For businesses and consumers alike, 2021 dawned under the ongoing shadow of Covid-19. As business leaders have continued to point out, the pandemic accelerated the reformation of the high street and forced customers to shop differently. If 2020 was the year that changed everything, 2021 was the year that we started to map out “the new normal”.
In many ways, 2021 has been a tale of two halves for fashion retail. It was a bitter start to the year for many fashion retailers and brands, with lockdown 3.0 shuttering shops for more than three months from 5 January. However, when “non-essential” retail was finally allowed to reopen again on 12 April in England and Wales, 26 April in Scotland, 30 April in Northern Ireland and 17 May in Ireland, consumers responded joyfully at the opportunity to shop in-store again, and sales surged.
After several high street giants fell, online players stepped in to take their place in a rapidly evolving landscape. Asos notably bought Arcadia Group’s Topshop, Miss Selfridge and HIIT brands in February, while Boohoo Group purchased Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Wallis in the same month, after Debenhams’ website the month before.
With wedding season firmly back in people’s diaries from 25 June, and “Freedom Day” – the end of all legal restrictions on 19 July – party dresses, suits and smart shoes were back in demand.
As the furlough scheme ended on 30 September, retail redundancies mounted, but businesses were still hiring for the best digital talent in September, while making redundancies in other areas.
Supply chains are still under increasing pressure with the combined forces of Brexit and Covid, threatening peak trading, but fashion businesses look forward to increased present-buying and consumer spending this festive season, with family and friends able to celebrate together after a year hiatus. Drapers looks back on a year like no other.
January
It was a grim start to the year for fashion retailers, as a third national lockdown in England and Scotland came into effect on 5 January. Republic of Ireland retail was shut from 3 December 2020, while Wales and Northern Ireland followed on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day respectively. Retailers that had survived the first two lockdowns knew the score: many had invested heavily in ecommerce and social media operations, and were ready to focus their energy on selling and keeping in touch with customers online. As England entered lockdown 3.0, chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a new one-off grant worth up to £9,000 per property to help combat the latest lockdown closures for businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.
Firing the starting gun on a year of mergers and acquisitions, on 11 January, Marks & Spencer bought Jaeger for an undisclosed sum from administrator FRP Advisory, which was appointed to the brand’s owner, Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) Group in November 2020. The rescue deal did not include stores and concessions, and was part of M&S’s plans to “turbocharge growth” on mands.com by selling complementary brands.
Edinburgh Woollen Mill, Bonmarché and Ponden Home were sold to an investment consortium on 12 January, resulting in store closures and hundreds of redundancies. It packaged the businesses into Purepay Retail, a dormant subsidiary of EWM Group. Purepay said it would operate a total of 246 Edinburgh Woollen Mill and Ponden Home stores, and 72 Bonmarchés, under licence, jettisoning 85 Edinburgh Woollen Mills and 34 Ponden Homes.
Boohoo announced on 25 January that it would buy the Debenhams brand, website and intellectual property for £55m, but not its store portfolio. All 12,000 Debenhams staff went into consultation. This presaged the disappearance of the department store from the high street, following its battle for survival through administrations in 2019 and 2020.
Four and a half years after a tiny majority voted to leave the European Union in June 2016, the UK officially left the bloc – its closest and biggest trading partner – on 31 January. The UK-EU Trade and Co-operation Agreement had finally been agreed on Christmas Eve. Prime minister Boris Johnson (above) claimed the deal allowed for “zero tariff” and “zero quota” trade between the UK and the EU, but retailers have since suffered additional red tape, and duties on imports and exports with Europe and other parts of the world, including the Middle East and Far East (Brexit: one year on)
February
There was more change on the high street, as Asos bought the once-mighty Arcadia Group’s Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge brands, as well as the HIIT label, for £265m on 1 February. The deal excluded the three chains’ 70 stores, affecting 2,500 retail staff. Asos has since cut jobs in merchandising, buying and design from Topshop, Miss Selfridge and Topman.
On 8 February, M&S hired Fiona Lambert as managing director of Jaegar to lead its repositioning as an “independent brand within the M&S family”. Lambert had launched River Island Holdings-owned womenswear label Harpenne in August 2019, but it ceased trading in April 2020.
Asos bought the Arcadia Group’s Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge brands in February.
On 9 February, Boohoo Group bought the rump of the Arcadia empire – Burton, Dorothy Perkins and Wallis brands – for £25.2m, but not the brands’ 214 shops, taking them online only.
The switch from bricks-and-mortar shops to virtual retail was in evidence in Office for National Statistics data that showed online sales hit a record 36.1% of all UK sales in February 2021. Meanwhile, there was a 50.4% drop in store sales volumes compared with February 2020, before the first lockdowns.
N Brown Group closed the website of lingerie retailer Figleaves on 26 February, and moved its brands, including Freya, Fantasie and Panache, on to the Simply Be website. An undisclosed number of Figleaves staff went into consultation. N Brown bought Figleaves in 2010, but decided to close it to focus on its five core fascias: Simply Be, Ambrose Wilson, JD Williams, Jacamo and Home Essentials.
March
Next bought a 25% equity stake in Reiss, valued at around £200m, on 10 March. Reiss transitioned its website, warehouse, distribution and logistics to Next’s “Total Platform”, which launched in 2020 to host third-party brands. Reiss retained management autonomy and creative independence under CEO Christos Angelides and his team, although Next CEO Lord Wolfson became chair of the brand.
Reiss CEO Christos Angelides
John Lewis Partnership announced it would close eight of its 42 John Lewis stores on 24 March: four department stores in Aberdeen, Peterborough, Sheffield and York, and four “At Home” stores in Ashford, Basingstoke, Chester and Tunbridge Wells. This was part of John Lewis executive director Pippa Wick’s five-year turnaround plan, announced in October 2020, which aims to reach £400m in profits by 2025. It made a pre-tax loss of £29m in the six months to 31 July 2021.
On 25 March, Boohoo Group published its list of UK manufacturers in a bid to boost transparency after allegations of unsafe working practices at its Leicester factories. It published the list on the six-month anniversary of the report by barrister Alison Levitt, which found the group had been “inadequate for many years” in monitoring “endemic” issues of poor working conditions in its Leicester supply chain.
The Ever Given cargo ship blocked the Suez Canal for almost a week in late March, causing further delays in an already-stretched supply chain.
April
“Non-essential” retail was allowed to reopen in England and Wales on 12 April. This unleashed a surge in shopping activity in the second half of the month: non-food sales rose by around 25% in comparison with the previous month under lockdown, the British Retail Consortium-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor showed. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, shops reopened on 26 and 30 April respectively.
The high street came back to life in April
The UK coronavirus vaccine programme was continuing at pace, and all over-fifties and high-risk groups in the UK had been offered the jab by 12 April
New legislation on pre-pack administration came into force on 30 April, allowing for greater transparency in restructuring deals. The Administration (Restrictions on Disposal etc to Connected Persons) Regulations 2021 introduced a mandatory eight-week window during which assets of an insolvent business cannot be sold to a “connected party” without consent from creditors or a report from an independent evaluator.
Industry experts told Drapers the legislation was a “game changer”, as it would allow for greater scrutiny, oversight and accountability.
May
Forcing retail towards greater sustainability, on 21 May, the government doubled the charge on plastic bags from 5p to 10p in England to help drive down the cost of single-use plastic.
Marks & Spencer announced 26 May that it would close 30 stores over the next 10 years as part of its “Never the Same Again” turnaround strategy launched in June 2020, while a further 80 will be moved to better locations or merged with nearby branches.
June
In what has been described as “one of the largest UK tech acquisitions in many years” by industry observers and business growth experts, Etsy agreed to buy Depop for $1.63bn (£1.15bn) on 2 June.
Occasionwear was back on the agenda, as weddings with more than 30 people were allowed to go ahead from 21 June.
The director of one high street clothing multiple told Drapers: “Our occasionwear dresses have been doing really well, as people go to weddings and back to the races. Women seem desperate to have something feminine and floaty that they can pair with heels or trainers, depending on the events.”
Weddings and events returned to the calendar in June
On 16 June, the Covid property moratorium introduced on 26 March 2020 was extended until 25 March 2022. This gives retailers forced to close under lockdown protection from landlords’ “aggressive” actions, such as eviction or seizure of stock.
JD Sports Fashion’s acquisition spree continued apace as it bought an 80% stake in fast fashion etailer Missy Empire for an undisclosed sum on 25 June, and then just days later announced it had bought an 80% stake in Spanish sports equipment retailer Deporvillage for €140.4m (£120.4m).
On 30 June, Gap announced that it was closing its remaining 81 stores across the UK and Republic of Ireland, leaving more holes on the high street and questions marks over its continued presence in the market.
July
The ongoing fallout of Brexit was continuing to inflict pain on fashion retailers. Drapers’ survey of independent fashion retailers, carried out online between 1 July and 6 August 2021, found 83% of respondents had been negatively affected by Brexit after the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. Research published in July by the UK Fashion and Textile Association found that 98% of fashion businesses had experienced additional bureaucracy around customs clearance.
On 5 July, John Lewis announced plans to build 10,000 homes for rental, initially in the south-east of England, but it said there were other opportunities across the country. This was part of John Lewis’s strategy for 40% of its profits to come from outside of retail by 2030. The homes will be built within the group’s existing property portfolio, and it will also aim to acquire new sites.
After closing all Debenhams stores following its purchase of the department store chain in January, Boohoo Group confirmed it was in talks to open a small beauty shop under the fascia outside London, to strike new deals with “top” luxury beauty brands. The group said some beauty brands had refused to supply products to Debenhams unless it had a physical store presence.
“Freedom Day” finally came on 19 July. Nightclubs reopened, limitations on numbers at big events and social-distancing requirements were lifted, and face coverings were no longer mandatory in most public areas, including shops, in England.
East London menswear trade show Just Around The Corner opened on 19 July – the day Covid restrictions were lifted
While retailers responded with excitement, spirits were dampened somewhat by the “pingdemic”. In the run-up to Freedom Day, the NHS Test and Trace app “pinged” more than 600,000 people in England and Wales in the week to 15 July, to inform them they had been in close contact with someone who had contracted Covid-19 and should self-isolate for 10 days.
This caused chaos for the fashion retail industry, as store assistants had to isolate. On 22 July, the government said a “narrow” group of keyworkers, including food production and healthcare workers, could bypass the regulations to try to alleviate the situation, but fashion retail workers were not included in the exemption list.
Trade shows returned in physical form. Despite social-distancing measures, attendees revelled in the return to in-person UK trade shows at the London Textile Fair on 13 July. East London menswear trade show Just Around The Corner followed on 19 July, on the day that restrictions were lifted. Appetite for face-to-face meetings and seeing product in person was high at the event, as trade shows had been virtual since March 2020.
In Northern Ireland, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, most Covid restrictions were relaxed on 26 July, 5 August, 7 August and 9 August, respectively, although masks are still obligatory across these nations in shops, and the easing has generally been more cautious than in England.
Meanwhile, on 21 July, JD Sports Fashion’s acquisition trail led it to sportswear brand Gym King, where it took a minority stake for a multimillion-pound investment.
There were positive signs that fashion retail was bouncing back. In the three months to July, in-store non-food sales grew by 64.9% compared with the same period in 2020, the the BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor showed showed.
Meanwhile, the GfK Consumer Confidence Index edged up two points to -7 in July. This reflected “the gradual unlocking of the UK high street and release of pent-up demand as Brits hit shops, restaurants and venues”, GfK said.
Following better-than-expected results, high street stalwart Next increased its full-year pre-tax profit guidance by 4% to £750m. For the 11 weeks to 17 July, full-price sales at Next were up 18.6% compared with the equivalent period in 2019.
Private equity firm Retail Ecommerce Ventures acquired luxury womenswear brand Ralph & Russo on 1 July, following its collapse into administration on 1 March.
AllSaints creative director Will Beedle left the retailer after 18 years to focus on Shoreditch Ski Club, the eco-brand he created and designs. HIs exit created uncertainty about the direction the retailer’s future direction.
August
A shortfall of around 90,000 HGV drivers began to bite, affecting retail supply chains. The pandemic had halted driver training and testing for more than 12 months, while an estimated 25,000 European Union drivers returned home during the pandemic.
Mike Ashley (left) and Michael Murray
In response, John Lewis upped its pay for delivery drivers by up to £5,000 a year from 8 August, and Marks & Spencer offered HGV drivers a £2,000 signing-on bonus to address the shortage.
However, retailers ramped up their warnings that a supply chain “perfect storm” was threatening preparations for peak trading: freight costs multiplied, and shipping delays and stock shortages caused by soaring demand for online goods compounded problems arising from port and factory closures caused by Covid-19.
Sweaty Betty was sold to US lifestyle footwear group Wolverine Worldwide for $410m (£295m) on 3 August. Sweaty Betty will continue to be led by CEO Julia Straus, who will report to Brendan Hoffman, president of Wolverine Worldwide. Industry insiders were not convinced by Sweaty Betty’s “eye-wateringly” high sale price, but agreed that its new US owner will help the activewear retailer expand more aggressively overseas and into new product categories.
Frasers Group confirmed on 5 August that CEO Mike Ashley would be stepping down. Michael Murray, head of elevation will be taking on the role in May 2022. Industry insiders told Drapers they were convinced Mike Ashley will still be there to oversee and pull the right strings.
Adidas confirmed on 13 August that it would sell Reebok to Authentic Brands Group for €2.1bn (£1.78bn).
September
The Drapers redundancies tracker showed job cuts in fashion retail since the start of the pandemic reached 45,240 as of 3 September.
At the same time, workers were in high demand across the fashion retail industry, and John Lewis Partnership announced it would be hiring 7,000 temporary workers for the festive season across its John Lewis and Waitrose store network. With online sales surging, retailers including Seasalt and The Very Group told Drapers they were recruiting heavily for digital roles in a highly competitive jobs market.
Former Fat Face CEO Liz Evans was announced as Asda’s managing director of George, the supermarket chain’s clothing and home arm, on 15 September.
David Koma at London Fashion Week at the London Aquatics Centre
An announcement from Next on 17 September heralded Gap’s return to the UK and Ireland high street. In a joint venture 51% owned by Next, and 49% by Gap, the British retailer took over the management of the US brand in the UK and Ireland as a franchise partner.
Next will run Gap’s ecommerce business through its Total Platform, host Gap-branded shop-in-shops at selected retail locations, and offer click-and-collect options for online customers from 2022.
London Fashion Week returned in physical form on 17 September for the spring/summer 22 season, after going digital for the last two seasons. New York Fashion Week had led the way from 7 September with the first physical runways.
In London, designers chose creative venues and showcased joyful collections. David Koma unveiled a bright, glamorous womenswear collection at the London Aquatics Centre, the former Olympics venue and swimming pool in Stratford, east London. Erdem showed at the British Museum and Simone Rocha chose a medieval church in Smithfield. Sex appeal was back on the catwalks, notably with lingerie-inspired dresses from designer Nensi Dojoka’s, this year’s winner of the LVMH prize.
Liz Evans was announced as Asda’s managing director of George
Drapers events also returned in person, and the industry reunited at the Independents Awards and Footwear Awards in London on 23 September.
Jigsaw appointed Beth Butterwick as CEO from 30 September. She was previously CEO of Karen Millen and Coast, but left following Boohoo Group’s acquisition of the brands in 2019. There were fears of widespread job losses when chancellor Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme came to an end on 30 September. A British Chambers of Commerce survey found that one in five businesses expected to make redundancies at the end of the scheme and a quarter would cut staff hours.
October
French Connection was sold in a deal valuing the retailer at £29m on 4 October. It was bought by consortium MIP, comprising entrepreneurs Apinder Singh Ghura and Amarjit Singh Grewal, plus holding company KJR Brothers. French Connection chairman and founder Stephen Marks said he would retire once the deal is completed, on an as yet unknown date.
Asos announced that after 12 years at the etailer, CEO Nick Beighton had left with immediate effect on 11 October. As Drapers went to press, a new CEO had not been announced. Experts told Drapers Beighton’s departure was a “shock”, given that Asos had grown from a £220m-turnover company to £3.9bn. Nevertheless, the etailer’s hunt for a new CEO will allow it to tap into its international potential by recruiting a CEO with global experience.
Burberry appointed Jonathan Akeroyd as CEO and executive director on 21 October
The supply chain crisis continued to threaten peak trading amid bottlenecks at ports and Covid-19 enforced factory closures. In mid-October business consultancy Russell Group warned that clothing is one of the worst-affected sectors, predicting that almost £1.5bn of goods may be hit by shipping delays, and John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, Asda and Tesco were among the retailers exposed to port disruption caused by Covid-19 and a surge in online sales.
The second big people move of the month was Burberry’s appointment of Versace CEO Jonathan Akeroyd as CEO and executive director on 21 October, replacing the incumbent CEO Marco Gobbetti. Industry insiders welcomed his arrival, citing Akeroyd’s “merchant” approach as a good sign for the brand’s turnaround plans.
November
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