There could be a new lease of life for the floaty lady yet: following the acquisition of U.K. fashion and homewares brand Laura Ashley by New York-based Marquee Brands.
The deal brings the original floral floaty dress brand under the same umbrella as 17 businesses including another classic British brand Ben Sherman and U.S. lifestyle comeback queen Martha Stewart.
Seller Gordon Brothers had owned Laura Ashley since 2020, when the U.S. restructuring specialist – currently immersed in a deal to snap up discount-retailer Big Lots – bought the business out of administration.
That was after Laura Ashley had announced that it was to go out of business on March 17 2020, in doing so becoming arguably the first major retail casualty of the Covid pandemic, which it cited in its demise.
In truth, that may be a stretch, because the then 150-store group was seeking an emergency loan of around $18 million at the time, just a month after main lender Wells Fargo had already sunk emergency funding in. Covid may have turned the knife, but Laura Ashley was likely fatally injured already.
Gordon Brothers acquired Laura Ashley out of insolvency in 2020 and successfully revitalized the brand, developing a robust licensing business and expanding its global e-commerce presence.
In its most recent guise, the company, which no longer has stores of its own, has made a return to the high street, re-emerging in 2021 through a deal with perennial brand collaborator and U.K. apparel powerhouse Next.
Laura Ashley also has deals in place with furniture retailer DFS and department store John Lewis in the U.K., and is available in 150 shops globally via a network of overseas licensees as Gordon Brothers leveraged the famous name.
Laura Ashley Reinvented
The deal with Marquee Brands will result in Laura Ashley’s U.K.-based team, which is run by Poppy Marshall-Lawton, being retained and the U.S. company opening its first European headquarters in London.
This acquisition follows a period of significant growth for Marquee Brands, with recent key appointments to its executive team further strengthening its leadership and driving expansion across its portfolio.
“With the existing U.K. team in place, we are primed and ready to leverage Laura Ashley’s seven-decade legacy to unlock its future potential as a full lifestyle brand innovating new products and categories,” Heath Golden, the chief executive of Marquee Brands, said. “Laura Ashley’s licensed business model and robust group of high-quality partners makes the brand a seamless addition.”
The long, slow and often painful-to-watch demise of Laura Ashley belies how influential the brand was at setting style trends across several decades and likely goes a long way toward explaining why so many suitors think they can save a damsel in distress.
Iconic Laura Ashley Brand
The company was founded on Laura and Bernard Ashley’s kitchen table in 1953, starting as a purveyor of affordable country living-inspired products such as headscarves and napkins.
However, it was in the 1970s that it took off as a fashion brand, with its signature floppy floral dresses becoming a mainstream version of hippy culture. By the time of Laura’s death from a brain haemorrhage in 1985 following a fall, the brand had 220 stores globally and was a favorite of international style icon Diana, Princess of Wales.
Laura Ashley then reinvented its styles and patterns for an increasingly design-literate consumer and during the noughties the company built-up its homeware operation, which accounted for 80% of sales at the time of its collapse.
However, by the mid-2010s, sales were in steep decline, putting Laura Ashley on the brink of collapse even before the pandemic slammed shut its U.K. stores. Prior to going into administration, Laura Ashley had been listed on the London Stock Exchange but was controlled by Malaysian group MUI.
New Direction For Laura Ashley
So what next for Laura Ashley? The acquisition significantly strengthens Marquee Brands’ total retail value, making its portfolio worth around $4 billion, and the company plans to leverage its global network to expand Laura Ashley’s reach into new markets, including North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and EMEA.
Marquee Brands currently holds the intellectual property for a suite of brands including Ben Sherman, Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse, Sur La Table, Motherhood Maternity, A Pea in the Pod, Dakine, Body Glove, BCBG Max Azria, BCB Generation, and Bruno Magli.
Marquee is also looking to make the most of the massive global influence of Laura Ashley and work on further expansion of the brand by introducing product innovation, strategic collaborations, and engaging experiences to connect with a younger consumer.
The eponymous founder may be sadly gone, but Laura Ashley has once again floated above the crowd in search of a new audience.
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