PRINT THIS STORY:

CHANGE TEXT SIZE:

EXPERTS PREDICT BEST OF BRITISH LUCK FOR BROOKS BROS.

By Molly Knight

Chocolate importer Terence Fisher, an 83-year-old resident of Suffolk, England, has made it a point to shop at Brooks Bros.’ Madison Avenue store on his twice-a-year visits to New York City. The store offers quality suiting at a reasonable price, he says, bemoaning his native country’s abundance of natty but very expensive men’s suit tailors.

That and excellent customer service have kept him coming back to Brooks Bros. for years.

187-year-old Brooks Bros., which bills itself as America’s oldest clothing retailer, is apparently hoping Fisher is not the only Briton with a fancy for its clothes. In November the chain opened its first U.K. store, in London. It plans to open a second London shop this summer and as many as 12 in the U.K. within five years.

“Their employees are permanent,” Fisher said. “I’ve been going there for many years, and for the last 15 years, I’ve always been served by a lady called Pamela Brown. I come to America twice a year for business, and before I do, I call Pamela and ask her to pick out some shirts, and she has them ready for me when I get there.”

Opened in New York in 1818 as H. & D.H. Brooks & Co., the chain operates more than 280 stores today in the U.S., China, Italy, Japan and Taiwan. Ironically, though, Brook Bros. had to be sold by British parent Marks & Spencer before it could gather the resources to launch a U.K. presence.

When Marks & Spencer purchased Brooks Bros. for $750 million in 1988, a British rollout seemed inevitable. But Marks & Spencer hit hard times and decided to refocus on its core hypermarkets. It sold the chain to Enfield, Conn.-based Retail Brand Alliance for $225 million in 2001.

For a time, Brook Bros. seemed to be just another label in the Retail Brand Alliance stable, which also included the Adrienne Vittadini, Carolee jewelry, Casual Corner and Petite Sophisticate names, observers say. But last fall Retail Brand announced the formation of a joint venture with Brightark, of London, to develop and manage Brooks Bros. stores in the U.K., beginning with a 3,500-square-foot store at Lion Plaza, on Old Broad Street in the financial district of London known as The City.

Further underscoring its commitment to Brooks Bros., Retail Brand hired Boston-based liquidator Gordon Bros. Group to sell its Casual Corner stores. The proceeds will go to the expansion of Brooks Bros., Retail Brand CEO Claudio Del Vecchio told the media. He also said he might consider selling Vittadini or Carolee to help support Brooks Bros. Little data is available regarding Brooks Bros. sales worldwide because Retail Brand is privately held, though one source pegged the figure at about $634.6 million annually.

“Brooks Bros. is well known over here,” said Chris Phillips, a partner specializing in London retail at Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker. “I’ve been in this business a long time, and everyone has always asked me when they’re going to bring a Brooks Bros. over here. They’re the name that everyone’s been waiting for.”

“There is definitely an appetite for aspirational overseas brands,” said Richard Ratner, a retail analyst at Seymour Pierce, a London-based investment management firm. “But they will only be successful if they get it right.” And to “get it right,” according to Ratner, Brooks Bros. needs to develop the “right properties in the right locations. If they establish themselves here in London like Gap did, then they’ll have the opportunity to expand like bonkers.”

So far, Phillips says, Brooks Bros. has made the right retail real estate decisions. “The Lion Plaza store is very smart,” Phillips said, “because it’s adjacent to the right kind of center: the Royal Exchange, which has been transformed in recent years into an exclusive shopping center with upscale stores like Gucci, Hermès and Prada.”

The Lion Plaza store is only 3,500 square feet, but one space Brooks Bros. is looking at on Regent Street is much larger, Phillips says. “It’s a very logical move,” he said, noting Regent Street’s cachet for upscale stores.

Phillips insists the time to introduce a brand to the U.K. market is now. “The retail real estate market is going through a difficult period in London in particular,” he said. “There is great opportunity to pick up some space for stores on reasonable terms. The space Brooks Bros. took on Lion Plaza has been available for a number of years. They must have negotiated a fantastic deal.”

Once Brooks Bros. establishes itself in London, Phillips says, it should expand to other large markets, in Manchester and Birmingham, and Glasgow, Scotland. “But they can’t neglect the southeast of England,” he said. “That’s where the money is.”

In the midst of a struggling retail economy, however, some wonder whether the company will make a profit, Phillips says. Overall menswear sales are down slightly in the U.K., to a projected £9.018 million ($15.6 million) for 2005 from £9.021 million in 2004, according to Fashion Capital U.K., a data firm.

In addition to selecting the best locations for its stores, Brooks Bros. needs to offer the right fashions at the right price, Ratner says. “They will not just make it on brand name alone, as the French Connection is finding out,” he said. “They actually have to have a good product.”

Ratner says Brooks Bros.’ main competitors will be Moss Bros. (which operates 102 Moss stores, 26 younger-oriented Cecil Gee stores and 11 Hugo Boss stores), Austin Reed (which runs about 300 Austin Reed and Country Casuals stores) and Ted Baker (which operates 25 stores in the U.K. and seven in North America). To keep up with these entrenched competitors, Brooks Bros. says it will rely on its trademark classic suits, no-iron dress shirts, ties, blazers and sport coats. Thus, the company would benefit if the U.K. market manifests the same retreat from casual that is helping formal apparel stores in the U.S.

“If they’ve [Brooks Bros.] done their homework, then they’re ensured success,” said Phillips. “With their new management, I’d be very surprised if it weren’t a smash.”