Superdry’s Founder On Brand Success

Selling in 33 countries, Julian Dunkerton’s fashion brand has all the makings of being as popular and global as H&M or Zara. Supergroup, the company that owns Superdry, IPOed earlier this year and the value of the company has doubled on the London Stockmarket since then.

The UK’s Sunday Times recently wrote a profile on Dunkerton’s vision to create a brand where he says he refuses to follow fashion trends:

Superdry makes better designed, more interesting streetwear than that available at fast fashion stores, such as Primark, Top Shop or H&M, but at a price that is lower than rival brands such as Abercrombie & Fitch and Diesel.

“We take vintage American clothing, such as lumberjack shirts and leather jackets. We add modern Japanese imagery, which we think is the most original and exciting in the world. Then we give each piece a contemporary British-style slim cut and sell it for a better price than anyone else. We’re unique.”

…Dunkerton says he does not follow trends — “we’re not trend-led, we’re original” — and does not do catwalk shows — “they have no relevance to us”. He avoids London, even though he was born there — “working in the provinces is key because we’re not looking at all the same things all the others are looking at”. He has dozens of different Superdry logos, instead of a single logo as most brands do — “having a single logo can f*** you up, as FCUK found out”.

…He prices each item as low as he can, rather than as high as he thinks he can get away with — “the big brands take the piss on price”. He never has sales — “consumers feel ripped off if they see that something they bought yesterday at full price is now half-price”. He doesn’t pay rent to landlords to open stores in their malls, they pay him to open “because we generate so much traffic”. He refuses to move into profitable areas, such as children’s clothes — “we don’t want 11-year-olds wearing Superdry”. He doesn’t even use the word fashion — “it’s clothing product”.

The rest of the article looks at how he named the company and his retail strategy.

Superdry

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