“Sport is now on our radar 24/7” says Michael Murray at Flannels X panel talk

Flannels is increasingly looking at the high performance sportswear market, according to Frasers Group CEO Michael Murray, who was speaking as part of a panel discussion at Flannels X on London’s Oxford Street on 9 January.

The talk was the culmination of "four days of fitness" under the title of ‘Good Intentions’, a Flannels event series focused on health, wellness and fitness.

It was in collaboration with performance apparel brand Represent 247 – born out of streetwear brand Represent whose Founder and Creative Director, George Heaton, was also on the panel, and training brand Marchon, who had its Founder, Ollie Marchon, on the panel too.

The evening also saw the launch of an exclusive collaboration collection between Represent 247, Marchon and Puresport, including a training jacket, hoodie, t-shirt, tank top, training pant, shorts, socks and set of wristbands – with a dedicated area within Flannels X.

The following day the collection was also made available on the Flannels website, before additionally being sold on the Represent website from 10 January.

The talk gave a real indication as to the route Michael Murray is steering Frasers Group, and particularly the Flannels business, as he said: "For those of you who don't know what Frasers Group is, we own a multitude of different retail concepts, including Sports Direct, we have House of Fraser, we own Flannels. We have 78 gyms called Everlast Gyms. So, sport is at the core of everything we do, and it's only very recently that it has started to become more relevant in the Flannels business. Sport is now on our radar 24/7.

"If we take a step back, it's always been the luxury brands trying to get into sports for some time now, and they sure want to get the authenticity in true technical sports. We’ve been on a journey, we've gone through luxury, we got into athleisure. Now consumers are really obsessing over technical sportswear, and it's now very difficult for luxury brands to get that true credibility in technical sports.

"They don't have the authenticity and they don't have the history or the credibility. So, what we're seeing now is leaning into more collaborations with the sports stars who’ve got very aspirational ways of living, as they obviously look good, they're fit and they're healthy. It's great from a health point of view for the brand, so we're seeing a massive shift.

"The luxury brands are giving ever more focus (on sport), which has given us more of an opportunity now with Flannels to really launch a unique proposition. If you think about the distribution of the high street, where can you go and buy aspirational activewear brands? There's very few people or places where brands such as 247 want their brand to be stocked or distributed.

"So, we've got a very unique position now, leveraging the fact that we've got the world's best luxury brands, which can now bring and launch premium and aspirational activewear departments to our stores. That will then give us the insight to bring it down into our sports chain and scale it through 800 sports stores across Europe.

"I think before it was really driven by comfort and the whole athleisure (market). It was more streetwear. Now it's all about ethical credentials, it's about the outerwear and what material products are made out of. People are asking, what can I actually do on the mountain and what can I do on the street? Same with the footwear. They're not just interested in luxury logos slapped on something that looks like a sportswear product. It has to have the heritage and the technical credentials for it to really be authentic.

 "We’re building on what we're doing well, and we obsess over aspirational global brands - making sure the team are constantly focusing on who the winning brands are, and how we're going to spend more time with them. Also, how we're going to double down on getting them into more stores and grow their businesses.

"We just bought Matches before Christmas, so we've got to figure out integrating that with our wider luxury business. We've also got huge aspirations for growing our sports business across Europe and South East Asia. We opened our first store in Indonesia just before Christmas, and we'll constantly roll out our new store programme with acquisitions. It's pretty busy at the moment. We've got the mentor behind us. We've got some great brand partnerships. And we're very motivated and excited about the future and where the group's going."