Squeezed Fergie keeps £20 teabags
SARAH Ferguson’s lifestyle brand is £262,000 in debt and has cut its range to four products, including a box of 80 teabags on sale for a staggering £20.
Ginger & Moss, the company set up to launch her online store The Duchess Collection, has stopped selling items such as £60 hooped earrings, bed linen and high-end toiletries. But that has not helped the company get back into profit, according to latest accounts.
Products still on offer include shortbread, a brooch and children’s facemasks with the slogan ‘Be Safe For Playtime’ that are priced at £12 each. The Duchess of York set up Ginger & Moss two years ago as a ‘premium’ label that planned to sell luxury textiles, homeware and wallpaper at stores such as Harrods and Selfridges.
Her Duchess Collection was pitched as the ‘accessible premium’ range, featuring tea, chinaware, preserves, jewellery, candles and fragrances. A third branch, Fergie’s Farm, aimed to sell organic convenience foods in supermarkets. When she launched Ginger & Moss, the 62-year-old described herself as ‘globally one of the most written about women’ and a valuable brand ‘recognised across the world and loved across continents’.
She has also written a series of children’s books, which are advertised on her website, a romance called Her Heart For A Compass, and set up a YouTube channel, Storytime With Fergie And Friends.