Michelle Feeney has gone down many avenues in her career — from starting out in PR in the 1980s, to working with Estée Lauder Companies and spearheading the launch of brands such as La Mer and Mac.
Her latest project, however, is much closer to home. Feeney is the founder of Floral Street, the sustainable fragrance brand with big ambitions. With its latest listing with M&S, it will be available in 19 of the retailer’s bigger format stores across the UK.
Retail Week spoke to Feeney about the story behind Floral Street, the power of retail partnerships, and what’s in store for the future.
What is the story behind Floral Street?
I looked up the name Floral Street in Covent Garden where the old Victorian flower market was and I just thought what a great name for a fragrance brand. And I could visualise it and see it as a good starting point.
I have a broader vision for it as a lifestyle brand. We launched our home products less than two years ago and next year we are going to expand into more categories. But I felt like the name lent itself to fragrance.
We launched our own store in Covent Garden and we had one year of trading and then the world collapsed because of Covid. With lockdown, our momentum was just cut off at the knees — that was when we closed and had to pivot online.
It was a very difficult decision, but I thought I would rather spend that money on telling our story through our retail partners and also doing pop-ups around the country. So what we have done is actually strengthen our spending against training, sampling, visual merchandising and supporting our business through our retailers, while also having an online presence.
What lies ahead for your latest partnership with M&S?
From a beauty consumer point of view, there has been a bit of a gap since Debenhams went out of business. And looking at M&S, I think it has done a stellar job of really rationalising its businesses across the board. It knows its customer really really well — the Sparks card, which for a niche brand like us, brings us to 14 million customers immediately. I think it has got ambitions to be a player in beauty as it is in food, home and everything — and we would like to be part of that.
We are a multi-generational modern British brand and that’s the other synergy with us and M&S. It’s British and it’s about quality, affordability — that’s what I built our brand on: fine fragrance and affordable price. And obviously, we are highly sustainable, which is something all retailers are looking for now, to have brands that are doing that sustainability job for them.
Sustainability I see as crucial. We look at every aspect of what we do. I wouldn’t have started a company had I not been doing it that way because there are enough beauty products out there
How important is it to be a sustainable business today?
I see it as crucial, not just important. That’s why I started the brand in the first place. Our pulp packaging [made from previously non-recyclable coffee cups] was the first of its kind. I engineered that with a British company. We’re British-made, we look at every aspect of what we do. I wouldn’t have started a company had I not been doing it that way because there are enough beauty products out there.
One of the reasons I decided to step into this highly competitive world of fragrance is really because I wanted to try to make a change. Beauty brands are very powerful, and I think a modern consumer of any age wants to be associated with brands that have some purpose above profit. I did this for a certain reason and we are still evolving and changing. And although we’re going into other categories, we will only do that when I can make sure we are going to launch something that is a bit different.
It is a very interesting time for sustainability — the fact that somebody like M&S is saying to my relatively small niche brand that it would like to give us an opportunity says a lot about the power of being sustainable and about business.
What is your growth strategy for the future?
Our strategy really is about growing our own community, and community of brands through our retailers as well. Space NK has very invested customers; M&S reaches so many of its customers and has the power to tell your brand story for you. And that helps us grow.
The other strategy is to go into new categories. Floral Street is already in the home category and we are going to step into bath and body. Then we will look at another territory beyond that, but it’s really about strengthening our position, our offering and our communities in the distribution channels we are in right now.
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