The rise and fall of one of Wales’ greatest fashion success stories
Luxury high-street fashion store Laura Ashley has filed for administration, putting thousands of jobs at risk. Nathan Bevan and Robert Llewellyn-Jones report on the rise and fall of a homegrown iconic fashion and lifestyle brand
THE company set up by a worldfamous Welsh fashion designer has today filed for administration. For decades Laura Ashley had remained at the forefront of the clothing and home furnishings market, transforming itself into an instantly recognisable brand all around the globe from its humble beginnings in rural mid Wales.
Recent years, however, have not been kind to the iconic retailer, with recent £15m talks to rescue it having been stymied by the worsening coronavirus outbreak.
This is the story of the high-street staple’s rise to global greatness, its becoming synonymous with a very British sense of style and how that international empire eventually began to unravel.
■ From humble beginnings
Laura A Ashley (nee Mountney) was born on September 7, 1925 at her grandmother’s home in Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil.
She was evacuated back to Wales aged 13, but with so many World War II evacuees there were no school places left and she attended Aberdare Secretarial School.
She married Bernard Ashley in 1948 and settled into a conventional life as a mother and housewife.
■ The start of the business
It was in 1953 at the couple’s small basement flat in London’s Pimlico, that Laura and Bernard started printing small runs of headscarves, napkins, table mats and tea towels on their singular silk screen. This was a £10 investment in wood for a screen, dyes and some linen, along with many trips to libraries to learn everything about fabric printing.
The couple’s first factory was an old coaching house in Kent where they produced fabrics as the Ashley
Mountney Company before moving to The Old Railway House, Carno, in rural mid Wales, which was to become the centre of a multinational business.
■ The Swinging Sixties
In 1966 Laura Ashley produced her first dress for social rather than work attire and the first shop under the Laura Ashley name opened in Pelham Street, South Kensington, in 1968, with additional shops opening 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 being built at Newtown, Montgomeryshire.
In 1974 the Paris shop opened, followed in the same year by the first US shop, in San Francisco.
A licensing operation led to the opening of department store concessions in Australia, Canada and Japan from 1971 onwards.
By the end of the 1970s, the company had expanded significantly from its fledgling beginnings, and there were over 70 Laura Ashley shops worldwide.
■ A corporate giant
By the 1980s the Ashleys had expanded into home furnishing, with retail outlets throughout the world.
At this time, Laura Ashley realised a long-held ambition and opened a shop in Cardiff.
In the mid-1970s dresses from Wales were being sold across Europe – shops were opened in Paris, Geneva and Brussels, which resulted in turnover reaching £25m by 1979.
The Laura Ashley Book of Home Decorating was published in 1983 as a result of the interest in the Laura Ashley “style” that was developing.
In 1984 a factory opened in Newtown, Powys, creating 500 jobs, and in early 1985 another factory opened in
Gresford, near Wrexham, which was followed in 1985 with the opening of the first shop in Japan, in Tokyo.
In 1985 Laura Ashley, then aged 60, died after falling down the stairs at her daughter Jane’s home.
At the time of her death, the company employed 4,000 staff and was on the brink of further expansion. It was floated on the stock market in 1986 with a valuation of £200m.
■ 40th birthday
The company celebrated its 40th anniversary in 1993, as Sir Bernard retired as chairman and became honorary president, a post he held until 1998.
In 1994, a plaque at 83 Cambridge Street, Pimlico, was unveiled by Sir Bernard and Jane Ashley, to recognise the beginnings of the Laura Ashley empire.
MUI Asia became a major shareholder in Laura Ashley in May 1998 and 1999 saw the launch of the Laura Ashley Design Service, based in stores around the country.
With the dawn of the 1990s, the company’s fortunes changed.
Attempts to turn around the losses which began emerging in 1991 failed and the subsequent decline was extensively reported in the world’s financial press.
In 2005 the company moved its production operations on to one site in Newtown, Powys, where it currently produces paint, wallpaper and made to measure curtains.
■ Online
The Laura Ashley website went live in October 2001 and in 2003 the company received the European Mail Order Days Award.
In early 2011 Laura Ashley proudly launched its new girlswear line – Laura Ashley Girls.
In 2015 Laura Ashley closed its Cardiff city-centre store, citing its “ongoing store realignment programme”.
■ Today
Blaming its troubles on a “significant” drop-off in trade and with no end of the coronavirus outbreak in sight, Laura Ashley became the first retail casualty of the worsening health crisis, placing 2,700 jobs at risk.
It had been seeking a £15m loan to stay afloat, but main shareholder MUI Asia Limited was not be able to step in with the money needed in time.
In a statement to its investors, the company said: “The Covid-19 outbreak has had an immediate and significant impact on trading, and ongoing developments indicate that this will be a sustained national situation.”