Holland Cooper’s model on excessive as Dunkerton faces takeover at Superdry

The BBC One actuality present The Traitors retains thousands and thousands of viewers spellbound. But it wasn’t simply the Machiavellian betrayals that stored us hooked.

There was additionally the rural-luxe trend, worn by host Claudia Winkleman, which has sparked one of many 12 months’s key fashion motion, the Traitors Look.

Exemplifying the pattern is the £795 Blackwatch coat from British model Holland Cooper, glamorous but assertive, and worn by Winkleman, 52, with wellies.

For fashion-watchers within the City, the Holland Cooper coat had an additional significance. The trajectory of the Holland Cooper model, based in 2008 by Jade Holland Cooper, contrasts with the woes of Superdry, the clothes line the place the chief govt and main shareholder is none apart from her husband, Julian Dunkerton.

This weekend Superdry is on the centre of bid speak following the disclosure of the acquisition of a 5.3 per cent stake by Norwegian hedge fund First Seagull.

Dressed to impress: Jade Holland Cooper with husband Julian Dunkerton

The enterprise, as soon as value about £1.7 billion, is valued at £41 million, as the results of what the corporate calls ‘a interval of unprecedented challenges’ like Brexit, Covid and logistics points arising from warfare in Ukraine.

The shares stand at 46.1p, regardless of surging 118.2 per cent on Friday. At their peak in January 2018, they have been 2108p. Last month the corporate revealed interim losses had ballooned to £25.3 million. Losses for the 12 months to April 2022 have been £148 million.

Superdry confirmed final week that it was working with advisers on additional cost-saving choices.

This adopted reviews of a potential CVA (firm voluntary association), a step that might contain the closure of a few of its 215 shops and job cuts, however may make borrowings – internet debt totals £28.9 million – extra manageable.

Fashion assertion: Claudia Winkleman in a Blackwatch coat

As for Holland Cooper, 37, her designs attraction to girls in search of a extra formal, dressed-up aesthetic, championed by the Princess of Wales and Holland Cooper herself. She has 157,000 Instagram followers, whereas HollandCooperClothes has 293,000. Superdry has 769,000 followers, however is now not considered the achingly stylish model it as soon as was. 

The jackets that was sported by latter-day dandies like David Beckham and Idris Elba have, one way or the other, turn into linked with the off-duty uniform of policemen. Such associations should irk Dunkerton, 58, who began out promoting clothes from a stall in Cheltenham in 2003. 

In 2016 he let others take over the operating of the Superdry enterprise, however he was reinstalled within the prime position in 2019, following a boardroom battle. As he strives to revive Superdry, with a give attention to such points as inventory management he can maybe take consolation within the information that JD Sports can also be struggling in a tricky atmosphere.

He additionally is aware of that trend is fickle. And maybe he can save on high-paid advisers if he can glean some fashion counsel at house.