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Flannels Oxford Street: it's here and it look great, but will it work?

Marcus Jaye
13 September 2019

As nearly as delayed as the Elizabeth Line – well, not quite – the new Flannels on the eastern side of Oxford Street has been the most anticipated addition to London’s busiest retail thoroughfare this year.

Sandwiched between Marks & Spencer’s Pantheon store and Matalan, this four-storey, 18,000 sq ft store, selling designer clothes and accessorises, has been three years in the making. The entire building was purchased for £108 million in 2016 by a Sports Direct subsidiary and doubles as office space for its parent group. Part of Mike Ashley’s growing empire, it is the debut of Flannels in Central London.

This is Flannels' 44th store in the UK, after a lightning expansion, with a further 15 stores coming this year alone. In 2012, sportswear giant Sports Direct bought a majority 51% stake in Flannels and in September 2017 it acquired the brand in full and began investing in and opening stores. 

It is worth noting Sports Direct also own other premium fashion chains such as USC, Cruise and Van Mildert, but, it is Flannels which has been chosen to lead the designer crusade to “elevate” the company. Sports Direct currently has an obsession with moving from discounted sports to full price branded.

Mike Ashley said at a recent shareholder meeting regarding Flannels: “I think they are better than any other stores in the market. Now, I might have rose-tinted glasses but one of the reasons is because I have absolutely nothing to do with it. I just sign off the money. It has nothing to do with Mike Ashley.

“It’s not just a few show stores. When you have a pipeline it takes time. I’m telling you – this is for real. The reality is, I’m telling you it is real and the proof of the pudding will be when they start to roll out. It’s happening, it’s coming. It’s just not as fast as I would like it.

I’m going to do the same with House of Fraser and get around to elevating. The modern-day consumer – that’s what they want. It could be Stone Island, it could be Nike and Adidas – it’s all about the branded world.

Maybe I was late to the party, I accept that. Maybe my son-in-law should’ve gone out with my daughter when she was 12 [Sports Direct head of elevation Michael Murray is engaged to Ashley’s daughter Anna], but now we’re on it, nothing’s going to get us off it.”

Flannels

Oxford Street is its new flagship and is a physical testament to its ambitious intentions of becoming “the biggest global luxury retailer”. The £10 million new store has been designed by Italian studio P con P, and you can see the Gucci influence in the rugs, over-blown William Morris type screens, 1970s brass changing rooms and waiting areas, and contrasting use of materials.

The store is split into women’s accessorises on ground, womenswear in the basement, men’s designer on first and men’s accessorise and sportswear on the second, though there wasn’t much difference between the latter two. The second floor will also house the first ever UK retail space for US footwear brand Flight Club and the store offers services such as Click & Collect and personal styling.

One notable difference was the huge amount of staff, all dressed in black. I was told 50 members of staff currently work there. I visited on a late Tuesday afternoon and the only people seriously buying were a group of Asian tourists in the Gucci men’s section. They’d probably never heard of Flannels before.

I expected to see the usual heavily branded labels, such as Off-White and Burberry, which were there, but, interestingly, there were also lower-key luxe brands such as Barena, Brioni, Alanui and JW Anderson. There was even a diamond necklace for nearly £60,000. I did ask how many they’d sold that week!

Cire Trudon candles, Acqua Di Parma fragrances and Ganni dresses were also spied, and while nothing particularly revolutionary, it is difficult to pick holes in the offer. But is this something that could and should be rolled out on the scale Sports Direct is planning?

“[Mike Ashley’s] whole plan for 100 Flannels stores is bonkers. Knock a nought off, mate!” says Eric Musgrave, former editor of Drapers and fashion industry consultant. “It will be a ghost town for five or six days a week. Wrong location. Too big. Offering nothing you can't get in the West End or Knightsbridge already,” he says.

“My guess is that they will leave it as it is for two or three years, then reorganise it, making the Flannels area smaller and bringing in USC and SD. But, I believe Ashley owns the building, so he can run it as a vanity project,” says Musgrave.

The simile I would use is, it’s like an Essex nightclub, which, if playing the right music, you’d have a good time in. And that’s what the clothes and buy is, the music. (The security guards do look a bit like bouncers though, and one made me delete a picture I took on my phone of the new store – *eyeroll*). 

There’s nothing to fault in the design and money spent, it feels premium and everything is nicely presented, but Flannels has a problem with the snobby stigma London has towards Mike Ashley. He needs to distance himself as he says above. 

People will need persuading to part with their cash here, unless it is product they can’t get anywhere else. Flannels needs to change perceptions in order that people are happy to be seen swinging a Flannels bag when they leave. It’s just not cool right now. They need to turn into leaders rather than just flogging the same old mega brands to punters. 

It owns the building here, so it’s here for the long haul, but it will be interesting to see how it develops and how long it stick to this initial format. Flannels recorded sales of £173.9 million in its latest financial year, up 12% from 2018. It’s growing because it is rapidly expanding, it obviously wants to get to the point where is it more powerful than the brands, rather than the other way around currently. I can imagine many luxury brands, currently, being cautious about choosing them as a stockist, but watch this space as they grow.

Sports Direct wants more elevation than the Wright brothers, but it’s going to be expensive and I can't help think that 100 stores is too many, especially when you’re trying to sell £900 Gucci hoodies. Even though this is on Oxford Street, it needs to become a destination. It feels like the kind of store going against the retail tide, but I certainly admire the ambition.

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