Austin Reed History
Earlier company descriptions, brand line-ups, store counts and photographs from the history of Austin Reed, kept for historical reference.
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The Company Description of Its Time
Austin Reed was a British fashion retailer founded in 1900, and the brand was acquired by Edinburgh Woollen Mill in 2016 - the opening fact, kept first because it frames everything after it as history. Austin Reed is a men's fashion and women's fashion retailer based in the United Kingdom. Founded by Austin Leonard Reed in 1900, they were the first menswear retailer to craft ready-to-wear clothes with the same level of expertise as made-to-measure. The first Austin Reed branded store was established on Fenchurch Street, with a larger flagship store opening in 1911 at 113 Regent Street.
The Historical Timeline
1900: the first London shop opened in Fenchurch Street. 1911: the flagship store opened in Regent Street. 1929: the first international outlet, on the transatlantic liner RMS Aquitania. 1930: the Regent Street Barbers Shop opened, which still stands today. 1938: a concession on the RMS Queen Mary. 1946: a concession on the RMS Queen Elizabeth. The 1980s: the launch of Austin Reed's womenswear. 1998: the Austin Reed Group acquires classic brand CC (formerly Country Casuals). Those liner concessions are the timeline's most telling entries - a tailoring house following its customers onto the great ships is a precise picture of early twentieth-century premium retail.
The later entries continue the record: Richard Thompson acquired Chester Barrie from Austin Reed; in 2005 Kosugi-Sangyo was the Austin Reed ready-to-wear license holder in Japan with retail value of €50 million; in 2009 the group acquired heritage brand Viyella; in 2010 the Q Club launched on the third floor of the Regent Street store; and in 2011 Austin Reed moved from the original 103-113 Regent Street store to the opposite side, at 100 Regent Street. The record closes by noting this is only a few of their many accomplishments - and by then recording, at its head, the 2016 acquisition by Edinburgh Woollen Mill.
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