Mr Dunkerton says the next few months are going to be all about 'reinvention' - Jack Boskett
Hannah Boland
6 min read
The founder of Superdry has insisted the struggling “dad brand” will become cool again as it prepares for life after delisting from the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
Julian Dunkerton, who founded the retailer in 2003, vowed to make Superdry “so much more relevant” to customers as part of a major overhaul which will end its 15-year tenure as a UK-listed company.
In its most recent set of results in January, Superdry revealed revenues had slumped 23.5pc to ￡219m in the six months to November, causing losses to widen to ￡25m. The retailer warned it was heading for administration.
Mr Dunkerton, who is also Superdry’s chief executive, responded by launching a rescue plan which includes a rent reduction on under-performing stores, an equity raise of up to ￡10m from Dunkerton and its exit from the LSE. Its delisting is expected to complete on Monday.
The next few months will be about “reinvention”, Mr Dunkerton said, in a sign that it no longer wants to be viewed as a “dad brand”.
“I’m not ashamed of having a 50-year-old consumer as long as I’ve got a 16-year-old coming through as well,” he said at the time.
Superdry's use of Japanese writing has faced accusations of being 'inauthentic' given the brand's UK origins - REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
As part of its overhaul, Superdry has slashed its clothing range from 4,000 a season to 1,600. It is moving away from largely selling lines of heavily branded hoodies, coats and T-shirts, which typically have featured bold graphics, its orange logo and Japanese writing.
The latter had been criticised by some analysts as being “inauthentic”. Superdry was founded in Cheltenham, where it is still headquartered.
Mr Dunkerton said the Japan influence was still there in some of its clothes, adding: “I’m not ashamed of it. I kind of love it. But it’s not the overriding dominance.”
Certain new lines, instead, are designed to be more youthful and revolve around “Americana” design, which Mr Dunkerton says is similar to Gen Z favourite Brandy Melville. Other new ranges are likened to designs by Ralph Lauren, Barbour and Orlebar Brown.
Superdry has adapted its collections to suit different age ranges, including smaller logos on its clothing for millennial customers, who Mr Dunkerton says prefer less visible branding compared with their Gen Z peers.
“I genuinely think this is one of the turnaround moments for any brand,” Mr Dunkerton said.
“We grew so quickly and we were so popular that we were bound to be knocked off our perch a bit. There was only so much of that certain stuff we could sell.
“That is maybe why this interview is happening. I wouldn’t be doing it if I wasn’t proud of where we are going.”
Mr Dunkerton, 59, has drafted in his wife, the 37-year-old fashion designer Jade Holland Cooper, to advise on photography and styling as the retailer refreshes its website.
Fashion designer and wife of Mr Dunkerton, Jade Holland Cooper, is advising on Superdry's photography and styling - Eddie Mulholland
Superdry is due to relaunch its website in Ireland later this month, with plans for it to hit the UK in September. Superdry has moved to outsource its website, striking a deal with Salesforce, having previously operated it in-house.
Mr Dunkerton said: “[Jade]’s been a huge help on the styling, the photographer, the lighting.
“It’s lucky being married to a woman who has got skills which I patently haven’t got.”
Mr Dunkerton will be hoping he can tap some of the recent success enjoyed by Ms Holland Cooper, with sales at her clothing label jumping by 40pc to ￡40m in the year to May on a year earlier.
Mr Dunkerton claims Holland Cooper Clothing, which has its store in his out-of-town farm shop complex, is “the fastest growing female brand” in the UK.
“With her new styling and the photography for Superdry’s website, everything is cleaner,” Mr Dunkerton said. “You can really feel palpably that Superdry has moved from a retailer to a brand, and that’s the key here.”
Mr Dunkerton may appear unshakably optimistic over the future of the company he founded around 40 years ago from a market stall – but there are others who will be more sceptical.
After all, in 2019, when Mr Dunkerton orchestrated a boardroom coup to return to the helm of the business, he described it as a “renaissance moment”. In the years that followed, Superdry has struggled to make much headway, with sales last year down almost 30pc on pre-pandemic levels.
To cut down costs, the company pushed through a restructuring plan which included rent reductions across its stores - Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg
Mr Dunkerton claims it was because the business was in decline when he returned in 2019, with the brand team having been disbanded and the retailer having too much excess stock. “It was difficult to catch every knife,” he said.
At the same time, costs have been a major issue. Earlier this year it pushed through a restructuring plan which included rent reductions across its stores.
Mr Dunkerton, who has previously been critical of company voluntary arrangements, an insolvency procedure, said he did his “absolute damnedest not to get to that point”.
He added: “But there was the Covid tidal wave and I was renegotiating as quickly as I humanly could. It got to a point where I realised that I just had to do them all in one go. I couldn’t get people to the table at the speed that I needed to.”
As a publicly listed company, Mr Dunkerton said Superdry has “wasted” huge amounts of cash on audits, spending ￡5m in both the two most recent financial years.
“That is a huge amount to be spending on something that isn’t creating money,” he said.
The process was forcing his finance team to focus on the wrong thing. “We should have been focused on trading, but we were focused on corporate governance,” Mr Dunkerton added.
“I need that team to make the right commercial decisions. But it was so in a quagmire of being able to react because there was so much regulatory stuff to get through.”
This is why it is a “relief” to be leaving the London Stock Exchange, the Superdry boss said.
The exit follows a series of departures from the beleaguered exchange over the past year. “I think that it was completely the right thing to do to go public when we did,” Mr Dunkerton said. “But with the problems that have happened in the last five years, I think the company structure has made it very difficult and we’ve been too slow to react.”
Mr Dunkerton said he is now working closely with staff who “are under the bonnet and making things happen.”
Will the retailer’s overhaul mean scrapping four-day weeks, which Superdry introduced in 2022? Mr Dunkerton admitted he “wishes it was five days”.
He said: “We’ve got to get it right. We’re not there yet, but I’m trying to make sure that we’re all happy. We’re assessing it department by department.
“Now it is about us coming back in a different form. And trust me, we will come back.”
