FROM her offices above Aquascutum's grand flagship store on London's Regent Street, retail tycoon Kim Winser keeps a close eye on who is hot, and who is not. Jaeger, Hugo Boss, Burberry and Austin Reed are among the retailers lining the famous street, and the chief executive of Aquascutum can see for herself which is attracting most customers and which is selling off stock at a discount.
Winser, the former boss of Scottish knitwear group Pringle, saw Austin Reed's problems contribute to it being bought this month by Darius Capital for GBP 49m and now she looks forward to seeing changes there.
Chatting in her office on a cold midweek morning, she says: "At one end you have got M&S doing a very good job. Then there are brands that are hanging in there and perhaps not doing a particularly good job.
"Austin Reed has just been bought. They are sat over the road from us and I think it would be nice to see windows without red tickets there.
"Of course Austin Reed and M&S aren't competitors [to Aquascutum]. This is a global business with more business offshore than onshore."
Conscious of Aquascutum's reputation as a luxury brand, Winser quickly adds that Hugo Boss, Burberry, Paul Smith and Gieves and Hawkes are her company's "real" competition.
Winser, a former M&S director, has a reputation for turning around ailing retailers and made her name transforming Pringle, where she grew sales from GBP 10m to GBP 100m and was awarded the OBE for her services to textiles.
She quit Pringle in November 2005 and said at the time she was taking some time to consider her options.
In April this year she resurfaced at Aquascutum, a venerable British brand with a reputation for making quality but rather fusty and old-fashioned clothes.
The company was founded in 1851, has earned five Royal Warrants, and was favoured by 'A list' Hollywood stars such as Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, and more recently Warren Beatty and Mia Farrow.
But despite making revenues of GBP 220m last year, the company is loss-making. Rival brands such as Burberry, Mulberry and Pringle have reinvented themselves and grown while it has stagnated.
Winser has spent the last six months looking at the way the group operates and describes the period as "challenging".
Staff and directors have been hired and fired, a major advertising campaign launched, new goods have appeared on the shelves and stores given a much-needed makeover.
And that is just for starters. Winser says the task she faces in turning around Aquascutum is very different to that at Pringle.
She says: "Aquascutum has strong infrastructure - it has a strong retail positioning with nearly 300 stores. The weakness is that we haven't been focused on brand, product and marketing.
"It's completely different [to Pringle]. Both are old British brands but at Pringle it was about building, starting from nothing. It had no shops, no accessory business and no overseas business.
"One of the exciting things [at Aquascutum] is that we have got a business to develop."
One of Winser's first moves was to sack three directors and replace them with four new ones.
"They weren't the right people to market the business or the luxury brand," she says succinctly.
The sheer size of Aquascutum poses problems as well as opportunities for Winser and her team. The group has branded stores and concessions in other shops in Europe and Asia, and introducing one way of operating in all 300 or so outlets is a major challenge.
She says: "Previously the business was sleepy and traditional and the marketing and branding was similar. The goods needed a lot of work and you had to do up the stores.
"The collection that was in Japan, Hong Kong and China had nothing to do with what we have in a collection here. That's changed - we will have a global collection."
The most high-profile part of Winser's turnaround plan to date has been an advertising campaign fronted by former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan and model Julia Stegner.
She says: "I brought in Pierce and Julia. We have now just shot the second campaign for spring 2007. We have done up the stores in London and Tokyo and I plan to do all the stores by next year. It's not huge capital expenditure. It's promoting what we have and better product."
She says the work in London and Tokyo is already paying off, with a 47 per cent year-on-year increase in footfall and 32 per cent uplift in sales in these two stores in the last nine weeks.
"It's not bad and it's only got some good products," she says.
"It's starting to come together quite nicely."
Winser was born the second of four children in Helensburgh. She travelled a lot as a child as her father was in the Royal Navy, and ended up at school in Hampshire. Despite being bright she was not academic and chose to join M&S as a management trainee in 1977. The move paid off, and she rose through the ranks to become head of womenswear with a place on the board of directors.
Her big break came when she was appointed at Pringle in 2000 and managed to turn it around. Winser has been listed number three in the Wall Street Journal's list of Europe's most successful businesswomen and Management Today named her as one of Europe's most powerful women.
But is turning around Aquascutum a bridge too far, even for Winser?
Aquascutum has been owned by a Japanese publicly listed group, Renown, since 1990. In November 2005, Japanese private equity group Kaleido Holdings bought 22 per cent of Renown and brought in Winser to run Aquascutum.
She says: "Sales are GBP 220m and I want to double that by the end of 2010. The money allocated to invest is around GBP 40m. This year and next year will be expensive - we won't get that much in sales and have to invest in shop-fitting. I see 2007 as year one, 2008 may be break-even."
Growing sales is one thing, but making a profit is another, and critics of Winser point out that she failed to make a profit at Pringle, despite reviving the brand's tattered reputation.
Winser defends herself saying: "But you have to remember what it was. It was nothing. You can't make a fashionable brand overnight. I have just come back from New York... and you see [Pringle goods] there. That's brilliant and I'm very proud."
Winser says the main drivers for doubling Aquascutum's sales will be launching the accessory business and expanding in America. A store will open in New York in 2008 and concessions will open elsewhere in the country in 2007.
Marketing will be integral to her plans and Winser, who lives in Berkshire, is returning to Scotland next month to speak at the Marketing Society Conference in Edinburgh.
Winser will discuss the tangible benefits that proper marketing can give to business. "I'm quite passionate about the results that marketing gives you. Marketing has got to deliver, and for us, it's about: when you do this, this is what happens to the business."
If Winser's plans succeed, she says that in five years' time, the group will be a serious player in luxury tailoring.
"We will have a serious accessory business. We will develop more in Europe - it has real potential. We are opening our showroom in Italy in January. We will be in Moscow and Paris.
"The wholesale side of the business will see dramatic growth. In Asia we are quite well spread, some of the smaller stores will become bigger we are talking to franchisees in the Middle East."
If she is successful, Winser is unlikely to be short of job offers from one of the other retailers on Regent Street.
Winser, the former boss of Scottish knitwear group Pringle, saw Austin Reed's problems contribute to it being bought this month by Darius Capital for GBP 49m and now she looks forward to seeing changes there.
Chatting in her office on a cold midweek morning, she says: "At one end you have got M&S doing a very good job. Then there are brands that are hanging in there and perhaps not doing a particularly good job.
"Austin Reed has just been bought. They are sat over the road from us and I think it would be nice to see windows without red tickets there.
"Of course Austin Reed and M&S aren't competitors [to Aquascutum]. This is a global business with more business offshore than onshore."
Conscious of Aquascutum's reputation as a luxury brand, Winser quickly adds that Hugo Boss, Burberry, Paul Smith and Gieves and Hawkes are her company's "real" competition.
Winser, a former M&S director, has a reputation for turning around ailing retailers and made her name transforming Pringle, where she grew sales from GBP 10m to GBP 100m and was awarded the OBE for her services to textiles.
She quit Pringle in November 2005 and said at the time she was taking some time to consider her options.
In April this year she resurfaced at Aquascutum, a venerable British brand with a reputation for making quality but rather fusty and old-fashioned clothes.
The company was founded in 1851, has earned five Royal Warrants, and was favoured by 'A list' Hollywood stars such as Gregory Peck and Sophia Loren, and more recently Warren Beatty and Mia Farrow.
But despite making revenues of GBP 220m last year, the company is loss-making. Rival brands such as Burberry, Mulberry and Pringle have reinvented themselves and grown while it has stagnated.
Winser has spent the last six months looking at the way the group operates and describes the period as "challenging".
Staff and directors have been hired and fired, a major advertising campaign launched, new goods have appeared on the shelves and stores given a much-needed makeover.
And that is just for starters. Winser says the task she faces in turning around Aquascutum is very different to that at Pringle.
She says: "Aquascutum has strong infrastructure - it has a strong retail positioning with nearly 300 stores. The weakness is that we haven't been focused on brand, product and marketing.
"It's completely different [to Pringle]. Both are old British brands but at Pringle it was about building, starting from nothing. It had no shops, no accessory business and no overseas business.
"One of the exciting things [at Aquascutum] is that we have got a business to develop."
One of Winser's first moves was to sack three directors and replace them with four new ones.
"They weren't the right people to market the business or the luxury brand," she says succinctly.
The sheer size of Aquascutum poses problems as well as opportunities for Winser and her team. The group has branded stores and concessions in other shops in Europe and Asia, and introducing one way of operating in all 300 or so outlets is a major challenge.
She says: "Previously the business was sleepy and traditional and the marketing and branding was similar. The goods needed a lot of work and you had to do up the stores.
"The collection that was in Japan, Hong Kong and China had nothing to do with what we have in a collection here. That's changed - we will have a global collection."
The most high-profile part of Winser's turnaround plan to date has been an advertising campaign fronted by former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan and model Julia Stegner.
She says: "I brought in Pierce and Julia. We have now just shot the second campaign for spring 2007. We have done up the stores in London and Tokyo and I plan to do all the stores by next year. It's not huge capital expenditure. It's promoting what we have and better product."
She says the work in London and Tokyo is already paying off, with a 47 per cent year-on-year increase in footfall and 32 per cent uplift in sales in these two stores in the last nine weeks.
"It's not bad and it's only got some good products," she says.
"It's starting to come together quite nicely."
Winser was born the second of four children in Helensburgh. She travelled a lot as a child as her father was in the Royal Navy, and ended up at school in Hampshire. Despite being bright she was not academic and chose to join M&S as a management trainee in 1977. The move paid off, and she rose through the ranks to become head of womenswear with a place on the board of directors.
Her big break came when she was appointed at Pringle in 2000 and managed to turn it around. Winser has been listed number three in the Wall Street Journal's list of Europe's most successful businesswomen and Management Today named her as one of Europe's most powerful women.
But is turning around Aquascutum a bridge too far, even for Winser?
Aquascutum has been owned by a Japanese publicly listed group, Renown, since 1990. In November 2005, Japanese private equity group Kaleido Holdings bought 22 per cent of Renown and brought in Winser to run Aquascutum.
She says: "Sales are GBP 220m and I want to double that by the end of 2010. The money allocated to invest is around GBP 40m. This year and next year will be expensive - we won't get that much in sales and have to invest in shop-fitting. I see 2007 as year one, 2008 may be break-even."
Growing sales is one thing, but making a profit is another, and critics of Winser point out that she failed to make a profit at Pringle, despite reviving the brand's tattered reputation.
Winser defends herself saying: "But you have to remember what it was. It was nothing. You can't make a fashionable brand overnight. I have just come back from New York... and you see [Pringle goods] there. That's brilliant and I'm very proud."
Winser says the main drivers for doubling Aquascutum's sales will be launching the accessory business and expanding in America. A store will open in New York in 2008 and concessions will open elsewhere in the country in 2007.
Marketing will be integral to her plans and Winser, who lives in Berkshire, is returning to Scotland next month to speak at the Marketing Society Conference in Edinburgh.
Winser will discuss the tangible benefits that proper marketing can give to business. "I'm quite passionate about the results that marketing gives you. Marketing has got to deliver, and for us, it's about: when you do this, this is what happens to the business."
If Winser's plans succeed, she says that in five years' time, the group will be a serious player in luxury tailoring.
"We will have a serious accessory business. We will develop more in Europe - it has real potential. We are opening our showroom in Italy in January. We will be in Moscow and Paris.
"The wholesale side of the business will see dramatic growth. In Asia we are quite well spread, some of the smaller stores will become bigger we are talking to franchisees in the Middle East."
If she is successful, Winser is unlikely to be short of job offers from one of the other retailers on Regent Street.
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