LONDON — Growth across all product categories and regions fueled 2013 profits and sales at Stella McCartney Limited, the U.K. arm of the designer’s business.
According to accounts filed at Companies House, the official registrar of companies based in the U.K., profits in the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2013 climbed 4.8 percent to 3.6 million, or $5.6 million,
while revenues were up 10.3 percent to 28.4 million, or $44.3 million.
All figures have been converted at average exchange rates for 2013.
“We’re happy,” said the brand’s president and chief executive officer Frederick Lukoff in a telephone interview. “The brand continues to be hot.”
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Lukoff said Stella McCartney showed “strong double-digit growth” across all categories in the period, and that the Falabella bag remains a best seller, with a new, quilted version doing well. He described the brand’s handbag business overall as “healthy.”
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He added that Asia has been a particular focus in 2013 and 2014, and by the end of this year the brand will have five stores on Mainland China: Two each in Beijing and Shanghai, and one in Chengdu. He said the core rtw collection has been doing particularly well with Chinese female customers at home and abroad.
Lukoff said “there is plenty of growth ahead” in Asia, but also in Europe and North America.
The Companies House numbers give a partial picture of the overall Stella McCartney business, however. Stella McCartney Limited is the U.K. legal entity within the designer’s worldwide business, which is consolidated into the accounts of its parent company Kering.
The U.K. legal entity oversees trademarks, licenses, and the brand’s two London stores, on Bruton Street and the Fulham Road, and a shop-in-shop at Harrods.
The figures reported at Companies House do not take into account wholesale sales or turnover from the brand’s directly operated stores outside the U.K.
By the end of this year, the company will have 38 freestanding stores, about half of which are directly operated, and 44 shop-in-shops.
In 2013, the brand added two stores in Tokyo, an outlet at Bicester Village in Oxfordshire, England, and franchises in Taiwan, Istanbul and Moscow.
Earlier this year, it opened the first standalone Stella McCartney Kids store, and Lukoff said the plan is to roll out further units. This year’s openings include Madrid, Dubai, Baku, Palo Alto, and a second unit in Moscow.
McCartney also has busy days ahead: Her spring/summer 2015 runway show takes place in Paris on Monday while on November 13, she will be honored by Lincoln Center with a women’s leadership award and tribute.