Laura Ashley plc
Encyclopedia
Laura Ashley plc is a British textile design
company now controlled by the MUI Group
of Malaysia. It was founded by Bernard Ashley, an engineer, and his wife Laura Ashley
in 1953 then grew over the next 20 years„“ to become an international retail chain. Sales totalled over £276 million in 2000. Its products can be described as quintessentially English.
, Bernard Ashley met Welsh
secretary Laura Mountney at a youth club in Wallington, London
. While working as a secretary and raising her first two children, part time she designed napkins, table mats, tea-towels which Bernard printed on a machine he had designed in an attic flat in Pimlico
, London
The couple had invested £10 in wood for the screen frame, dyes and a few yards of linen. Laura's inspiration to start producing printed fabric came from a Women's Institute display of traditional handicrafts at the Victoria & Albert Museum. When Laura looked for small patches carrying Victorian designs to help her make patchworks, she found no such thing existed. Here was an opportunity, and she started to print Victorian style headscarves in 1953.
Audrey Hepburn
inadvertently sparked the growth of one of the world's most successful fashion and home furnishing companies. Hepburn appeared alongside Gregory Peck
in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, wearing a headscarf. As such a fashion icon, she instantly created a style that became popular around the globe. The Ashleys' scarves quickly became successful with stores, retailing both via mail order
and high street chains such as John Lewis
From 1953, Bernard left his city job and the couple began to expand the company, named Bernard Ashley Fabrics. Laura designed the prints and Bernard built the printing equipment, so forging a complementary partnership that was to give the company its unique strength throughout the years. Laura remained in charge of design until shortly before her death, while Bernard handled the operational side.
Employing staff to cope with the growth of sales, the company name was changed to Laura Ashley because Bernard felt a woman's name was more appropriate for the type of products.
in 1955, but the business was nearly wiped out in 1958, when the River Darent
overflowed - leaving equipment, dyes and fabrics floating in three feet of water.
Turnover rose from £2,000 to £8,000 in 1960, which left them looking for new premises. As the new M1 Motorway
had just been built, Laura suggested Wales as there was lots of space, and driving up the new road one weekend, found a suitable house and shop available for a sum below their residual savings in Machynlleth
, Powys
.
The family moved to Wales in 1961, just after the birth of their third child. The first shop opened at 35 Maengwyn Street, which still today trades as an interior design shop, and the Laura Ashley association is commemorated by a small plaque. The family lived above the shop for 6 years before moving to Carno
, Montgomeryshire
.
The Ashley's first "Welsh" factory was originally located in the social club in Carno; in 1967 the factory moved across to the village's former railway station.
These were crucial times in the development of the company. Bernard had developed his flat-bed printing process to produce 5,000metres of fabric per week, and in 1966 Laura produced her first dress for social rather than work attire. The long length silhouette became the Laura Ashley trademark. It also was to work successfully in the company's favour, as fashion switched from the mini to the maxi skirt at the end of the 1960s — a newspaper suggested that by donning a Laura Ashley number, women could look as beautiful as Katharine Ross
in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
.
, in 1968, with additional shops opened in Shrewsbury
and Bath in 1970. In one week alone, London's Fulham Road
shop sold 4,000 dresses - which resulted in the new factory in Newtown, Montgomeryshire. It was the opening of the Paris
shop in 1974 which was the first to feature the distinctive green frontage and stripped wooden interior; and in the same year the first USA shop opened in San Francisco. A licensing operation led to the opening of department store concessions in Australia
, Canada
and Japan
from 1971 onwards.
By 1975, turnover was £5million per year and the company employed 1,000 people worldwide. Laura turned down the offer of an OBE
(she was upset Bernard had not been offered one) but a Queen's Award for Export was accepted in 1977. Turnover reached £25 million in 1979, and a range of perfume
was launched. The addition of a home in France enabled Laura to go back to her roots of fabric design, and the company launched its home furnishings collections.
In the early 1990s, Laura Ashley plc was suffering from a combination of over expansion of its retail outlets and dependence on what had become an overly complex and costly outsourced network of manufacturers. In 1991, American James Maxmin, Ph.D. became the CEO at Laura Ashley, after pressure on the autocratic Sir Bernard. Over the next two and a half years, Dr. Maxmin led a series of changes, fixing problems in manufacturing and logistics that foreshadowed principles of his later book, The Support Economy, co-authored with his wife, Harvard Business School Professor Shoshana Zuboff
. For example, he entered into a strategic alliance with FedEx
, forming a sort of proto-federation, aimed at improving distribution for close to 500 Laura Ashley stores. The alliance was established as a 10-year partnership, but it was relatively open-ended, premised on trust. The objective was to be able to supply 99 percent of Laura Ashley's merchandise to customers anywhere in the world within 48 hours. The alliance replaced a legacy system that would route a T-shirt manufactured in Hong Kong to a warehouse in Newtown, Wales, before sending it to a retail store in Japan.
In 1992, Dr. Maxmin led Laura Ashley to its first profits since 1989, and in 1993 profits were expected to reach £12 million. But in early April 1994, two weeks before his wife's epiphany on national television, Dr. Maxin abruptly resigned from Laura Ashley, citing major differences with Sir Bernard over strategy.
Laura Ashley celebrated its 40th anniversary in 1993, the same year that Sir Bernard retired as chairman and became honorary life president. The Ashley family retain an interest in the business and its development. The launch of a children's range and a furniture range helped deflect the looming crisis but by 1997, after a torrid few years and numerous chief executives, the company was in serious financial difficulties.
became a major shareholder in Laura Ashley Holdings plc and under the new management, this world famous international brand was back in profit. Rescued from the receivers in 1998, 58 per cent of the shares are believed to be controlled directly or indirectly by the company's chairman Dr Khoo Kay Peng.
But the company failed to capitalise on its trademark look - probably due to employing its 11th chief executive in 14 years. It closed its flagship store on London's Regent Street in late 2005 because of rent increases, and in March 2005 it launched a £28m law suit against L'Oréal
, which manufactured the Laura Ashley perfumes. At Christmas 2004, the chain parted company with couture designer Alistair Blair
, who had previously designed for Dior
and Givenchy
.
Ms Lillian Tan, who has been chief executive since January, plans to reduce fashion from 22 per cent of sales to 14 per cent this year - with stores cutting back the space they give to clothes in favour of home furnishings, now the most profitable part of the business.
The Laura Ashley brand is now represented in the USA largely through licensing agreements. All of its stores there have now closed and the business as a whole is separately owned from that of its parent company in the UK.
The Company was criticised in 2009 for price discrepancies, which meant Irish customers were charged more than their UK counterparts for the same items.
Textile design
Textile design is the process of creating designs and structures for knitted, woven, non-woven or embellishments of fabrics.Textile designing involves producing patterns for cloth used in clothing, household textiles and decorative textiles such as carpets. The field encompasses the actual pattern...
company now controlled by the MUI Group
MUI Group
Malayan United Industries Berhad was founded in 1960. The main businesses of the group includes retailing, hotels, food and confectionery, financial services, property, travel and tourism...
of Malaysia. It was founded by Bernard Ashley, an engineer, and his wife Laura Ashley
Laura Ashley
Laura Ashley was a Welsh fashion designer and businesswoman. She became a household name on the strength of her work as a designer and manufacturer of a range of colourful fabrics for clothes and home furnishings....
in 1953 then grew over the next 20 years„“ to become an international retail chain. Sales totalled over £276 million in 2000. Its products can be described as quintessentially English.
Origins
After World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Bernard Ashley met Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
secretary Laura Mountney at a youth club in Wallington, London
Wallington, London
Wallington is a town in the London Borough of Sutton situated south south-west of Charing Cross. Prior to the merger of the Municipal Borough of Beddington and Wallington into the London Borough of Sutton, it was part of the county of Surrey.- History :...
. While working as a secretary and raising her first two children, part time she designed napkins, table mats, tea-towels which Bernard printed on a machine he had designed in an attic flat in Pimlico
Pimlico
Pimlico is a small area of central London in the City of Westminster. Like Belgravia, to which it was built as a southern extension, Pimlico is known for its grand garden squares and impressive Regency architecture....
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
The couple had invested £10 in wood for the screen frame, dyes and a few yards of linen. Laura's inspiration to start producing printed fabric came from a Women's Institute display of traditional handicrafts at the Victoria & Albert Museum. When Laura looked for small patches carrying Victorian designs to help her make patchworks, she found no such thing existed. Here was an opportunity, and she started to print Victorian style headscarves in 1953.
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
inadvertently sparked the growth of one of the world's most successful fashion and home furnishing companies. Hepburn appeared alongside Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck
Eldred Gregory Peck was an American actor.One of 20th Century Fox's most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play important roles well into the 1980s. His notable performances include that of Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, for which he won an...
in the 1953 film Roman Holiday, wearing a headscarf. As such a fashion icon, she instantly created a style that became popular around the globe. The Ashleys' scarves quickly became successful with stores, retailing both via mail order
Mail order
Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. The buyer places an order for the desired products with the merchant through some remote method such as through a telephone call or web site. Then, the products are delivered to the customer...
and high street chains such as John Lewis
John Lewis (department store)
-Recent developments:In June 2004, John Lewis announced plans to open its first store in Northern Ireland at the Sprucefield Park development, the province's largest out of town shopping centre, located outside Lisburn and from Belfast. The application was approved in June 2005 and the opening of...
From 1953, Bernard left his city job and the couple began to expand the company, named Bernard Ashley Fabrics. Laura designed the prints and Bernard built the printing equipment, so forging a complementary partnership that was to give the company its unique strength throughout the years. Laura remained in charge of design until shortly before her death, while Bernard handled the operational side.
Employing staff to cope with the growth of sales, the company name was changed to Laura Ashley because Bernard felt a woman's name was more appropriate for the type of products.
Expansion
The new company moved to KentKent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
in 1955, but the business was nearly wiped out in 1958, when the River Darent
River Darent
The River Darent or River Darenth is a Kentish tributary of the River Thames in England. Its name is believed to be from a Celtic word meaning 'river where oak-trees grow'...
overflowed - leaving equipment, dyes and fabrics floating in three feet of water.
Turnover rose from £2,000 to £8,000 in 1960, which left them looking for new premises. As the new M1 Motorway
M1 motorway
The M1 is a north–south motorway in England primarily connecting London to Leeds, where it joins the A1 near Aberford. While the M1 is considered to be the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the United Kingdom, the first road to be built to motorway standard in the country was the...
had just been built, Laura suggested Wales as there was lots of space, and driving up the new road one weekend, found a suitable house and shop available for a sum below their residual savings in Machynlleth
Machynlleth
Machynlleth is a market town in Powys, Wales. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads.Machynlleth was the seat of Owain Glyndŵr's Welsh Parliament in 1404, and as such claims to be the "ancient capital of Wales". However, it has never held any official...
, Powys
Powys
Powys is a local-government county and preserved county in Wales.-Geography:Powys covers the historic counties of Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire, most of Brecknockshire , and a small part of Denbighshire — an area of 5,179 km², making it the largest county in Wales by land area.It is...
.
The family moved to Wales in 1961, just after the birth of their third child. The first shop opened at 35 Maengwyn Street, which still today trades as an interior design shop, and the Laura Ashley association is commemorated by a small plaque. The family lived above the shop for 6 years before moving to Carno
Carno
Carno is a village in Powys, Mid Wales. It is located on the main A470 road between Llanbrynmair & Caersws.The local railway station, on the Cambrian Line, closed as part of the Beeching closures in the 1965. An ongoing campaign started in August 2009 for its reopening, with the Welsh Assembly...
, Montgomeryshire
Montgomeryshire
Montgomeryshire, also known as Maldwyn is one of thirteen historic counties and a former administrative county of Wales. Montgomeryshire is still used as a vice-county for wildlife recording...
.
The Ashley's first "Welsh" factory was originally located in the social club in Carno; in 1967 the factory moved across to the village's former railway station.
These were crucial times in the development of the company. Bernard had developed his flat-bed printing process to produce 5,000metres of fabric per week, and in 1966 Laura produced her first dress for social rather than work attire. The long length silhouette became the Laura Ashley trademark. It also was to work successfully in the company's favour, as fashion switched from the mini to the maxi skirt at the end of the 1960s — a newspaper suggested that by donning a Laura Ashley number, women could look as beautiful as Katharine Ross
Katharine Ross
Katharine Juliet Ross is an American film and stage actress. Trained at the San Francisco Workshop, she is perhaps best known for her role as Elaine Robinson in the 1967 film The Graduate, opposite Dustin Hoffman, which won her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and her role...
in the film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is a 1969 American Western film directed by George Roy Hill and written by William Goldman...
.
Retail shops
The first shop under the Laura Ashley name opened in Pelham Street, South KensingtonSouth Kensington
South Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. It is a built-up area located 2.4 miles west south-west of Charing Cross....
, in 1968, with additional shops opened in Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...
and Bath in 1970. In one week alone, London's Fulham Road
Fulham Road
Fulham Road is a street in London, England, that runs from the A219 road in right in the centre of Fulham, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, through Chelsea to Brompton Road Knightsbridge and the A4 in Brompton, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.Fulham Road runs parallel...
shop sold 4,000 dresses - which resulted in the new factory in Newtown, Montgomeryshire. It was the opening of the Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
shop in 1974 which was the first to feature the distinctive green frontage and stripped wooden interior; and in the same year the first USA shop opened in San Francisco. A licensing operation led to the opening of department store concessions in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
from 1971 onwards.
By 1975, turnover was £5million per year and the company employed 1,000 people worldwide. Laura turned down the offer of an OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(she was upset Bernard had not been offered one) but a Queen's Award for Export was accepted in 1977. Turnover reached £25 million in 1979, and a range of perfume
Perfume
Perfume is a mixture of fragrant essential oils and/or aroma compounds, fixatives, and solvents used to give the human body, animals, objects, and living spaces "a pleasant scent"...
was launched. The addition of a home in France enabled Laura to go back to her roots of fabric design, and the company launched its home furnishings collections.
Public company
Two months after Laura Ashley's death in 1985, Laura Ashley Holdings plc went public in a flotation that was 34 times oversubscribed. The 1980s saw the knighthood of Sir Bernard Ashley, and the launch of additional child and home furnishings ranges.In the early 1990s, Laura Ashley plc was suffering from a combination of over expansion of its retail outlets and dependence on what had become an overly complex and costly outsourced network of manufacturers. In 1991, American James Maxmin, Ph.D. became the CEO at Laura Ashley, after pressure on the autocratic Sir Bernard. Over the next two and a half years, Dr. Maxmin led a series of changes, fixing problems in manufacturing and logistics that foreshadowed principles of his later book, The Support Economy, co-authored with his wife, Harvard Business School Professor Shoshana Zuboff
Shoshana Zuboff
Shoshana Zuboff is the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School . She was born in 1951 and is an American citizen. One of the first tenured women at the Harvard Business School, she earned her Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University and...
. For example, he entered into a strategic alliance with FedEx
FedEx
FedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee...
, forming a sort of proto-federation, aimed at improving distribution for close to 500 Laura Ashley stores. The alliance was established as a 10-year partnership, but it was relatively open-ended, premised on trust. The objective was to be able to supply 99 percent of Laura Ashley's merchandise to customers anywhere in the world within 48 hours. The alliance replaced a legacy system that would route a T-shirt manufactured in Hong Kong to a warehouse in Newtown, Wales, before sending it to a retail store in Japan.
In 1992, Dr. Maxmin led Laura Ashley to its first profits since 1989, and in 1993 profits were expected to reach £12 million. But in early April 1994, two weeks before his wife's epiphany on national television, Dr. Maxin abruptly resigned from Laura Ashley, citing major differences with Sir Bernard over strategy.
Laura Ashley celebrated its 40th anniversary in 1993, the same year that Sir Bernard retired as chairman and became honorary life president. The Ashley family retain an interest in the business and its development. The launch of a children's range and a furniture range helped deflect the looming crisis but by 1997, after a torrid few years and numerous chief executives, the company was in serious financial difficulties.
MUI Asia takeover
In May 1998, MUI Asia LimitedMUI Group
Malayan United Industries Berhad was founded in 1960. The main businesses of the group includes retailing, hotels, food and confectionery, financial services, property, travel and tourism...
became a major shareholder in Laura Ashley Holdings plc and under the new management, this world famous international brand was back in profit. Rescued from the receivers in 1998, 58 per cent of the shares are believed to be controlled directly or indirectly by the company's chairman Dr Khoo Kay Peng.
But the company failed to capitalise on its trademark look - probably due to employing its 11th chief executive in 14 years. It closed its flagship store on London's Regent Street in late 2005 because of rent increases, and in March 2005 it launched a £28m law suit against L'Oréal
L'Oréal
The L'Oréal Group is the world's largest cosmetics and beauty company. With its registered office in Paris and head office in the Paris suburb of Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France, it has developed activities in the field of cosmetics...
, which manufactured the Laura Ashley perfumes. At Christmas 2004, the chain parted company with couture designer Alistair Blair
Alistair Blair
Alistair Edmunds Blair MBE was an English cricketer of Ceylonese descent. He was born in British Ceylon and was educated at Radley College in England....
, who had previously designed for Dior
Christian Dior
Christian Dior , was a French fashion designer, best known as the founder of one of the world's top fashion houses, also called Christian Dior.-Life:...
and Givenchy
Givenchy
Givenchy is a French brand of clothing, accessories, perfumes and cosmetics with Parfums Givenchy.The house of Givenchy was founded in 1952 by designer Hubert de Givenchy and is a member of Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture et du Pret-a-Porter...
.
Ms Lillian Tan, who has been chief executive since January, plans to reduce fashion from 22 per cent of sales to 14 per cent this year - with stores cutting back the space they give to clothes in favour of home furnishings, now the most profitable part of the business.
The Laura Ashley brand is now represented in the USA largely through licensing agreements. All of its stores there have now closed and the business as a whole is separately owned from that of its parent company in the UK.
The Company was criticised in 2009 for price discrepancies, which meant Irish customers were charged more than their UK counterparts for the same items.
External links
- Laura Ashley company (requires Macromedia Flash)
- Funding Universe article on Laura Ashley plc
- Laura Ashley Fireplaces 2010