‘Asos and Superdry will remain fashion victims unless they win back customers’

The last few days have proven to be the latest in a succession of humbling moments for two once-great British fashion success stories: Superdry and Asos.

Yesterday, Superdry’s co-founder and CEO Julian Dunkerton decided that enough was finally enough and pulled the pin on a sweeping restructuring proposal, which includes raising fresh capital, taking the business private, and slashing costs.

Today, Asos unveiled the latest in a string of underwhelming financial updates, with losses deepening in the 26 weeks to March 3, 2024, and sales slumping.

Both Dunkerton and Asos boss José Antonio Ramos Calamonte are, publicly at least, trying to put on brave faces. Dunkerton says that all of Superdry’s pain will go away, so long as stakeholders back his turnaround plans and give him “the time… to focus on the things which make us money”.

At Asos, Calamonte has shuffled his executive team with the appointment of a new CFO and is clinging to the belief that the ‘Back to Fashion’ strategy he unveiled last year will win out eventually.

“Asos is becoming a faster and more agile business,” he insists. “And we are reiterating our guidance for the full year as we lay the foundations for sustainably profitable growth in FY25 and beyond”.

All the best retailers know that nothing gets the punters more excited than the promise of their favourite brand achieving ‘sustainably profitable growth’ in the next financial year.

“Asos and Superdry are facing the same existential threat: that not enough people want to shop with them anymore”

The customer is always right in matters of taste, and it’s clear that both companies have fallen out of favour. Asos and Superdry are facing the same existential threat, albeit for slightly different reasons: not enough people want to shop with them anymore.

You can change all the executives you like, cut as many costs as you can and go about right-sizing stock inventory until you’re blue in the face. But if you can’t convince customers to shop with you over a competitor, then none of those strategic changes will matter.

Asos is having its lunch eaten by the likes of Shein and Primark on price and by apps like Vinted on sustainability and the ephemeral ‘cool factor’ with Gen-Z consumers.

Meanwhile, with millennials and younger Generation X shoppers – on whose backs and Velcro wallets the brand’s initial success was built – it’s losing out to brands like Uniqlo on quality and to resurgent brands like Abercrombie & Fitch on the nostalgia factor.

Superdry, on the other hand, can’t even seem to lure its once trusted key demographic of middle-class, golf-playing dads back to the brand, let alone win over younger customers. Despite splurging millions on more Gen-Z-friendly influencers, Superdry’s own former chair Peter Williams has said that the “brand is probably not as cool as it used to be”.

“That’s the problem – because teenagers don’t necessarily want to shop where their parents used to shop and there is this natural culling of fashion brands that goes on,” Williams told the BBC.

“Will the only man who claims he can save Superdry ever truly be able to save Superdry from himself?”

Despite being a very valid criticism, this simple fact doesn’t appear to be something that Julian Dunkerton is either willing to accept or even fully understand.

Dunkerton says he’s “the only man” who can save Superdry. But the key question surrounding his turnaround plan remains unanswered: even if everything gets waved through, what is going to be different this time around?

Will the only man who claims he can save Superdry ever truly be able to save Superdry from himself?

While the second iteration of Dunkerton’s leadership at Superdry has lasted more than five years now, José Antonio Ramos Calamonte has only been at the helm of Asos less than two.

He could still rightly argue that he needs more time to turn things around. That he was thrown a hospital pass the moment he took the job; parachuted into the hot seat of Asos after it had already hit the iceberg and been fatally holed beneath the waterline.

But therein lies the problem: there’s no time left to waste. Shein and Temu have already breached the gates, and blown past Asos, Superdry and even Boohoo, and are now moving on to tackle fashion’s apex predators: Inditex and H&M.

The next wave of competitors is coming hot on their heels, all of them already fighting for, and winning over, that same customer base Asos and Superdry are desperate to court.

No brand has a right to certain customers or demographics. Until Superdry and Asos can rediscover what makes their respective brands unique and attractive to customers again, no amount of strategic tinkering is going to be enough to forestall the inevitable.