Aquascutum, another iconic British brand, hits the dust

It was a brave attempt to turn a business around: but today, after 160 years in business, and weeks of speculation about its future, administrators were finally called in to take over Aquascutum’s reins. Yesterday, the firm’s owner Harold Tillman, who chairs the British Fashion Council, sold a 90 per cent stake in its parent company Jaeger: the writing was on the wall.

The specialist recovery and insolvency firm FRP Advisory LLP is now trying to find a buyer as soon as possible, the joint administrator, Geoff Rowley declaring: “We are conscious of the value of the Aquascutum brand, and its long standing heritage.” And what a heritage.

The firm, which held more than six royal warrants, was founded in 1851 by John Emary, who invented and patented the first rain-repellent cloth, destined to be fashioned into its trademark trench coat. Soldiers in both world wars were given the coats to wear: pretty soon everyone who was anyone was to be seen in one, from Winston Churchill and the Queen Mother to Hollywood stars like Carey Grant and Bogart and Bacall.

Aquascutum was sold by the family to the Japanese textile firm Renown in 1990, and was already building up substantial losses by the time Harold Tillman bought it up in 2009. He attempted a radical turnaround, investing some £30m in the effort to forge a new direction. Belinda Earl was headhunted to take the role of chief executive, in tandem with her post at the helm of Jaeger, vowing to grow its volume and broaden its appeal.

Fashion forward

A year later, the search for a homegrown designer lured the Central St Martin’s graduate Joanna Sykes as creative director to inject a fashion-forward feel. Sykes’ catwalk collections, shown at London Fashion Week, were received with rapturous applause and talk of the Next Big Thing: supermodels Laura Bailey, Poppy Delavigne and Jade Parfitt joined Tillman on the celebrity-packed front row. Last May, Aquascutum bid farewell to its flagship store in London’s Regent Street, raising £5m.

But the fight to keep the company afloat proved an impossible task. At the end of 2007, UK pre-tax losses had soared to £15.7m. It is thought that figure is not so very different today. The next blow came when Belinda Earl, who had championed the “Made in Britain, designed in Britain” ethic, was forced to step down because of ill health.

But perhaps the heart of the problem lay in its inability to exploit the lucative markets in the far east: a condition of the sale in 2009 meant that Asian rights were sold to Hong Kong’s YGM Trading.

Burberry boom

Contrast Aquascutum’s fate to another luxury British brand, Burberry, which today revealed its second half revenues rose by 19 per cent, thanks to booming sales in Asia, as well as Britain and France. Ironically, Burberry are poised to open a new 25,000 sq ft store in Regent Street, as part of a global expansion. Its CFO Stacey Cartright told reporters that China had now grown to 10 per cent of its retail and wholesale market.

Or consider the handbag and leather goods firm, Mulberry, which has captured the cool factor with its must-have Alexa satchel and Bayswater tote, and has just branched out into “luxury aparel”. The firm, riding high after a fall 2012 collection brimming with leading fashionistas, has been told by Goldman Sachs that it could more than triple in size if it manages to move into the lucrative Asian-Pacific region.

Not so Aquascutum, whose long standing heritage and royal warrants proved no match for the storms of economic uncertainty. Staff at its 11 high street and outlet stores, along with 20 concessions across the country will be hoping those administrators manage to find a buyer, willing and able to take them on.