Marks and Spencer Group plc is a major British multinational retailer with headquarters in London, England, that specialises in selling clothing, home products and food products. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, having previously been in the FTSE 100 Index from its creation until 2019.
Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Shopping generally refers to the act of buying products. Sometimes this is done to obtain final goods, including necessities such as food and clothing; sometimes it takes place as a recreational activity. Recreational shopping often involves window shopping and browsing: it does not always result in a purchase.
Next plc (styled as NEXT) is a British multinational clothing, footwear and home products retailer, which has its headquarters in Enderby, England. It has around 700 stores, of which circa 500 are in the United Kingdom, and circa 200 across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Next is the largest clothing retailer by sales in the United Kingdom, having overtaken Marks & Spencer in early 2012 and 2014. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
British Home Stores, commonly abbreviated to BHS and latterly legally styled BHS Ltd, was a British department store chain, primarily selling clothing and household items. In its later years, the company began to expand into furniture, electronics, entertainment, convenience groceries and fragrance and beauty products.
George William Davies is an English fashion designer and retailer.
Arcadia Group Ltd was a British multinational retailing company headquartered in London, England. It was best known for being the previous parent company of British Home Stores (BHS), Burton, Dorothy Perkins, Debenhams, Evans, Miss Selfridge, Topman, Topshop, Wallis and Warehouse. At its peak, the group had more than 2,500 outlets in the UK, as well as concessions in UK department stores and several hundred franchises operated internationally.
The Great British Beer Festival (GBBF) is an annual beer festival organised by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). It presents a selection of cask ales and other alcoholic drinks from the UK and beyond. The festival is also home to the Champion Beer of Britain awards and is held in August of each year. 2017 marked the 40th anniversary of the GBBF. GBBF's sister festival, the Great British Beer Festival Winter concentrates on beer styles such as porter and stout and is usually held in February each year.
Plus-size clothing is clothing proportioned specifically for people above the average clothing size. The application of the term varies from country to country, and according to which industry the person is involved in.
Justice is an online (shopjustice.com) clothing and lifestyle retailer targeting the tween girl market, formerly owned by Tween Brands, Inc., later by Ascena Retail Group, and currently by Bluestar Alliance LLC.
Fast fashion is a term used to describe the clothing industry business model of replicating recent catwalk trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at low cost, and bringing them to retail stores quickly while demand is highest. The term fast fashion is also used generically to describe the products of the fast fashion business model.
Edcon Limited was a retail company based in Johannesburg, South Africa. Its subsidiaries included Edgars, a department store with 203 branches. In 2020, the Competition Tribunal approved the sale of the Edgars division to Retailability (pty) Ltd, and Jet to The Foschini Group.
Edinburgh Woollen Mill (EWM) is a Carlisle-based retailer specialising in clothing, along with interests in homewares and destination shopping for tourists. It was previously owned by the Dubai-based British billionaire Philip Day.
In the retail industry, a buyer is an individual who selects what items are stocked. Buyers usually work closely with designers and their designated sales representatives and attend trade fairs, wholesale showrooms and fashion shows to observe trends. They may work for large department stores, chain stores or smaller boutiques. For smaller independent stores, a buyer may participate in sales as well as promotion, whereas in a major fashion store there may be different levels of seniority such as trainee buyers, assistant buyers, senior buyers and buying managers, and buying directors. Decisions about what to stock can greatly affect fashion businesses.
Greenwoods was a chain of menswear stores with headquarters in Bradford, England.
MOVE IT is an annual four-day dance event at Olympia, London.
Wolf & Badger is a global online marketplace for independent brands, with storefronts in London and New York City.
John Michael Ingram was an influential British menswear designer and retailer of the 1950s and '60s who founded the John Michael fashion brand, followed by a range of successful retail concepts, before establishing one of the first fashion forecasting agencies in the 1970s.
Boohoo Group plc is British online fashion retailer, aimed at 16–30 year olds. The business was founded in 2006, and had sales in 2019 of £856.9 million. It specialises in own brand fashion clothing, with over 36,000 products. Growing rapidly, the company has acquired the brands and online presence of several defunct high street retailers, and also seen controversy over working conditions at some of its suppliers.
Radiolympia, also known as the Radio Show, was a pioneering exhibition of radio equipment, latterly television equipment, held annually at Olympia in London, England, in the 1920s to 1940s, except for a period of interruption during World War II.
The COVID-19 pandemic affects the global fashion industry as governments close down manufacturing plants, and through store closures, and event cancellations to slow the spread of the virus. The coronavirus pandemic has had a major impact on fashion brands worldwide. At the same time, the fashion industry faces challenges in consumer demand. New opportunities are also presenting themselves as fashion brands shift to making fashionable coronavirus face masks. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is inevitably changing the fashion world forever. Domenico de Sole, chairman of Tom Ford International, remarked that “I have seen a lot of difficult situations in my long career and this has been the most devastating event, not just for fashion and luxury, but all industries.”
