Retailers are increasingly looking for more ways to reach new customers as recent deals by Joe Browns, Net-a-Porter and Kookai all demonstrate. The three have signed agreements to widen their nets with strategic collaborations with entertainment brands, social networking sites, and other retailers.
Casualwear cataloguer Joe Browns and dance music and lifestyle brand Ministry of Sound have teamed up to design, produce and distribute a clothing range. The line will be available from next month through Joe Browns’ catalogue and website as well as through Ministry of Sound’s websites. A spokesperson described the range of women’s and men’s apparel as featuring “preclubbing” outfits–clothes to wear before a big night out–such as T-shirts, sweatshirts and denim.
Also announcing a partnership is luxury apparel etailer Net-a-porter.com, which is creating a microsite exclusively for invitation-only networking site ASmallWorld. The partnership follows a deal that Net-a-porter struck with Virgin Atlantic last year to offer the airline’s premium customers the opportunity to shop from Net-a-porter branded laptops in Virgin’s airport hospitality lounges.
Elsewhere in the fashion arena, online store ASOS.com and apparel brand Kookai have joined forces to feature Kookai products on the ASOS website. Robert Bready, ASOS.com’s product and trading director, said that Kookai’s collection was “spot-on” for ASOS fashion-conscious customers. Kookai was rescued from administration in January 2006 by Amery Capital, the investment vehicle backed by entrepreneurs Maurice Helfgott and the Bennett brothers. Guy Critchlow, managing director of Kookai, said in a statement, “The Kookai brand is going from strength to strength and this collaboration continues to prove our design credentials”. A transactional Kookai website is also in the pipeline. Though no firm dates have been announced, the company hopes to launch a site in time for Christmas.
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