The Daily Telegraph - Features
How Boden finally got its mojo back
After a £4.4m loss last year, the label has returned to its roots to reconnect with its core market of well-heeled middle-class women.
During his 33-year retail career, Johnnie Boden has excelled at many things, from pear-print skirts to childrenswear to dressing the Princess of Wales. But what the bespectacled Old Etonian really excels at is apologies.
If the Inuits famously have 100 different words for snow, Boden has a similarly variegated language for saying sorry. “I made a catalogue of mistakes and felt like a fool,” he said last year, after the British fashion brand he founded in 1991 made a £4.4million loss. “Sorry, I’m a complete nitwit,” he added in an email to his customers. “I effed up.”
Which, not to put too fine a point on it, he did. While some brands “eff up” by failing to move with the times, Boden could be said to have moved with them too slavishly. By blindly chasing trends, the brand frightened off its core customer, that loyal coterie of well-heeled middle-class women who weren’t interested in androgyny, utility or stealth wealth, and still rather hankered after a jolly floral print. “We forgot who we were,” Boden admitted. “We changed the product too much. We had less colour, we had shorter silhouettes and we had the sorts of products that were on trend, which is not very us.”
What is very “them” is quality. Boden’s reputation is staked more on quality than it is on trends. Rather than copying the catwalk, what it excels at is distilling trends: discarding the most outlandish ones, cherry-picking those that fit their customer profile and – crucially – rounding off the edges so that said customer can easily integrate them into their wardrobe. Boden woman wants to look fashionable, but not in a fawning way.
The good news for her is that Boden is slowly getting its mojo back. Thanks to the long lead times that are standard throughout the clothing business, changes can take time to effect, but current signs are positive, with the company reporting an 18 per cent rise in sales in the first half of 2024. Womenswear sales are up by 35 per cent, fuelled by a 47 per cent rise in dresses. “We’ve truly turned the supertanker now,” said Boden, in a statement that was unusually apology-free.
In terms of what it’s getting right, firstly, it effectively addressed what it was getting wrong. It ditched menswear – a sensible move, given that every man in Surrey who wants a paisley-print shirt has probably already bought one. It also stopped chasing the youth vote, ridding its womenswear of anything too short, edgy or monochrome.
Having shed these hindrances, it then went back to doing what it does best. When it launched womenswear in 1992, Boden was an outlier. Now the “mid-market” is saturated with compelling British brands, from Me+Em to Jigsaw to Cefinn.
If you want to succeed in this market, you must sharpen your offer, focus on what sells and above all, know your customer. When I interviewed Johnnie Boden in 2021, he balked at the “yummy mummy” label that beleaguered the brand, saying it was “absolutely indisputable that most of our customers have children, but it feels too narrow a definition”.
Instead, he offered up a fictitious customer, Kate. “Kate is early 30s with children, probably a teacher, very busy,” he said. “But what really defines our customers is their attitude. They’re optimistic. We’re an optimistic brand. Moody fashion is just not us.”
Which is probably why Boden’s autumn-winter 2024 collection is full of cheer. Yes, there are neutrals, but there are also plentiful cherry reds, sugar pinks and emerald greens. Dresses come in floral or geometric prints, but there are also plainer styles, in denim chambray or corduroy, priced between £110 and £140. Outerwear is plentiful, and runs the gamut from cream fleece gilets (£110) to military-inspired coats (£240). Footwear is particularly strong, and includes longtime Boden stalwarts such as colourful ballet pumps (£98) and suede Chelsea boots (£150), as well as more trend-led leather knee boots (£230) and mules (£120).
It’s also brought back its well-loved “Richmond” trouser, a cropped, narrow shape that fans adore. By staying true to traditional styles for which the brand is so well loved and offsetting them with just the right amount of newness, Boden should continue to do well.
Its marketing has also been polished. When you log on to the website, your screen is flooded with images of a curly-haired model in her 30s, beaming as she fishes in a pond, frolics in a dell and strides purposefully past Cornwall’s famous Ship Inn. It’s all Peak Boden, which is to say that acolytes will love it, and everyone else will roll their eyes. Whichever side of the picket fence you’re on, the images are strong, and tell a story. This is particularly important, given the reintroduction of the Boden catalogue, derided as a waste of paper by some but loved by others for its ease of use. In this digitised world, many would agree there’s something comforting about leafing through a lookbook.
For the consultant and stylist Virginia Chadwyck-Healey, Boden’s biggest strength is its British bulldog spirit. “I’ll never forget Johnnie telling me ‘You can never rest on your laurels – you’re only as good as your last collection.’ When you have that awareness, a business will only ever remain on its toes. Johnnie has a fiendish loyalty to delivering for his customers, who are very vocal. These latest figures prove he’s listening to them, as well as to his own convictions, and giving them what they want again. I for one have my eye on a tartan skirt. And my favourite boots I’ve ever owned? Not a Chloe pair. My Boden pair.”