh. ‘There is a trend towards paying for quality again,’ says Richard Perks, retail analyst for market researcher Mintel.
And the polarity between mass market and designer is becoming ever more pronounced, leaving the middle market a shopping Sahara but that presents an opportunity for bridge brands and retailers.
On 16 March, H&M launches COS on Regent Street, a new brand format of original design-driven clothing. Prices start where H&M’s stop. Launching niche concepts is set to be a key strategy for the future. ‘Value for money will always be in demand, but the middle market will be about offering products that last and have a greater design content again,’ says Martin Raymond of The Future Laboratory thinktank. The upturn in sales of key independents suggests as much.
The Oxford Street value stalwarts are being forced to counter this by being inventive both in terms of ever higher quality store design and sharper promotion. They are behaving like specialist boutiques, offering short runs presented in an upmarket way, and hiring top-name designers for their new lines.
‘There has to be something more, to give a bit of buzz now,’ says Perks. New Look, for
instance, signed 2006 BFC Designer of the Year Giles Deacon, his Gold range debuting mid-March, while Topshop launched a collection by Saint Martins golden boy Christopher Kane. And H&M advanced the designer tie-in with Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney lines. The ‘mass exclusivity’ of such moves may tempt shoppers but, with their limited runs quickly sold out, they are inevitably more about generating column inches and credibility than developing a new product philosophy.
They may reflect society’s obsession with fame, or, as with Kate Moss, a new elevation of muse to marketing tool. The same is even more true of the new celebrity tie-ins. H&M now has M By Madonna, in stores 22 March. New Look has a collection of dresses by ‘every girl’ Lily Allen, in stores 9 May. It’s Heat hits the high street, in other words. Some might call this a gimmick. Some have, Philip Green included.
‘I don’t need celebrity gimmicks to sell my merchandise,’ he declared in the Evening Standard. With Kate Moss he has flip-flopped.
Gimmick or no, it is certain to sell. The Moss collection is being shaped with the help of her stylist pal Katy England, creative director at Alexander McQueen. The magnitude of Moss’s celebrity should make her clothes collectors’ items. Meanwhile, it will start to build her reputation as a designer, her rumoured choice of profession once she retires from modelling.
But the long-term problem for value and premium value retailers is that they’re all using the same mechanism, one that doesn’t always translate into volume sales. ‘You may recoup the cost in PR; the market does seem to be about whoever shouts loudest now,’ says Matt Hirst at St. Luke’s communications agency. ‘But that also raises the bar in terms of being clever going forward.’
Just who has been the cleverest will show in the sales figures. While the designer ranges are always a good bet, the celebrity collections are less certain. Suitability rather than size of celebrity seems to be the key factor. Kate Moss, for instance, will triumph over Madonna. Pop cultural icon she may be, but Madge’s style has not been emulated for nearly two decades.
All the sparkle must translate into the higher volumes vital for these retailers to sustain growth. With online sales growing, and with a new middle market ripe for resurgence, it is not the beginning of the end of the high street but the end of the beginning. Retailers are appealing to a new shopper: a super-savvy one. She will no doubt enjoy wearing a touch of Kate Moss, but by the time the racks are empty she’ll be looking for the Next Big Thing.