As menswear retailer TM Lewin embarks on its journey of a return to the high street, managing director Dan Ferris talks to Retail Week about the significance of reopening a store in the city of London, how its customer demographic and product offer has evolved and what’s on the horizon for the retailer as it goes after growth once again.
2025 marked the year of TM Lewin’s return to bricks-and-mortar as it opened a new flagship store on London’s Bow Lane following the closure of its 66-strong store estate in June 2020 after it collapsed into administration.
So while the introduction of hybrid working took a toll on the business and its finances back in 2020, it’s exactly this that has played a part in driving its revival this year as the business has pivoted towards a combination of casualwear and its heritage formal offer to suit hyrbid working demands.
“I think for menswear, quality and fit are paramount,” says TM Lewin managing director Dan Ferris. “What we find is when people come in is that they are really happy to pay for quality. Our suits aren’t cheap but people buy them because they know it is a really good quality suit. I don’t think that will ever change as that’s what men feel when they buy our clothes.”
He’s keen on facilitating an environment in which men can feel relaxed and comfortable to shop and try on product, ensuring they leave the store satisfied on quality, fit and the in-store experience – something that’s driving the business moving forward.
So as TM Lewin plots a further nine openings in the near future and continues to win over consumers once again, managing director Dan Ferris talks to Retail Week in its new Bow Lane-based store about the importance of stores and physical experiences in today’s market, the competitive landscape and what he’s most excited about for TM Lewin moving forward.
What is the signifiance of TM Lewin’s return to the high street?
“If you look at TM Lewin before Covid-19, it was so focused on officewear which was particularly hard hit and then relaunching as an online-only brand comes with its struggles of course. What you’d have is someone wanting to buy a suit and they’d have to order maybe three different sizes because you need to come into a store to get fitted, so a big part of this was thinking about how suits are being sold and also fitted shirts because acquiring a customer who doesn’t know their shirt size is quite difficult.
“Generally, people are realising they do want to shop, be on the high street and have that experience of feeling the product because when you feel it, it’s a different experience. The significance of it is that we are making sure that customers can shop in the way they want to shop and we can meet them where they are.
“The store experience is massively important and the staff in this store [Bow Lane flagship] are fantastic. A big piece of it was that we don’t just want coming into the store to be transactional, we really try to encourage the customer to explore different items and if you aren’t sure about what you want, we offer personal styling sessions and things like that. We get so much positive feedback about our staff that have helped customers so far and we are really happy with that.
“It’s multichannel for us, not omnichannel, but we try our best to replicate the online experience in-store and that is a challenge. With that being said, I don’t think you can ever replicate the experience of a store – it’s fantastic.”
In this new era of TM Lewin, how do you plan on staying ahead of the competition?
“I’d like to think we are in our own lane, but we’re not. Our historic competitors of course are Charles Tyrwhitt, Hawes and Curtis, and Moss Bros so there is a lot of competition in the area. Moss Bros have done things similar to us in bringing in more casualwear, whereas Charles Tyrwitt and Hawes & Curtis have stuck to their guns a bit more and they are fantastic operators so they obviously know what works well. I think they have started to compete on price whereas we are trying to maintain that competition on quality.
“I think we are front of mind for a lot of customers still and as we increase brand awareness it keeps us able to compete but I’d love to see us get back to where we were. It’s not going to happen tomorrow but if you said to us in five years we are the same size as Charles Tyrwhitt, I’d be over the moon.
“Online is certainly more of a casual customer so we sell a lot more T-shirts online, we do still sell a lot in store as well and I don’t know if it’s where Bow Lane is geographically, but we do sell more formalwear in store.
“The T-shirts we have introduced have been fantastic and it’s allowing us to acquire a T-shirt customer that perhaps didn’t know us before. The challenge for us is to lead those customers and our traditional, formalwear customers towards the other products in other categories so that’s what we are working on now to identify where customers might be interested in other items.”
What are your plans for the next TM Lewin store and the wider expansion of the store estate?
“It’s about doing it in a controlled manner, the target is to get to 10. Previously we had 66 stores, which was far too many, and we had huge amounts of working capital tied up in stores. We don’t want 66 stores as it would tie up millions of pounds in working capital but we want 10, strategic additions as quickly as we can in the right locations. If the location isn’t right, we won’t do it.
“A huge amount of our demographic lives or works in the city and we know where our customer is so we’ve got to meet them there. You see that with our competitors who have numerous stores in this area too. We are certainly looking at the city, other areas depend on the customer so if someone has a wedding it might be that the West End works better for that. Further afield, we know we have customers outside of London so Manchester and Edinburgh would be high up on the list as well.
“Each one will be slightly different but we want to maintain a consistent brand aesthetic across them all. We want this to be somewhere you can take your time while leaving the store confident that you look great, which is what this specific area is all about.”
What are the strategic priorities moving forward?
“Strategically for TM Lewin, we need to get the right product for the right customer at the place that they want to shop. Where we are as a brand now is that we are re-establishing on the high street so we want to look at more stores and get to customers where they want to shop.
“The other priority is expanding the range into additional areas such as different T-shirt styles and also different colours. We are also bringing in more fits as we currently have slim fit in casualwear but we are bringing in a regular fit. Both of our priorities go across bricks-and-mortar and online but we are really just trying to grow where we think customer demand is going to be.
“We are looking at our product sourcing strategy and it’s very much about buying one season of items to see what works for customers, and when it resonates we will buy more of that. We are agile so when we see things that work we move quickly and then double down so the T-shirts are a perfect example of that as we tried it, it worked and now we are going to increase the options.
“The area that I’m most excited for in autumn/winter is that we are expanding jerseys significantly. We’ve got quality knitwear but we are going to be bringing in sweatshirts as well. We are doing quite a few jerseys and sweatshirts, they will be smart sweatshirts and our rugby shirts will be back in autumn/winter too.”
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