The Death of Nick Samuel

Samuel professionally grew womenswear from a 30-store business in 2002 to 100-store business by 2008 when he stepped down to take a non-executive role for another year of his career. Samuel was also a finance director at ‘Karen Millen’ prior to his job at Hobbs. After leaving Hobbs board last year, he carried on nd that he was the life and the soul of the party, “able to network all night or run 20 miles at the weekend, then be at hison-executive roles in all kinds of company’s, his job mainly in retail, working for companies such as Blacks Leisure and ethical retailer Ascension. With also being the trustee of Textile Industry Children’s Trust, whose chairman David Carter-Johnson commented: “In all the years I knew him I never heard him raise his voice because he got his point across without needing to – he commanded respect and when he spoke you listened.”

Described as: “One of the true gentlemen of the retail industry; modest, thoughtful, intelligent and immensely experienced” by Derek Lovelock, Aurora chief executive, Samuel is showered on by praise of his spectacular wit and character, and the mourning of now that he is gone.

Hobbs chief execute Nicky Dulieu (who took Samuels place after he stepped down, in fact, he was hired by Samuel as chief operating officer in 2007) said in awe that Samuel was “almost superhuman”. She claime

desk at 7.30am the next day, fresh and full of ideas for the business”.

Another one of Samuel’s former colleagues, Mike Trotman, who was finance director at Hobbs before leaving in 2006 to join shirt maker TM Lewin, remembered Samuel for his “fantastic sense of humour”.

“He would always break up tense situations with his dry wit,” He said. “He was always the last to leave a party and was the sort of guy everyone loved to have a drink with. We remained great friends after I left Hobbs and I’ll miss him dearly.”

Samuel, despite being deceased, is survived in memopry by his beloved wife Helen and his children Ben and Hannah, along with the other many people he touched.

Jenny Holloway – FashionCapital Director commented :

The industry really should mourn such a great man. Since 2001 Nick supported our aims of working with the new and emerging designers of fashion and Hobbs always was one of the key sponsors behind our Profile fashion show. He was a true gentleman and always took the time to have meetings and support us and the 100s of designers that had the chance to showcase their collections. I am personally greatly saddened by the loss of Nick – he was an outstanding kind man and quite unique in the industry today.