Peter Williams: ‘The job losses are awful, but fashion needs a cull’

At that time, the retail conglomerate Burton Group, was one of the great ‘universities of retail’. The group owned a collection of retail brands including Debenhams and several multiple fashion brands – Burton Menswear, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Evans. 

The group was led by the legendary chief executive Ralph Halpern and was seen as a leading, successful retailer – a great place to learn, an exhilarating environment, well remunerated and a good name to have on your CV. 

More recently, in 2011, Retail Week published a family tree for the Burton Group that identified no fewer than 60 senior and well-known retailers in the industry who had spent a significant period of their career at the company. 

“Burton group was led by the legendary chief executive Ralph Halpern and was seen as a leading, successful retailer – a great place to learn, an exhilarating environment, well remunerated and a good name to have on your CV” 

This week both Debenhams and the Arcadia Group, which owns the former Burton Group brands, both went into administration. It is possible that these retail names will now disappear from the high street, although Topshop may well be preserved as an online business. This is an incredible and, in certain ways, a sad moment.

Of course it is easy to dwell on the more salacious elements of the story. 

In the case of Debenhams, did private equity sow the seeds years ago that eventually killed the business by rolling out too many stores and bringing too much debt on to the balance sheet? Although the beauty offer gave customers a reason to visit, over time the fashion sections lost their mojo.

At Arcadia there are some similarities in the weakening of the fashion offer and brands that lost their relevance, as they were overtaken by the newer and more dynamic ‘online kids’ in the form of Asos, Boohoo, PrettyLittleThing and others. 

Philip Green’s ownership cannot have helped. Headlines about £100m yachts, outlandish birthday parties and tax avoidance do not ultimately sit well with consumers and are insulting to his employees. 

It’s that last group that we should all feel most sorry for. The employees of both Debenhams and Arcadia are the innocents. Decisions made by owners, and some senior management, have brought about this situation, causing the employees to lose their livelihoods at a time of economic mayhem from Covid and the onset of Brexit.  

“The employees of both Debenhams and Arcadia are the innocents. Decisions made by owners, and some senior management, have brought about this situation, causing the employees to lose their livelihoods at a time of economic mayhem”

However, fashion retailing is different from the other sub-sectors of the retail industry. In non-fashion, many retailers may have been in existence for more than 50 years and the successful ones dominate their sector – the big four or five food supermarket chains, Dixons in electronics, Boots in healthcare, etc. 

Fashion is more diffuse. The consumer doesn’t want to be in the same dress as someone else at work or at a party. The choice in terms of product and brands is huge. Brands come and go, and with fashion media and celebrities we are always interested in what is new. The commentary around the recent Sky thriller The Undoing focused more on Nicole Kidman’s collection of coats and less on the actual outcome of the plot.

At the risk of sounding cruel, a culling of fashion brands is no bad thing as it allows new ones to emerge. The advent of internet shopping has lowered the barrier to entry as you don’t need any physical shops that require capital investment. Product and brand are key but, as the business grows, so are the people and processes. 

In its heyday, the Burton Group was strong on all of these key elements for its portfolio of brands. Then the elements became weaker and now the brands are likely to die.