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Dress to Impress: Ted Baker Says Formal Wear Back in Demand

Shoppers walk past a Ted Baker store on Regents Street in London, Britain December 17, 2018. (Reuters)
Shoppers walk past a Ted Baker store on Regents Street in London, Britain December 17, 2018. (Reuters)
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Dress to Impress: Ted Baker Says Formal Wear Back in Demand

Shoppers walk past a Ted Baker store on Regents Street in London, Britain December 17, 2018. (Reuters)
Shoppers walk past a Ted Baker store on Regents Street in London, Britain December 17, 2018. (Reuters)

Upmarket retailer Ted Baker said on Monday dresses and suits were back in demand, with Britons rediscovering a taste for formal wear as months of COVID-19 curbs on social life were slowly relaxed.

A lockdown-driven shift to casual wear hammered the fashion retailer's earnings last year, but its new boss said the performance of Ted Baker stores since their reopening in April was "very pleasing".

"Most recently we are seeing dresses back to the same level (in the) mix of our business as it was two years ago," Rachel Osborne told Reuters. "(We) are seeing people coming in for suits, the wedding season is hopefully starting."

Ted Baker shares were up 1.2% at 0754 GMT after the group reported a 59.2 million pound ($83.53 million) pretax loss for the 12 months to Jan. 30, narrower than the 76-million-pound loss forecast by analysts, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

Osborne, who took over last year, has been working on winning back customers and investor trust after a string of setbacks that followed the departure of previous chief executive and founder Ray Kelvin following misconduct allegations.

Kelvin has denied any wrongdoing.

The company, which cut nearly 1,000 jobs and raised money through a stock issue to get through the crisis, is undergoing a three-year turnaround plan focused on saving 31 million pounds a year.

It also plans to strengthen its online presence, with 11 million pounds earmarked for its e-commerce site's revamp.

"Ted Baker needs to find a way to sustainably improve its online business, or it won't bode well for trading patterns in the post-pandemic, digital-centric world," Hargreaves analyst Sophie Lund-Yates said.

While overall sales slumped by 44% to 352 million pounds in fiscal 2021, online sales leapt 22%, though growth slowed to 4.5% in the first quarter of the current year with fewer discounts and other promotions.

Osborne said the company had also introduced more casual wear, such as joggers and sleepwear, for lockdown times. "All those really took off as a percentage mix of our business that we hadn't seen pre-COVID."

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Fashion

Designer Rosita Missoni, Pioneer of Colored Knitwear, Dies Aged 93

Rosita Missoni poses before the Missoni Spring/Summer 2018 show at the Milan Fashion Week in Milan, Italy September 23, 2017. (Reuters)
Rosita Missoni poses before the Missoni Spring/Summer 2018 show at the Milan Fashion Week in Milan, Italy September 23, 2017. (Reuters)
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Designer Rosita Missoni, Pioneer of Colored Knitwear, Dies Aged 93

Rosita Missoni poses before the Missoni Spring/Summer 2018 show at the Milan Fashion Week in Milan, Italy September 23, 2017. (Reuters)
Rosita Missoni poses before the Missoni Spring/Summer 2018 show at the Milan Fashion Week in Milan, Italy September 23, 2017. (Reuters)

Italian designer Rosita Missoni, co-founder of the eponymous fashion house known for its bright and patterned styles, died on Thursday at the age of 93, a company official said.

She had launched the business in 1953 with her husband Ottavio Missoni, developing a brand which became popular for its colorful knitwear featuring geometric patterns and stripes, including the signature zigzag motif known as fiammato.

Born into a family of textile artisans close to the northern Italian town of Varese, Rosita studied modern languages.

On a trip to London in 1948 to improve her English, she met Ottavio, who was competing with the Italian 400 meters hurdles team at the Olympics in the city.

The Missoni brand gained international recognition and awards for its distinctive patterns and avant-garde use of textiles and an approach to fashion often compared to modern art.

It was also helped by what was dubbed the "battle of the bras" in 1967.

Missoni had been invited to show at the Pitti Palace in Florence but before the models went out on the runways Rosita noticed that their bras were visible through their tops, ruining the intended color and pattern effect.

She told the models to remove their bras but, under the runway lighting, their outfits became totally transparent and the incident caused a sensation.

They were not invited to return the next year but Missoni was quickly on the covers of big name fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle and Marie Claire.

Their layered designs, full of patterns, caught the attention of a fashion world that was turning away from high fashion, and became the standard bearer of the so-called "put together" style.

When the company moved its base to the Italian town of Sumirago, north of Milan, the Missonis set up home next door, with most of their windows overlooking Rosita's beloved Monte Rosa mountains.

Rosita remained creative director for the womenswear collections until the late 1990s, when she passed the task on to her daughter Angela.

The couple suffered tragedy in 2013 when Vittorio Missoni, their eldest son and the company marketing director, was killed in a plane crash off the coast of Venezuela.

Ottavio died in May 2013 at the age of 92, four months after their son's plane had gone missing but before the wreckage had been found.

The brand expanded into home collections and hotels. In 2018 Italian investment fund FSI invested 70 million euros in the family-owned company in exchange for a 41% stake, aiming to strengthen the brand abroad.

Missoni picked Rothschild in 2023 as financial adviser to explore a potential sale of the family-owned company.