Morrisons New Clothing Line

George Davies is the fashion entrepreneur who created clothing lines for Next, the George collection at Asda and Per Una for Marks & Spencer. He has not worked in the supermarket retail industry in 10 years but is keen to start planning the clothing line for the Morrisons chain.

The Bradford based chain plans to introduce their clothing line as soon as they can and according to reports hope to launch the line by Autumn this year. This is part of Morrisons chief executive Dalton Phillips’s plans to develop the company and branch into new areas. Mr Phillips has also announced plans to go online and develop smaller convenience stores.

A deal could be made over the next few weeks to introduce the clothing line meaning that Morrisons are up against rivals such as Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s. As the only major chain not to have a clothing line, apart from a few Peacocks concessions in the larger stores, this will cause competition.  It would also mean Davies competing with the Asda clothing range which he introduced 20 years ago.

Mr Davies is one of Britain’s most successful designer, founding the Next chain in the 1980’s and launching Per Una at Marks and Spencers in 2001 and selling it to the retailer for £125m in 2004. Despite Davies latest venture, GIVe, which  he launched in October 2009, failing to catch on causing stores to be shut, he is still claimed to have sold about £54 bn of women’s clothing in the duration of his 47 year career.  

 

By Adele Stewart