The Interview: Neil Primett, founder of 80s Casual Classics, on opening a fifth store in Romford and launching brand exclusives
It’s fair to say that Neil Primett’s 80s Casual Classics business was built off the back of the 2005 Nick Love film, ‘The Business’, in which its cast, including Danny Dyer, Tamer Hassan and Geoff Bell, were kitted out in old school sportswear from the likes of Sergio Tacchini and Fila.
Back then, Primett had a menswear store called Planet in Bedford, selling the likes of G-Star, Firetrap and Superdry. A sales rep from Sergio Tacchini came into the shop to tell him the film was due for release in January 2005 and asked him if he’d be interested in stocking reissues that would be featuring in the film.
Danny Dyer in 2005 Nick Love film The Business
Primett didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, and a month after the film release he got his first delivery. It wasn’t long before he was not only selling it in his store, but also to a wider audience on eBay – before then launching the 80s Casual Classics website with more old school brands and products a couple of years later.
Selling retro sportswear and working with brands on recreating old classics then became his dominant business, and Primett became the number one player in the retro sportswear revival. So much so, that Nick Love approached him to dress the cast of another of his films, ‘The Firm’, which was released in 2009.
Danny Dyer and Neil Primett have teamed up again
Fast forward to 2025, and another link up with Nick Love and Danny Dyer for wardrobe for the recently released ‘Marching Powder’ film, and 80s Casual Classics has remained relevant to a loyal customer fanbase – now with over 730,000 followers on Facebook and 300,000 on Instagram.
Though the old classics still remain important, it’s now very much about brand exclusives and adding newness, such as the now best-selling Sergio Tacchini ‘Terrace’ jacket, or the Gabicci mac with check under collar – as worn by Dyer in the new film.
Another intriguing part of the 80s Casual Classics story, is JD Sports acquired it in March 2021, but Primett retained 30% of the business, and when JD switched its strategy after changes at the top, he was able to buy it back in full in July 2023.
A new store in Glasgow followed in September of the same year, adding to stores he already operated in Derby and Barnsley, signalling a new drive into physical retail, which he says serves to drive even more sales online.
Fila at 80s Casual Classics
In March of this year, he took over ownership of long-standing Norwich menswear independent, Elements. It’s still trading under its original name, with 80s Casual Classics window branding, as he bought it as a going concern with existing stock. But that will no doubt be rebranded over time.
Then, on 28 June, Primett opened the doors to a new 2,340 sq ft store at The Liberty shopping centre in Romford, his first foray South. It was met with much fanfare and queues at the till. He tells us all about it, including pushing a new delivery of exclusive Sergio Tacchini and Fila styles, re-released in celebration of the 20th anniversary of ‘The Business’.
How did the grand opening of the new 80s Casual Classics store in Romford go down with your customer-base?
We had a queue all day at the counter and had to set up a queue system from opening, which was still running at midday. The store opening weekend - and week -saw us take four times what our other stores take in a week. It’s put the store on a big head start trading-wise.
It was also clear how far people were prepared to travel, with many thinking nothing of two-hour round trips, and a few even making four hour trips. We had customers in from Kent, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Surrey, as well as all surrounding areas.
Inside the new Romford Store
Why did you select The Liberty shopping centre in Romford to open your fifth UK store - and first in the South?
We needed a flagship store in the South as online orders in the region were flying. Sales from customers in Essex, Kent and the South of England in general had grown to be huge online, with influencers in Essex hitting big numbers and introducing our brand to a younger audience across social media. A lot of research goes in to identifying where our customers are, and while we looked around a lot for a store in more central London, we saw nowhere of real appeal.
Through speaking with agents across East London and Essex, many who had shopped with us and knew our brand, we decided that Romford was to be the capital for 80s Casual Classics. The Liberty Romford has a great store mix, and the F&B offer is brilliant too, something we consider as we know our customers will travel an hour or two to visit us. In our opinion, inside the M25 is London, and Romford has excellent transport links into the capital.
When did you first launch 80s Casual Classics?
It was around 2006. ‘The Business’ went to number one in the DVD chart when we were just starting out as a Fila and Sergio Tacchini stockist, along with Adidas, at my store in Bedford called Planet. Sergio Tacchini sponsored the release of the film and had an internal cover slip in the DVD which had three UK stockists – one of which was us. It pre-dated online trading really, so it just had our shop name, address and phone number. The phone just started to ring and that was the real start of it all.
Within a couple of years of that, our online 80s Casual Classics business had become bigger than our Planet stores, so I just chose to sell the retail business – which consisted of a men’s and a women’s store in Bedford, and a store in Hitchin – to concentrate on the online. By the time I sold the retail side, the online had become about three times bigger.
Who are your core customers and have younger customers also embraced the old brands and styles?
People want to feel like they are a part of a community, and clothing can make you feel at home in lots of different settings. Renowned brand favourites and revival favourites are rooted in nostalgia, and we are proud to enable our customers to buy clothing from the most influential time in their fashion life. Younger customers are also increasingly coming to us, a mix of teenagers whose parents shop with us, but mainly following the revival of retro music. This is especially increased with Oasis’s comeback. Perhaps ironically, I was a music promoter back in the day and booked Oasis for their very first tour date at Bedford’s Angel pub in March 1994.
Aquascutum at 80s Casual Classics
What product re-issues have really hit home with old and new customers alike?
We’ve seen massive sales this year of a 2025 re-issue of the Penfield ‘Pac Jac Windbreaker’ – an overhead cagoule with chest pocket in two colourways, both colours originally worn on stage by Noel Gallagher in the 90s. He wore one colour at Oasis’s Knebworth gig in 1996, and the other colour at the gig at Maine Road in Manchester in the same year.
Another product release that got major attention this year was the re-issue of the Umbro ‘Drill Top’, like one that Liam Gallagher originally wore on stage in 1996. We bought 1,200, which we thought was putting our neck on the line a little bit, but we sold out of them in a day.
How did you manage to persuade certain brands like Fila and Sergio Tacchini to create exclusives for 80s Casual Classics?
In the very early days, we would be invited into design meetings regarding range planning and to be asked for feedback and would gain exclusives that way. The brands we were talking to needed a champion, as they never really had their own DTC trade. We have driven brands for over 20 years, constantly getting involved in brand and product launches. The first exclusives with us launched in 2008, coming off the back of some big numbers of styles as worn by Danny Dyer in ‘The Business’.
Sergio Tacchini at 80s Casual Classics
What did Danny Dyer select to wear for ‘Marching Powder’ and how did that impact sales?
Danny selected a Gabicci mac which has a check on the undercollar. It’s an 80s Casual Classics exclusive and was already a top seller. We sold five times as many following the release of the film in March. Demand for Reebok ‘Classic’ trainers, which he also wears in the film, also kicked back in and had a knock-on effect of sales of white trainers in general.
Other cast members also wore pieces from us, including one character who wore our best-selling Sergio Tacchini ‘Terrace’ jacket. That’s a modern day piece, which again is exclusive to us. We sell about 5,000 of those a year.
What else has had a big effect on sales in relation to the film?
The momentum around the film has been great and social media has had a big impact on the business. People like to see behind-the-scenes, whether that be on set or the bus tour of cinemas we did in Manchester, Birmingham and Bluewater, where Nick Love and Danny Dyer introduced the film prior the first showings, and fans could have their photograph taken with them. We also had the premiere in London’s Leicester Square on 4 March which drew a lot of interest. It certainly all boosted sales.
When did you first work with Nick Love to provide film wardrobe?
Word got round of us selling re-issues of Fila and Sergio Tacchini tracksuit tops, polo shirts and so on, but I also had around £20k worth of vintage originals, which I grew to around £30k worth. Nick Love got in contact, and he kindly donated me all the key styles that had been worn in ‘The Business’. Then we worked together to dress around 150 people on set of his new football film at the time, ‘The Firm’, which came out in 2009 and was loosely based on the original TV series (from 1989).
How come you have been recently promoting re-issues of Fila and Sergio Tacchini styles from ‘The Business’ again on socials?
This year is the 20th anniversary of the ‘The Business’, so perfect timing to launch exclusive remakes of Fila and Sergio Tacchini pieces worn in the original film, as well as some exclusive T-shirts with prints of certain scenes that a talented illustrator has done for us. There’s four key designs that we launched around mid-June, at £30 each T-shirt. They’ve been amazing so far, so we’ll have to do a re-run. Across all the colours we made about 1,000 and I imagine they’ll go within a month.
In terms of the tracksuit styles, we’ve never stopped selling Bjorn Borg’s classic Fila ‘Setanta’. The exclusive spin that we get is we’re the only company that sells the top with what is called a pro badge. If you saw a tennis player on TV back then (in the 70s and 80s), they would wear a larger scale badge that was obviously there to be caught by the cameras. So, we have a deal with Fila that every time we run certain tops we get the larger badge. If I’m out and about and I see someone wearing a piece with a larger badge, then I know that they’ve bought it from us.
Haven’t you also played a key role in bringing back certain brands that were a fond but distant memory?
Yes, we’ve brought a few brands back, such as Patrick. The Patrick cagoule was big back in the early 80s, so we brought that back to much success. Patrick were leaders in football boots back in the day – prior to Adidas and Nike owning the whole show. I wore Patrick ‘Kevin Keegan’ boots as a kid, others wore Patrick ‘Michel Platini’.
We then started looking at the trainers. The minimums were about 600 per style, so we had to put our neck on the line a little bit, but the brand supported us as well. We looked at the archive and developed some styles that we felt were generally lacking from the market, and within about two years we were doing about £900,000 on them. People in our industry can’t believe it!
A style called ‘Rio’ has proven to be the most popular, and what people have really commented on is how comfortable they have made them, with modern inner soles and so on. The Patrick ‘bring backs’ are far more comfortable than any of the big names trying to do a like-for-like bring back of an original. A customer even commented “you’ve saved me from Skechers!”
Patrick Overhead jacket at 80s Casual Classics
Are your customers receptive to newness too?
Patrick is now looking to bring out a running shoe based on one of its originals, but if they want to change the detail a little bit that’s fine. I think we’ve just got an open-minded consumer. They might be like me, who remembers the brand from being a top football boot brand, but my customers have responded favourably to the trainers. The snobbery of the trainer world is not as big as it’s made out to be. It’s also like we’ve developed 80s Casual Classics to be the brand, more than the brands we sell in a way. People trust what we are doing.
What other categories and products are proving successful?
We have different categories that have become more important. A lot of movement has gone towards knitwear, with brands like Gabicci growing immensely with us. We’ve also always been big with Lois on the cords and denim – all still made in Spain. We’re number one sellers of that, currently retailing around £500,000 worth a year. If they want to do a new colourway, they really need us to support it. We’ve also helped to relaunch Fila Gold in the past year, which is a more fashion inspired cleaner look, which includes knitwear. We have some exclusives for that too.
What’s been driving the new found interest in Sergio Tacchini in particular?
If 20 years ago it was the re-issue of John McEnroe’s track top and polo shirt that were flying following Danny Dyer sporting them in ‘The Business’, the ‘Terrace’ jacket is now our biggest selling item on the website. That particular jacket is a modern thing. We never thought Sergio Tacchini would be an outerwear brand, and now it’s our biggest outerwear brand by a mile. They’ve also done some great knitted polos, which takes it to a different fashion level and appeals to a more modern customer.
Inside the Romford Store
What was the deal in taking on Elements in Norwich, a long-established menswear business?
We’ve basically bought an existing retailer which was selling a lot of similar brands to us, like Fila, Sergio Tacchini, Farah, Lyle & Scott and Pretty Green, though around 70% of what we sell are exclusives to us in terms of colourways and details. We’ve added that to the Norwich store, which is still trading as Elements for now, though we have our 80s Casual Classics logo on the window and we’ve changed the socials to a collaborative voice.
I bought it as a going concern, so for six months I’ve got the stock of the previous owner, and I wouldn’t want to change the name while I have. I bought the business based on its trading, and we’ve seen a 40% uptick on that.
How is your business performing overall?
We’re about 30% up as a company in general. I got figures recently for how three of my stores, Derby, Barnsley and Glasgow, have been performing over the last five months, and they were up 28%, 29% and 32%.
Whatever we seem to do in stores, we still get an ever bigger uplift online. So, our online growth probably sits at more like 35%. However, to put things into perspective, online represents 92% of my overall business. We expect that to maybe change slightly going forward, but not by much.
How big a part does social media play in your success?
The biggest thing for us is we have a million social followers. No-one can sell a hot re-issued product like we can, because we’ve just got the customer base ready to lap it up. We’ve got 730,000 followers on Facebook, over 300,000 on Instagram and the rest on X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.
Facebook was always where we built our community. I put a post on Facebook about our Romford store launch and over 300,000 people viewed it. I could do a specific clothing launch post and hit 50,000 people – just saying I’ve got a particular top or pair of trainers this week.
Fila Gold at 80s Casual Classics
Why did you sell a 70% share of 80s Casual Classics to JD Sports in March 2021 and when did you buy it back?
We had been courted for around six years. As an owner with promises to help grow the business through brand acquisition, new brands and company discount structures, it was thought I could get profits up to 100% level fast. However, JD laid off our main point of contact, Peter Cowgill, and decided to focus efforts on own store expansion globally, shedding their fashion stores with certain profitable ones sold on.
I maintained 30% of the business and continued to run it as normal. We just carried on trading like a satellite company, with no real input from JD. We just had to give forecasts and budgets to JD. I then decided to simply buy it back if the numbers stacked up. It went through two years ago, in April 2023.
What’s next for 80s Casual Classics?
Our main focus is on our southern debut at The Liberty Romford, as this is a key location for us a brand. Operationally, we are consolidating our systems, and we are about to go onto an advance Shopify platform. We have a strong board and I am moving to a more strategic role. We have lots of new ideas and a 100% independent owner face.
