Sainsburys' Fashion Focus Revealed

You may associate Sainsbury's more with food than fashion, but the British supermarket has set its sights on developing its clothing ranges, Tu, it has revealed this morning. It's a move that is in contrast with fellow high-street retailer Marks & Spencer, which has revealed that it, on the contrary, intends to open more food shops.

While it may surprise some, Sainsbury's' statistics are solid: currently the UK's tenth-largest clothing retailer (based on value) and the sixth-largest (based on the number of garments sold), it boasted clothing revenue growth of four per cent last year and sales of nearly £1 billion, according to researcher Kantar Worldpanel, reports Bloomberg. Its success has to do with its hands-on approach, according to Sainsbury’s commercial director James Brown, who has been a part of creating the new team of 30 fashion spotters who travel the world, attending catwalk shows and identifying global trends to translate for its Tu range.

“We decided we needed to compete more with the high street,” said Brown, “both in terms of the pace at which clothing was changing through the season, as well as on our quality and the trends we sell."

The brand has enjoyed many marketable moments in the past, including catwalk shows for the in-house label; collaborations, including one with the celebrity stylist Gok Wan; and affordable premium fashion, including a recent leather jacket, costing £95, that sold out in a week. “All trends are relevant for us, but the knack is how we translate those in a way our customers will like," added Brown.