Australia’s Cotton On to open Supre stores in Africa

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This article was written by By  for fashionmag.com.

Cotton On Gabi Traut Article

Teen fashion retailer Supre will open 30 stores in South Africa in the upcoming years, as part of its international expansion, according to local media.

Supre, owned by fashion heavyweight Cotton On Group, will open its first store in Cape Town in ­October and another four by early next year, reported the Herald Sun.

Cotton On has operated stores in the African nation since 2011 and Supre general manager Elle Roseby said the group was bridging a clear gap in the market for the budget fashion.

“We feel that we have a great position in the country,” Roseby told Business Daily.

Cotton On Group acquired the struggling Supre in 2013. Since then, the group has worked on expanding its supplier network, introducing new fashion lines, redesigning store layouts and presenting products to shoppers in a more impacting way.

Supre recently redesigned its website and has drastically improved its social media presence, lifting its Instagram following from 30,000 to more than 300,000.

Underperforming stores across Australia and New Zealand have been closed over the past three years.

Some 32 new stores are planned for Australia, 10 for New Zealand and 30 for South Africa, taking its count to 190.

 

Edcon continues to struggle in tough retail environment

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This article was written by Colleen Goko for BD Live

Edgars+XXX

 

IT HAS been a little more than three months since Edcon’s 2016 financial year calendar came to a close, but the highly indebted retailer has yet to release its results.

The company, which delisted from the JSE in 2007 when private equity group Bain Capital bought it for R25bn, is under no obligation to publicise its financials, but as SA’s largest nonfood retailer, market players are interested. In the third quarter, ended December 2015, Edcon reported a 1.7% decline in sales, and a 17% plunge in trading profit, compared with the year-earlier period. Cash sales rose 4%, while credit sales, which make up just more than 30% of all sales, fell 9.9%.

In the period under review, the retailer also asked its bondholders to accept a deferral in interest payments until the end of the year.

FNB Investment analyst Chantal Marx said this had been done to provide Bain Capital time to explore a number of options including the possible sale of all or some of the business. Edcon’s retail divisions include Edgars, Red Square, Boardmans, Jet and Legit. Edcon is also the owner of CNA.

The retail environment in SA has become extremely competitive, with entries from foreign players. Companies compete on how quickly they can spot trends, and stock shelves accordingly. Edgars has been slow to do this, which has ultimately hurt its bottom line.

Sasfin Wealth equity analyst Alec Abraham said Edgars’s traditional apparel retail model included sourcing from low-cost regions, such as Asia. He said this meant there was a long waiting period between placing an order and receiving the merchandise.

“Trends had to be predicted far in advance, often leading to fashion misses, or by the time the merchandise was in-store, the fashion trend was often over, so the retailer was forced to put the clothes on sale to coax customers by low prices to buy the merchandise in order to clear space for the next season’s merchandise,” said Abraham.

He said, in general, if a retailer had too many sales, consumers began to believe there was no rush to buy, as a better deal would come along.

 

“(This makes) it harder for retailers to break ranks and increase prices, at the risk that other retailers will not follow, and thus risk losing sales. This entrenched promotional activity is damaging to retail profitability,” he said.

The third-quarter financials were the first set of results released under the leadership of CEO Bernard Brookes, who was formerly the CEO of Australia’s largest department store group, Myer. Announcing the departure of Brookes last year from Myer, chairman Paul McClintock hinted that under Brookes’s leadership, the department store had failed to adapt quickly to its customers’ needs.

“The board and management team have agreed that the transformation work has reached a pivotal point, and it is appropriate for a new CEO to be given the opportunity to own, lead and drive the transformation programme,” said McClintock.

Edcon’s fourth-quarter and full-year results for the period ended March 2016 are unlikely to show a vast improvement, as local consumer confidence remains at 2008-09 global recession lows, while the economy continues to struggle.

Looking ahead, the Reserve Bank is forecast to raise interest rates at its July meeting, which will decrease the amount of money moving in the economy, and reduce disposable income in households. 36One asset management analyst Daniel Issacs said Edcon was a big ship to turn around, and that significant change would take time.

Nico Smuts, also an analyst at the firm, said the company had recently amended the terms on its debt instruments, and may well do so again.

On Wednesday, Edcon announced it had launched a consent solicitation process to obtain up to R1.5bn in bridge financing from banks and bondholders. It asked bondholders of notes due in 2018 and 2019 to amend debt terms to allow for the new bridge financing, which will be in dollars and euros. Bondholders have until 5pm London time on July 8 to reply.

“This has alleviated some of the pressure on Edcon’s cash flows, but its overall level of indebtedness remains high. A more comprehensive restructuring may be required to stabilise the ship,” Smuts said.

Following the release of Edcon’s third-quarter results, Brookes said the retailer would be adopting a new operating model that included simplifying the business, becoming more customer-centric and retrenching staff in a bid to reduce costs. Edcon had not responded to questions from Business Day at the time of publication.

R500 000 Gert-Johan Coetzee fashion bursaries up for grabs

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This article originally appeared in Times Live

Gert-Johan+Coetzee+Prudence+Kau

Celebrity designer Gert-Johan Coetzee has dressed A-list personalities including the likes of Kourtney Kardashian and Kelly Rowland. In between creating designer frocks, Gert is on the hunt for two new students to benefit from his bursary programme.

Gert challenged other businesses to invest in education and luxury boutique Luminance has come forward, adding a third bursary to the programme.

This article originally appeared in Times Live

“It’s so hard to get your foot in the door and the aim of my bursary programme is to pass on what I have learnt, and to open doors for youngsters who have the talent and drive to succeed.”

Applications have just opened for the 2017 GJC Fashion Design bursary and the new GJC Fashion Communications and Buying bursary at the Northwest School of design.

It’s the first time he is adding a Fashion Communications bursary, explaining that it will accommodate students who want to learn the business side of the fashion industry. It is this additional bursary that the Luminance Social Responsibility Grant will fund.

“This three-year qualification teaches the business end of fashion – from fashion journalism, marketing and trend forecasting, to buying, event management and online retail aspects,” explains the designer. Both bursaries include mentorship by Coetzee, and the opportunity to intern at his atelier to learn the business from the inside out. The beneficiary of the Luminance Social Responsibility Grant will have a similar opportunity to intern at Luminance.

The three students will receive sewing machines and all their tuition fees and study materials will be covered for the three years of their course.

Last year’s graduate, Prudence Kau, is currently interning full-time at his atelier.

For more information on how to apply for the Gert-Johan Coetzee bursaries and the Luminance Social Responsibility Grant, visit www.nwsd.co.za

This article originally appeared in Times Live

Shock jocks: It’s frock ‘n’ roll time, guys

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By Mary Corrigall for Times Live

Balmy weather is still a far-off dream in rain-swept Cape Town but it inspires the summer collections for men presented in the city at SA Menswear Week.

 1325611_1076997The four-day fashion extravaganza dedicated to design for the not-so-fair gender teems with skirts, midriff tops and other body-revealing fashion for men, sending shivers down the spines of all the boys who have been clinging to this winter’s lumberjack look.

Do long beards work with miniskirts and cutoff tops? If there’s a platform to answer this question, it’s this one. SAMW has become the place where fashion boundaries are pushed.

Perhaps this is the last fashion outpost where anything goes and designers can be daring. After all it’s all been done before in women’s wear.

Kim Gush, Tsvi Karp and others may send men down the ramp in minis, but the recurring question swirling around the week is whether South African men are ready to wear dainty frocks – given that conservatives think that even women should not show anything past the knee.

However, some evolved men have taken more of an interest in expressing themselves through their appearance, the way women have done for centuries.

“The focus on grooming products, gadgets, fashion and make-up for men has been growing for at least five years,” says Nicola Cooper, a researcher and trend analyst who specialises in ”glocalisation” at Nicola Cooper & Associates.

”Women are outranking men in the classroom and the office, encouraging men to redefine their ways of operating. As a result, men are reinventing themselves in order to compete,” she says.

Men’s fashion week is unique in that it showcases street-wear design labels such as 2Bop, Sol-Sol and Young & Lazy, rather than high-end or mass retail brands. This allows the audience a glimpse into cutting-edge ideas, intended to act as inspiration for men interested in something a little different to wear. It’s on this platform that ideas can be raised and tested – and they don’t have to be adopted immediately by the masses in order to prove to be viable.

Most of the designers who show their collections at fashion week are new and small – they couldn’t keep up with the demand if men in great numbers opted for minis this summer.

“We open the collection to pre-orders after the showcase, where we offer a custom made-to-measure service to our clientele,” says Jenevieve Lyons, a young designer who is making a name for herself at SAMW.

“The local menswear market is growing,” says Lyons.

”With growth, innovation comes about, allowing for a larger market and more men accepting fashion-forward apparel.”

Her all-denim summer collection references worker’s clothing, migration and questions African identity.

“Living at a time of digital regurgitation; what we know as reality and normality has long gone,” says Lyons.