Latest / The Retail Podcast / Liberty x Bridgerton, Quiz Retail Goes Bust & Beauty Pop-Ups | Five Things Friday

Transcript

Liberty x Bridgerton, Quiz Retail Goes Bust & Beauty Pop-Ups | Five Things Friday · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to another fabulous edition of Five
• 0:02
  Things Friday. It's actually Friday.
• 0:05
  We're filming on a Friday. Welcome to Five Things Friday.
• 0:21
  Simone. Hello.
• 0:22
  Good morning. How you doing?
• 0:23
  Hi. Good morning.
• 0:25
  Very happy it's Friday not. Very Is it raining where you
• 0:29
  are? Because it's just like been
• 0:30
  raining for the whole month that feels it's.
• 0:32
  Been rain. I can't even remember what sun
• 0:34
  looks like. Actually not.
• 0:35
  That far. It's a live.
• 0:37
  I always remember Forrest Gump where he was talking about how
• 0:40
  rain, it rained so much that it felt like the rain was going
• 0:42
  back up because it's just rained so much.
• 0:46
  It's actually not raining today which I'm very happy about.
• 0:50
  It was pouring down yesterday, got caught in it which is great.
• 0:55
  But it's not training right now, it's 'cause I want to go fly
• 0:57
  kite with my son. So every time we go and look to
• 1:00
  fly kite, we can't 'cause it's probably raining anyway.
• 1:04
  Let's jump straight into this. My name's Alex, I help retailers
• 1:08
  and people who sell to the retail industry maintain their
• 1:12
  thought leadership and their relevance.
• 1:14
  Simone, who are you and Woody? Hi, I'm Simone, I'm the founder
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  of Need it for Tonight, also known as NIFT.
• 1:20
  Think delivery for quality fashion is also a B2B rapid
• 1:26
  delivery plug in. Love it.
• 1:28
  We're going to actually start with you with one of your
• 1:30
  stories. We are.
• 1:32
  First of all, before I start, I have to ask you a very important
• 1:34
  question which I'm thinking of the answer to Are you a
• 1:38
  Bridgeton fan? Does Lincoln?
• 1:40
  I swear. Oh no, you're going to judge me.
• 1:47
  I've not watched it. I've got to be honest.
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  I love the colour, I love the the outfits, the people are
• 1:53
  beautiful, the sceneries amazing.
• 1:55
  I've watched a couple of clips here and there but I've just,
• 1:58
  it's not my cup. I'm zombies and science fiction.
• 2:01
  There is no judgement. I watched series 1, was
• 2:03
  obsessed, started series 2. I think the Duke wasn't in it
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  and that's maybe why I wasn't as encouraged to watch it.
• 2:11
  OK, I. Love it because it's a modern
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  twist, right? One twist.
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  So it does have relevance. That question is just that
• 2:18
  Liberty, Liberty London and Bridgeton, let's call it Chapter
• 2:22
  2 as they're doing another collab or Liberty sponsoring
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  Bridgeton for this series. And for me, I'm like, this is
• 2:31
  how you do heritage properly. It's very romantic, very
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  escapist as you can see, and very aligned with this Bridgeton
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  universe. But stepping away from all the
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  nice fluffy pretty stuff, they have built a dedicated, set
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  inspired experience in Liberty Store.
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  So when you go into the shop it feels like you're stepping into
• 3:00
  this Bridgeton universe. It looks very pretty.
• 3:03
  I haven't actually been down myself, but I'm going to.
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  But I love it. I mean, I know that we've
• 3:08
  chatted about this before where we've kind of described,
• 3:10
  described physical retailers becoming theatre and heritage
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  brands like Liberty using entertainment to stay culturally
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  relevant because Liberty, as we know, already has that
• 3:24
  credibility. But Bridgeton will give them
• 3:27
  access to this younger Netflix native customer who might not
• 3:32
  really go and shop at Liberty or going to store.
• 3:35
  So I really like it. I'm going to go down and see it
• 3:39
  because I've had very good things and yeah, just fun and
• 3:43
  beautiful. Yeah, no, I, I love it.
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  And there's like a focus on fabrics as well.
• 3:48
  So I love it in terms of the craftsmanship behind fashion,
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  which again takes the conversation away from fast
• 3:54
  fashion to solve things that are timeless.
• 3:59
  And you got to love that because that sort of wins on so many
• 4:02
  fronts. OK, fantastic.
• 4:04
  I'm going to focus predominantly on pop ups.
• 4:07
  And if you're in not in London, I apologise.
• 4:10
  But ultimately we speak about beauty in Korean pop K beauty
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  coming into actually the UK and across the world.
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  They've just done such a a great job.
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  And I was on my US show, we were talking about and on the APEC
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  show about how QK beauty brands are going into Sephora and
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  they're just generally taking over the world.
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  So Death the M who own Ordinary have got an immersive beauty
• 4:36
  experience, but it's more about the science.
• 4:38
  So you know what's happening with your skin.
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  They've got a few tests that sort of identify the best
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  routines for your skin type. And the most important thing,
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  there's tickets for this one. So if you're in London, in short
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  that you can go and have a beauty immersive experience over
• 4:55
  Valentine's week. I think it's also nice that it's
• 4:58
  over Valentine. So you don't need to go in a
• 5:00
  couple. You can go by yourself, which I
• 5:03
  think is important. All you know, all the people,
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  they're not in couples. An option to do things about
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  pampering yourself, sticking with that theme, a brand that
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  we've spoken about many times, ASOS, this is sold out.
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  But I think again, I didn't want to, I think ASOS have these sort
• 5:22
  of quiet pop ups that they do a little launch, one little post
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  on TikTok and they're sold out, you know, so they're very small,
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  but they work with these big brands or these sort of in
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  demand brands, which and relevant, right?
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  So you've got scarcity, you've got relevance and you've got
• 5:41
  physical experience. Again, fantastic.
• 5:44
  The House of face and body. If you're going and you listen
• 5:47
  to the show, let us know, send us some photos, see it on TikTok
• 5:50
  when it happens. So again, that's in
• 5:53
  bloomberries. So Bloomsbury, central London.
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  And actually we're not going to talk about that.
• 5:59
  We're going to go back to you to talk about these.
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  Swans a bit of a doom and gloom, but of a contrast to the
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  Liberty. But it was just that Quiz has
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  entered administration. It's 109 jobs gone I don't know
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  if the audience knows Quiz. I don't know if I know it
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  because I'm Northern and it was like growing up I.
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  Have to say maybe, but maybe because we've done in London.
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  One thing maybe not anybody that does know quiz it have really
• 6:29
  built its reputation on affordable occasion where party
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  dresses prom race day lots of sparkly sequins.
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  But sadly, I have to be honest, this wasn't surprising news to
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  me. And I think the issue is, is
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  that mid market event driven fashion, it's really been kind
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  of squeezed from both sides. I think we've got these ultra
• 6:54
  fast fashion players like Sheehan that obviously undercut
• 6:58
  on price and and speed. And then we've got obviously
• 7:03
  beautiful premium brands that went on quality and and brand
• 7:06
  tea. And then of course we've got
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  resale and rental as well that have come in for occasion where
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  which has been booming. So I think where does that leave
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  those kind of mid market players and those traditional High
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  Street occasion where which quiz was?
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  And when you add in rising rents and inflation for customers,
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  it's just yeah, it just, it wasn't surprising to me.
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  I do think that a lot of the time the middle is disappearing.
• 7:38
  Yeah. And yeah.
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  And it's tough because they're not in London, they're pretty
• 7:43
  much in 50 other cities up and down the country, predominately
• 7:48
  in, in the, in the Midlands and in the north.
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  So, you know, in my mind, the first thing comes out, I'm like,
• 7:55
  OK, that's 50 locations. Who's going to move into them,
• 7:57
  right? What's going to fill that space?
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  And I think that's a that's a massive challenge for the high.
• 8:03
  Street, it's true. And when I think when you look
• 8:06
  at the brands that are surviving right now, I think they're
• 8:08
  either culturally magnetic or premium or insanely cheap, which
• 8:15
  I hate. Yeah, fast fashion companies.
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  So it's companies like Quiz, They they really need to
• 8:22
  seriously rethink their model in in order to survive.
• 8:26
  Yeah. So bit of doom and gloom.
• 8:28
  Yeah, I think it's not doom and it's just a reflection of the
• 8:31
  sign of our times, right? And not everyone is in London.
• 8:34
  And that's the thing that we're Auk show and the harsh reality
• 8:38
  of the UK is that it's fragmented and the UK High
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  Street is fragmented. Although like there was some
• 8:46
  positive news around January and actually retail is, is doing OK,
• 8:52
  people are going out, they're still shopping.
• 8:54
  So I just think it is fractured. And there's these like 2 worlds
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  of it which we struggle with because it's like, what do we
• 9:02
  bring to the show? Do we bring, you know, the bit
• 9:05
  that's fractured and struggling? Yeah.
• 9:07
  Or try and show the sort of positive, upbeat one.
• 9:10
  Yeah. Moving on.
• 9:12
  A happy one if you like quirky handbags.
• 9:19
  Anya, how do you say a surname in March?
• 9:24
  Anya in March? I'm all full of names.
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  Anya in March has got a pop up and I think it's a pop up
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  inspired by booths by boots because when you look at the
• 9:32
  like the bags, those bags are sold out, by the way, because I
• 9:35
  was reading the comments from some people.
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  And then you'll see some of the other stuff that she's made in
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  the, in the like a Nurofen Advil, like there, there's,
• 9:44
  there, not there. And, and so I think it's a
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  fantastic activation. There you go.
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  So these are some of these are all little clutch, like little,
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  I don't know, clutches, little bags or purses.
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  So I think they're very cute. They've done a fantastic
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  activation for this new line. And obviously boots is High
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  Street darling. It's got the pedigree heritage
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  love by all and look at the queue of people wanting to to go
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  to it. But it is a lot of the good
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  stuff has been it's sold out, but I think it's definitely
• 10:13
  worth a visit to to get a perspective of have you would
• 10:18
  you would you gonna would you go Simone?
• 10:20
  Oh. Definitely.
• 10:21
  Do you know Anya? Hi Marsha's beautiful brands
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  love them, love the eyes, but they they've really nailed these
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  kind of pop ups in the past. They hasn't.
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  I swear it was an ice cream on this super random ice cream on
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  with the most crazy flavours. Again, looked like that just
• 10:41
  this that you've gone back in time.
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  But yeah, I love the brand, really do and just think they
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  they really nail collabs and and pop ups.
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  It's very, very fantastic. So listen, that's our fast-paced
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  5 things Friday filmed on Friday, turned around on Friday.
• 10:59
  Simone, thank you so much and I look forward to speaking to you
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  next week. Thank you, Alex.
• 11:05
  See you next week. Bye.