Editors' Top Reads: News from Adidas, The Couture Club, Bernard Lewis and more...
Here are some of this week’s news and features highlights handpicked by TheIndustry.fashion team.
In My View by Eric Musgrave: Remembering Bernard Lewis
Bernard Lewis, best known to many as Mr Bernard, passed away at the majestic age of 100 this past weekend. Eric Musgrave, our contributor and long-standing industry commentator and writer, wrote this article for us in appreciation of a man, the like of whom we will never see again.
Mr Bernard was the founder of a number of ground-breaking fashion businesses, the best-known perhaps being Chelsea Girl, which was a pioneer in the accessible high-street fashion space, and River Island, which is what Chelsea Girl later morphed into.
What made Mr Bernard stand out from the big names that dominated high street retail in the latter half of the 20th century (think Sir Philip Green at Arcadia and Sir Stuart Rose at M&S) was not that he didn’t have a knighthood (which is something of a scandal), but that he started his businesses from scratch and simply had no ego and no desire for personal profile. He was too busy building his businesses and working hard to understand his customers and staff than to be concerned about splashy media interviews or grandstanding at industry events.
Eric was one of the few journalists to get to know him, or at least to have the honour of interviewing him. But even then, it was only on a few occasions and one of those was at a low-key event in a pub! Mr Bernard's modest beginnings shaped his approach to work and kept him humble. When he did speak, people listened. I attended, with Eric, what I believe to be his last public appearance in 2022 at The Twenty Club, when he recounted his career to a room full of some of the industry's biggest names; you could have heard a pin drop, as people knew this was a rare event to be savoured.
While he was fortunate to get to 100, it doesn't make his passing any less sad - particularly as you feel a grand era of the British high street passes with him. Eric's appreciation is a great read, whether you knew Mr Bernard or not. We all have much to learn from him.
Lauretta Roberts, Co-founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief.
Adidas reports 'record-breaking' revenues, announces share buy-back
It's been an interesting week in footwear news, with Adidas and On Running posting exceptional annual results that exceeded expectations. While it is hard to compare the two companies, given how vastly different they are in size and structure, what struck me is that both financial statements mentioned the cultural trends that underpinned their very strong results.
Adidas, which reported a 5% increase in revenues to €24.8 billion, with double-digit growth across all markets and channels, highlighted "strong structural trends" such as increasing sports participation rates and growing health and fitness awareness in the sportswear sector as reasons for its success, despite elevated risks brought by weaker consumer spending and geopolitical tensions.
This attitude was reflected in the company filings of Swiss premium footwear brand On, which also exceeded all its financial targets for 2025, predicting a net sales growth of at least 23% in 2026, reaching £3.27 billion (CHF 3.44 billion). Co-founder and Executive co-Chairman, David Allemann, said: "We are witnessing a fundamental societal shift, as people globally replace traditional markers of status with a commitment to health, longevity, and performance."
Personally, I feel like I have also witnessed this shift, with wearable devices such as Whoop or the Oura Ring appearing on my friends' hands more frequently and with a lot less comment. With running becoming such a big phenomenon over the last couple of years, it's no wonder sportswear brands - and running shoe brands such as On specifically - are seeing the benefit of this.Yet, I also wonder how retailers such as Schuh, who have recently posted a 90.8% loss in profits in 2025, could potentially benefit from this surge in consumer demand for sports footwear.
Camilla Rydzek, Senior News & Features Writer.
The Interview: The Couture Club's Ross Worswick on building a Manchester-born brand with global ambition
Co-founder Ross Worswick launched The Couture Club with Scott Shashua, driven by a simple frustration - he couldn’t find the pieces he wanted to wear.
What began as two friends printing t-shirts to fill a gap in their own wardrobes has blossomed into a globally recognised label, backed by a fiercely loyal community and guided by a clear mantra: Manchester born, globally worn.
Over the past decade, The Couture Club has grown from a cult streetwear upstart into a premium fashion player, now stocked in Selfridges and Flannels, all while keeping a strong direct-to-consumer focus.
In this interview, Worswick reflects on the early grind, the financial missteps that honed their commercial approach, and why Manchester remains at the heart of the brand’s identity.
He also shares what’s next: European pop-ups and a renewed philosophy of “doing less, but doing it better”, as The Couture Club prepares for its next phase of international growth.
Sophie Smith, News Editor & Senior Writer.
Labour and Wait ensures survival of Old Town workwear with exclusive new partnership
With so much turmoil going on in the world, it’s refreshing to have the odd feel-good story, and this one particularly struck a chord as it was about keeping a British-made workwear brand going.
Having had several of their long-term machinists retire, Old Town workwear founders Marie Willey and Will Brown were considering winding down the business they founded in a 17th-century weaver’s property in Norwich in 1992.
But founders of the three-store London homeware and clothing retailer Labour and Wait, Rachel Wythe-Moran and Simon Watkins, who had stocked Old Town since 2010, stepped in with an exclusive retail deal that will prop up production going forward.
It could not have been made possible without Old Town’s founders securing an “exceptional” London factory to make the goods in the future, described as “a real gamechanger”, which I’m guessing Labour and Wait’s founders had something to do with.
Now both in their late 60s, Willey and Brown didn’t want to still be full throttle, but this new relationship allows them to keep doing what they love - offering existing and new customers their full range of workwear staples for men and women - but in a less “all-consuming way.”
In celebration of the new partnership, Labour and Wait will host a special two-day weekend event at its store at 12 Dryden Street in Covent Garden over the weekend of 21 and 22 March, where three limited-edition unisex pieces - a jacket, shirt and trousers - will launch exclusively.
Willey and Brown will be in attendance over the weekend, bringing with them a display of original mail-order catalogues and other printed ephemera from the last 34 years of the Old Town brand. I raise a glass to their continued success and more relaxed new business model!
Tom Bottomley, Contributing Editor.
