After testing the waters with a temporary London store in the summer, Canadian denim brand Buffalo David Bitton is making its U.K. presence permanent.
The company has opened a stand-alone store on London’s Kensington High Street, and stores in southeast England are set to open in Brighton, Croydon, Kingston-upon-Thames and the Bluewater mall in Kent in May.
Jennifer Lacoste, president of Lacoste Enterprises Group, Buffalo David Bitton’s retail partner in the U.K., said the company was also planning to open in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool, and to invest more than 15 million pounds, or $29.4 million, to open up to 35 stores in the U.K. and Ireland over the next two years. A real estate source familiar with the Kensington High Street area estimated that the new store could have cost up to $1.5 million to open.
“There is a vast gap in the market here for quirky product, and the female ranges are extremely strong,” said Lacoste. “The customer base is very broad and it seems to have stretched from 18-year-olds to 60-year-olds. People love the fact that the clothing is different.”
The 4,400-square-foot Kensington store has modern wood and steel fittings, and stone floors that contrast with finely etched glass in the windows, as well as a display wall of jeans. The store will carry David Bitton’s women’s and men’s jeans and contemporary collections that include denim clamdiggers, embellished jeans and HotPants priced from about $60 for a cotton top to $360 for embellished denim jeans.
The company has also taken up a London theme with its campaign images for spring, which pictures models draped in Union Jacks and sporting soldiers’ hats teamed with skinny jeans and mini dungaree dresses.
“High Street Kensington is a very good site,” said Lacoste, who declined to give sales predictions for the U.K. stores. “Oxford Street or Regent Street would have been too impersonal. We wanted the store to have a superb ambience.”
While the North American arm of the company was acquired by the Tarrant Apparel Group in a deal worth $120 million this year, its growth in the U.K. and Ireland is being driven by Lacoste Enterprises Group, which owns and operates the stores, Lacoste said, and added that expansion in Europe was next in the company’s sights. “In the next four or five years, we hope to open in the principal cities in Europe,” said Lacoste.
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Lacoste also said the company was working to place David Bitton product in editorial and on television in the region, and said the company was planning on working with celebrities in various capacities in the U.K. to promote awareness of the brand.