1,000 high street jobs lost as Austin Reed closes 120 shops

IT has dressed everyone from Sir Winston Churchill to Elizabeth Taylor.

But 116 years after it sold its first suit, Austin Reed is set to disappear from the High Street.

Administrators announced yesterday that all 120 of the firm’s shops will close by the end of June, at a cost of around 1,000 jobs.

The firm went into administration last month after years of falling sales, mounting debts and cash flow problems.

Big names were linked to a rescue deal – including Sports Direct owner Mike Ashley and Dragon’s Den star Touker Suleyman, owner of menswear brand Hawes & Curtis – but yesterday administrator AlixPartners said no viable offers were received.

Peter Savile, joint administrator, said that ‘a viable solution which kept the business whole was not forthcoming’.

The brand will not disappear completely. Five concessions operating in Boundary Mills outlets, along with the Austin Reed brand, have been acquired by Edinburgh Woollen Mill. Austin Reed’s CC womenwear brand will also survive, although its Viyella brand will disappear.

The announcement is a blow both to Austin Reed employees and to the beleaguered

‘A brand with a great heritage’

high street, with BHS also entering administration last month.

last night fashion entrepreneur Harold Tillman said he had made a ‘very substantial cash offer’ to rescue Austin Reed.

The former owner of retailer Jaeger said: ‘Austin Reed is an incredible brand with a great heritage. Its suits have been worn by many gentlemen over the past century and it should be given the respect it deserves.’

The firm was founded in 1900 by Austin leonard Reed, a 27-year-old tailor who saw a gap in the market – selling suits off the rack that could pass for made to measure.

The first shop opened on Fenchurch Street in the City of london, with the flagship Regent Street store opening more than a decade later.

The firm made one of Winston Churchill’s ‘siren suits’ during the Second World War. These were one-piece garments which could easily be put on over other clothes and taken off and were originally designed to be worn in air raid shelters.

Austin Reed also opened a concession on the transatlantic liner Queen Elizabeth in 1946 and holds two Royal Warrants.

The retailer has struggled in recent years to compete with rivals such as Moss Brothers and Marks & Spencer, which have been quicker to move sales online. It closed 31 unprofitable stores last year, blaming poor sales on a warm autumn and cold spring.