Next


Next plc is a British retailer marketing clothing, footwear, accessories and home products with its headquarters in Enderby, Leicestershire, England. The company has over 550 stores throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and 50 franchise branches in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

History
The company was founded by Joseph Hepworth in Leeds in 1864 as a tailor under the name of Joseph Hepworth & Son.
In 1982 Hepworth & Son acquired Kendall & Sons Ltd, a Leicester based rainwear and ladies fashion company from Combined English Stores. The intention was to redevelop the Kendall's stores as a womenswear chain of shops. Terence Conran, the designer, was Chairman of Hepworth's at this time and he recruited George Davies, who went on to become Chief Executive of NEXT.
The first NEXT shops opened on 12 February 1982, with the Kendall's conversion complete by the end of 1983.
Made chief executive in 1984, Davies then converted the 50 Hepworths stores to the NEXT format, extending the total concept look at the same time to cover menswear. This allowed the development mini department across the entire footprint, selling women's and men's and clothes. This was added to by the introduction of NEXT interiors to stores which were deemed in the "right demographical areas." In 1986, Davies moved the groups headquarters from Leeds to Leicester, to be closer to the main garment manufacturers. The groups name changed to NEXT plc.
In 1987, the group acquired Combined English Stores and the Grattan catalogue company. Extending first to introduce NEXT childrenswear, Davies then introduced the NEXT Directory.
By 1988, "after seven years of growth, Next had over- expanded suicidally" .. "some stores were not bringing in enough to pay the rent." Davies was sacked and the share price fell to 7p. Chairman Sir David Jones, accused him of being egotistical and taking Next to the verge of bankruptcy.
In Autumn 2009, Next launched an online catalogue for the United States offering clothing, shoes and accessories for women, men and children.

Operations
Next has three main channels: Next Retail, a chain of 500+ retail branches in the United Kingdom and Ireland; Next Directory, a home shopping catalogue and Website with more than 2 million active customers, and Next International, with 180+ international stores.
Its other businesses include Next Sourcing, for own brand products; Lipsy, which designs and sells its own branded younger women's fashion products through wholesale, retail and Website channels.
In 2011 Next trialled a new 'concept' store at Shoreham-on-sea. The 56,000 square-foot Next, Home & Garden store also housed a Starbucks concession. Following the success of the concept, a similar 40,000 square-foot store will be opening in March 2012 in Martlesham retail park, Ipswich, in the now defunct Focus DIY store. The store will also contain a Starbucks.
In July 2010, a BBC investigation found Next was breaking the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000 by billing customers for its delivery costs even if goods were returned within the seven working days. A spokesman for Next admitted that they had been doing this for three years but promised to comply by August 2010. Trading Standards said that the DSRs had been in force for ten years, and there was no excuse for not adhering to them. "Although the majority of businesses ..are law-abiding, there is a small minority that are not and those are the companies we need to take action against."
Prices charged in Ireland have attracted criticism. Next was one of four retailers accused of failing to pass on exchange rate savings to shoppers in the Republic.
All non UK and Ireland stores with the exception of Copenhagen, Denmark are franchises. One of the largest franchises is in Japan, operated by Xebio.

Logos and marketing
Until circa 1991 Next used a lower case Courier-style typeface in black against a white background for its logo. This was replaced by the capitalised NEXT logo in a Roman-serif style type face. There were some variations of this such as the logo with each letter of NEXT in an individual square and in some stores in 2005/6 had the Next logo in a varying blue & black background with "X's" printed on them, as opposed to the black background. In addition, some variations in typeface occurred during the logo's use – including similar fonts that had serifs positioned above the "T" crossbar, similar to Garamond and others that had more in common with Times New Roman. In 2007 a new next logo was introduced, although the previous logo continued to be used until stock was exhausted.
Next clothing often carries reference to the origins of the company in 1982 with use of "82" or "1982" as a design feature on clothes in all ranges.
Prior to 2007 Next only advertised immediately prior to a sale, usually through brief television spots and newspaper advertising. In 2007 following a "disappointing" 7.2% fall in like for like sales, it announced it was investing "£17 million over the next three years to revive its existing stores and product offering" + an additional £10m for marketing. Yasmin Le Bon who modelled in the first Next Directory in Spring 1988 featured in an on-line fashion show.
In September 2007, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Next launched its first television campaign in 12 years named 'Ali's Party' with the song 'Suddenly I See' starring Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio. All extra casts were Next employees, otherwise nicknamed 'nextras'. A second advert featuring Ambrosio, was screened in November 2007 and the songs were regularly played instore during the campaign.
An advert directed by Ben Watts and filmed on the banks of the river Seine was shown in September 2010 to reflect the season’s Parisian chic styles. It was soundtracked by The Specials’ "A Message to You, Rudy" and starred Brazilian model Emanuela de Paula and Spanish actor Jon Kortajarena.

Official website

Wallis



Wallis is a British women's clothing retailer. The brand operates from 134 stores and 126 concessions across the UK and Republic of Ireland. Wallis is a subsidiary of the Arcadia Group and one of the many companies under ownership of Philip Green, a British retailing icon.

History
The first store was opened by the founder, Raphael Nat Wallis, in Islington in 1923.[1] After steady growth the UK, the brand opened its first store in Germany and later opened outlets in Saudi Arabia and South Africa under respective franchise and licensing agreements. In 1980 Wallis became a part of the Sears Group and in 1999, following the acquisition of Sears by Sir Philip Green, the brand was transferred to the Arcadia Group.

Celebrity Collections
In September 2009, supermodel Yasmin Le Bon is partnering with Wallis to design her first women's clothing and jewellery collection called YLB.

Operations
Wallis specialises in creating up to the minute fashion and includes dedicated ranges such as its Petite range and a premium range known as Limited Edition which was introduced in 2006. Wallis also works closely with Cancer Research UK and launched a charity charm bracelet in 2005 and charm necklace in 2007 designed by international designers and celebrities such as Scarlett Johansson and Kate Moss to raise funds for the charity.

Wallis Website

Turn Your Money into Profit


Everyone knows money brings money. So why you let your money to take rest in the bank? Why not you use them to bring more money? While money is just lifeless paper! What is the reason about your fear? If you have no idea how to turn your money into profit without big loss (?!?), I am gonna tell you such outstanding business technique that how to build your profitable business. Remember, no risk no gain, but in this technique there is very little risk. No no, it is not fake business, everything will operate by you. That will be your own business, you are your own boss (neither it is any MLM business :-). So are you ready to know how stuff works!?

Let me explain. Remember again it is your own investment for building up your own business. Have you ever informed about world famous clothing brands? You can see from here. You know, clothing business is one of the hottest business now-a-days. Click here to know about their ranking & trading. Clothing brands are very famous among all other brands. If you ask anyone of young generation about H&M, Armani, Levies, Nike, Adidas etc. they will react hysterically because those brands clothing is their favorite. So think if you have a business, which bring you money, satisfaction & popularity? Yes, you got my point. I'm talking about clothing business & you are going to launch your own fashion brand name with us. Just hire a fashion designer & a apparel merchandiser. They will work for you for establishing your clothing industry. Fashion designer creates clothing design; merchandiser sets up its measurement & other accessories details as well. You then send your order details to us. We will make your clothing with your brand name & send to you. You then sell those clothing in any super market, shopping mall, super store, clothing show room or you can build your own clothing store. You can also sell them through online (e.g.: eBay, Aliexpress, Dhgate, Amazon etc.) too. You can launch your own online clothing shopping store. I think you are now fully clear about your vision. So why you are waiting, turn your money into profit now.

About us

Company Name : Stareon Limited
Address : Siddirganj, Narayanganj, Bangladesh.
Skype : stareongroup
Email : stareon.ltd@live.com | stareongroup@gmail.com
Website : www.StareonGroup.com

*** Please contact for company profile.

Burton



Burton is a large United Kingdom high street clothing retailer. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, but is now part of the Arcadia Group.

History
The Company was founded by Montague Burton in Chesterfield in 1903 under the name of The Cross-Tailoring Company. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1929 by which time it had 400 stores, factories and mills. In 1934, Burton's large factory in Leeds was visited by Princess Royal.
After World War II Montague Burton offered men the chance to buy a full suit, which included jacket, trousers, waistcoat, shirt and underwear and became known as 'The Full Monty'. In 1946 the Company acquired the Peter Robinson women's fashion chain. By 1952, the year of Montague Burton's death, the Company was the largest multiple tailor in the world.
Burton was the official sponsor for the World Cup in 1966 and again in 2002. In 1998 the Company changed its name to Arcadia Group.
The Burton Company archives are held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service in Leeds.

Style
Burton combines a long heritage of tailoring with a modern take on casual wear. Burton is one of the most successful menswear brands on the high street and has over 400 stores in the UK and Republic of Ireland. It has also expanded to out of town sites since the 1980s, a notable example being at the Merry Hill Shopping Centre in the West Midlands, where it has had a store since November 1989.

Charity
In the lead up to the 2006 Fifa World Cup Burton worked closely with the Bobby Moore Fund, an arm of Cancer Research UK funding research into bowel cancer, the cancer from which England's World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore died in 1993.
Sir Montague Burton was a champion of workers’ rights and this same sense of equality & giving back is something that is strongly supported by Burton Menswear.
In November 2009, Burton endeavoured to bring back ‘The Burton’ through their support of Movember in order to raise money for The Prostate Cancer Charity. Burton will be resurrecting ‘The Burton’ - a moustache style created by Montague Burton himself which has evolved through history. It is, still, today a revered moustache style that has been perfected within the Burton family. Styled upon two influential moustache types; the English and the Handlebar, it is full bodied and curves down across the mouth. The tips should be slightly waxed and it should never be oversized or exaggerated. This moustache is of a high quality and demonstrates a good example of a classic style. The moustache shouldnt be too small, as it might not be noticed but the oversized is to be feared. Without care and maintenance the moustache can degrade, look untidy or "dirty". This can be avoided by purchasing a facial hair kit. The burtn is a classic example of a well designed moustache. However if the time cannot
Burton will be actively encouraging staff & customers to "Go for a Burton" and raise money for The Prostate Cancer Charity. Staff will enjoy the friendly competition in support of the Movember campaign in an attempt to grow, style and groom the perfect Burton Mo.
To support men taking part in the Movember challenge, Burton have also developed a facebook fan page to use to gain support amongst a network of friends and raise awareness of the charity.

Marketing
Burton regularly include celebrities in their advertising, featuring various 'Burton Boys' over periods of the retailing calendar, targeting their market audience of 18-30 year old males. Music personalities such as Lemar and Trevor Nelson, and TV Presenter Steve Jones have all appeared in such campaigns. Notable sporting figures such as Joe Cole, Kevin Pietersen and Jenson Button have been used to attract young males, interested in this area.

Staff
A store's typical team will consist of a range of Sales Advisors, from the ages of 16 - 50+, giving a broad range of selling and service techniques. Younger Sales Advisors provide an important connection to the modern fashion market, offering support to experienced Sales Advisors, able to offer old fashioned traditional tailoring advice.

Burton website

Jigsaw



Jigsaw is a women's clothing retailer with outlets in Britain, the United States and an independent licencee in Australia. Jigsaw is due to launch a new Menswear range for SS12. The company is based on Mortlake Road in Kew, south west London. It turned over £88m in 2005. It has 47 stores across the UK. Jigsaw's sister company Kew 159 is also based in the same location, though has separate design and management.

History
It was started in 1972 by John Robinson and Malcolm Webster, and is now owned by Robinson Webster (Holdings) Ltd. John (born 1948), and who grew up in Herefordshire, went on a holiday to Turkey and brought back a sheepskin coat. People wanted coats like his, so he and Malcolm went back to Istanbul and filled an old Post Office van with sixty coats and sold them back in the UK. John and his wife live on a farm in Wiltshire. Now, Jigsaw sell Organics Beauty Products (Lip Balm, Bath & Body Care...) that are Soil Association Certified.

Shops
The shops all have an individual style, maintaining a slightly eclectic general feel. This has been achieved by using different designers for the shops over the lifespan of the company, including; Nigel Coates, John Pawson and AMD.

Celebrity connections
Kate Middleton, then the girlfriend of Prince William, worked four days a week (Mon-Thu) as an assistant accessories buyer for the company since December 2006. Her mother helped design the Jigsaw Junior website.
Prince William and Kate Middleton holidayed together at John Robinson's Villa Hibiscus on the island of Mustique.
When she once appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, AnnaSophia Robb was shown to be wearing a Jigsaw brand piece of clothing. AnnaSophia Robb is a Jigsaw fan, she said "I really love Jigsaw London".
In 2008, Reese Witherspoon was spotted wearing a dress and a belt from Jigsaw, and Michelle Monaghan wore a Jigsaw purple polka dot silk top during a press appearance in Stockholm while promoting her movie Made of Honor.
At the 8th Annual Teen Vogue Young Hollywood Party (01 October 2010), Jennifer Stone wore a Jigsaw dress.

Official Site

Oasis


Oasis is a contemporary British Clothing Brand.

Official Website

Levi Strauss & Co.



Levi Strauss & Co. also known as LS&CO or simply Levi's, is a privately held American clothing company known worldwide for its Levi's brand of denim jeans. It was founded in 1853 when Levi Strauss came from Buttenheim, Bavaria, to San Francisco, California to open a west coast branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. In 1873 Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis received a U.S. patent to make the first riveted men's work pants out of denim: the first blue jeans. The company briefly experimented (in the 1970s) with a public stock listing, but remains owned and controlled by descendants and relatives of Levi Strauss's four nephews. The company has its corporate headquarters at Levi's Plaza in San Francisco.

Organization
Levi Strauss & Co. is a worldwide corporation organized into three geographic divisions: Levi Strauss Americas (LSA), based in the San Francisco headquarters; Levi Strauss Europe, Middle East and Africa (LSEMA), based in Brussels; and Asia Pacific Division (APD), based in Singapore. The company employs a staff of approximately 10,500 people worldwide. The core Levi's was founded in 1873 in San Francisco, specializing in riveted denim jeans and different lines of casual and street fashion.
From the early 1960s through the mid 1970s, Levi Strauss experienced significant growth in its business as the more casual look of the 1960s and 1970s ushered in the "blue jeans craze" and served as a catalyst for the brand. Levi's, under the leadership of Walter Haas Jr., Peter Haas, Ed Combs, and Mel Bacharach, expanded the firm's clothing line by adding new fashions and models, including stone-washed jeans through the acquisition of Great Western Garment Co. (GWG), a Canadian clothing manufacturer, and introducing Permanent Press trousers under the Sta-prest name.
The company experienced rapid expansion of its manufacturing capacity from 16 plants to more than 63 plants in the United States from 1964 to 1974 and 25 overseas. The use of "pay for performance" manufacturing at the sewing machine operator level up.
2004 saw a sharp decline of GWG in the face of global outsourcing, so the company was closed and the Edmonton manufacturing plant shut down. The Dockers brand, launched in 1986 which is sold largely through department store chains, helped the company grow through the mid-1990s, as denim sales began to fade. Dockers were introduced into Europe in 1993. Levi Strauss attempted to sell the Dockers division in 2004 to relieve part of the company's $2 billion outstanding debt.
Launched in 2003, Levi Strauss Signature features jeanswear and casualwear. In November 2007, Levi's released a mobile phone in co-operation with ModeLabs. Many of the phone's cosmetic attributes are customisable at the point of purchase.

History
Jacob Davis, a Jewish emigrant from Latvia, was a tailor who frequently purchased bolts of cloth made from hemp from Levi Strauss & Co.'s wholesale house. After one of Davis' customers kept purchasing cloth to reinforce torn pants, he had an idea to use copper rivets to reinforce the points of strain, such as on the pocket corners and at the base of the button fly. Davis did not have the required money to purchase a patent, so he wrote to Strauss suggesting that they go into business together. After Levi accepted Jacob's offer, on May 20, 1873, the two men received U.S. Patent 139,121 from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patented rivet was later incorporated into the company's jean design and advertisements. Contrary to an advertising campaign suggesting that Levi Strauss sold his first jeans to gold miners during the California Gold Rush (which peaked in 1849), the manufacturing of denim overalls only began in the 1870s. The company then created their first pair of Levis 501 Jeans in the 1890s, a style that went on to become the world's best selling item of clothing.
Levi Strauss started the business at the 90 Sacramento Street address in San Francisco. He next moved the location to 62 Sacramento Street then 63 & 65 Sacramento Street.
Modern jeans began to appear in the 1920s, but sales were largely confined to the working people of the western United States, such as cowboys, lumberjacks, and railroad workers. Levi’s jeans apparently were first introduced to the East during the dude ranch craze of the 1930s, when vacationing Easterners returned home with tales (and usually examples) of the hard-wearing pants with rivets. Another boost came in World War II, when blue jeans were declared an essential commodity and were sold only to people engaged in defense work. From a company with fifteen salespeople, two plants, and almost no business east of the Mississippi in 1946, the organization grew in thirty years to include a sales force of more than 22,000, with 50 plants and offices in 35 countries.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Levi's jeans became popular among a wide range of youth subcultures, including greasers, mods, rockers, hippies and skinheads. Levi's popular shrink-to-fit 501s were sold in a unique sizing arrangement; the indicated size referred to the size of the jeans prior to shrinking, and the shrinkage was substantial. The company still produces these unshrunk, uniquely sized jeans, and they are still Levi's number one selling product. Although popular lore (abetted by company marketing) holds that the original design remains unaltered, this is not the case: the company's president got too close to a campfire, and the rivet at the bottom of the crotch conducted the fire's heat too well; the offending rivet, which is depicted in old advertisements, was removed.

1990s and later
By the 1990s , the brand was facing competition from other brands and cheaper products from overseas, and began accelerating the pace of its US factory closures and its use of offshore subcontracting agreements. In 1991, Levi Strauss faced a scandal involving pants made in the Northern Mariana Islands, where some 3% of Levi's jeans sold annually with the Made in the USA label were shown to have been made by Chinese laborers under what the United States Department of Labor called "slavelike" conditions. Today, most Levi's jeans are made outside the US, though a few of the higher end, more expensive styles are still made in the U.S.
Cited for sub-minimum wages, seven-day work weeks with 12-hour shifts, poor living conditions and other indignities, Tan Holdings Corporation, Levi Strauss' Marianas subcontractor, paid what were then the largest fines in U.S. labor history, distributing more than $9 million in restitution to some 1,200 employees. Levi Strauss claimed no knowledge of the offenses, then severed ties to the Tan family and instituted labor reforms and inspection practices in its offshore facilities.
The activist group Fuerza Unida (United Force) was formed following the January 1990 closure of a plant in San Antonio, Texas, in which 1,150 seamstresses, some of whom had worked for Levi Strauss for decades, saw their jobs exported to Costa Rica. During the mid- and late-1990s, Fuerza Unida picketed the Levi Strauss headquarters in San Francisco and staged hunger strikes and sit-ins in protest of the company's labor policies.
The company took on multi-billion dollar debt in February 1996 to help finance a series of leveraged stock buyouts among family members. Shares in Levi Strauss stock are not publicly traded; the firm is today owned almost entirely by indirect descendants and relatives of Levi Strauss, whose four nephews inherited the San Francisco dry goods firm after their uncle's death in 1902.[18] The corporation's bonds are traded publicly, as are shares of the company's Japanese affiliate, Levi Strauss Japan K.K.
In June 1996, the company offered to pay its workers an unusual dividend of up to $750 million in six years' time, having halted an employee stock plan at the time of the internal family buyout. However, the company failed to make cash flow targets, and no worker dividends were paid.[19] In 2002, Levi Strauss began a close business collaboration with Wal-Mart, producing a special line of "Signature" jeans and other clothes for exclusive sale in Wal-Mart stores until 2006. Levi Strauss Signature jeans can now be purchased at several stores in the US, Canada, India, Pakistan and Japan.
According to the New York Times, Levi Strauss leads the apparel industry in trademark infringement cases, filing nearly 100 lawsuits against competitors since 2001. Most cases center on the alleged imitation of Levi's back pocket double arc stitching pattern (U.S. trademark #1,139,254), which Levi filed for trademark in 1978. Levi's has successfully sued Guess?, Polo Ralph Lauren, Esprit Holdings, Zegna, Zumiez and Lucky Brand Jeans, among other companies.
By 2007, Levi Strauss was again said to be profitable after declining sales in nine of the previous ten years. Its total annual sales, of just over $4 billion, were $3 billion less than during its peak performance in the mid 1990s. After more than two decades of family ownership, rumors of a possible public stock offering were floated in the media in July 2007. In 2009, it was noted in the media for selling Jeans on interest-free credit, due to the global recession. In 2010, the company partnered with Filson, an outdoor goods manufacturer in Seattle, to produce a high-end line of jackets and workwear.

Advertising
Levi's marketing style has often made use of old recordings of popular music in television commercials, ranging from traditional pop to punk rock. Notable examples include Ben E King ("Stand By Me"), Percy Sledge ("When a Man Loves a Woman"), Eddie Cochran ("C'mon Everybody!"), Marc Bolan ("20th Century Boy"), Screamin' Jay Hawkins ("Heart Attack & Vine"), The Clash ("Should I Stay or Should I Go?"), as well as lesser known material, such as "Falling Elevators" and "The City Sleeps" by MC 900 Ft. Jesus and "Flat Beat" and "Monday Massacre" by Mr. Oizo. In India in August 2007 the “Fit to die for” advertisement campaign ran with Deepika Padukone.
Many of these songs were re-released by their record labels as a tie-in with the ad campaigns, resulting in increased popularity and sales of the recordings and the creation of iconic visual associations with the music, such as the use of a topless male model wearing jeans underwater in the 1986 adverts featuring "Wonderful World" and "Mad about the Boy" and the puppet, Flat Eric, in the ads featuring music by Mr. Oizo.

Marketing
During the launch of Levi's Curve ID jeans, Levi launched a 5 week integrated marketing campaign that touched on experiential marketing, social media and outdoor events in shopping malls and city centers throughout the UK.
Brand ambassadors for Levi's encouraged women to find their perfect curve jeans shape in-store for the chance to win a £1000 Levi's shopping spree. The idea behind the campaign was to drive long-term engagement with the brand.

Official site

Matalan



Matalan is a British retailer that specialises in shoes and clothes. It was founded by John Hargreaves in 1985. It currently has over 200 stores across the UK. The 200th store opened on 22 September 2006 in Croydon. The current Chairman is John Mills and the current Chief Executive at Matalan is Darren Blackhurst.

Stores
Matalans stores average out at a size of roughly 30,000 square feet (2,800 m2), emphasising the space strategy that the company employs. The majority of Matalans stores are based in out of town locations, based upon a concept that John Hargreaves discovered was successful in America, and then decided to launch it in Preston in 1985. Each store is typically divided into four departments, Women's, Men's, Kids' and Homeware. In May 2007, Matalans launched a new 'Partyshop' department at its Preston store named 'M Party'. This has now extended to almost ten stores across the country including three in west Scotland. During 2008, M Party was rolled out to a further 55 stores within the company. In January 2011 this department had been disbanded as it is not as viable as once thought.
In December 2007, the company made the decision to roll out a new store format, following a successful trial and an increase in pre-tax profits. This included new innovations to Matalans such as mannequins and more stylish fixtures and fittings.
In 2010 the potential buy over of Matalans fell through after the buy-out companies interested could not meet the £1.5 billion price tag placed on the company by owner John Hargreaves . An offer of £1.3 billion was rumoured to have been rejected. Following the breakdown in any buyout, plans were made by Hargreaves to invest more money into the Matalans brand. As well as investment into the current stores in the UK plans are in place to open a further 5/6 stores in Scotland and plans are also in place about the possibility of opening Matalans stores outside of the UK for the first time.

Shop-in-shop strategy
Since Matalan relaunched the brand in 2006, there had been a number of attempts to add more diversity to the traditionally single minded approach to product branding. Much of this was achieved by creating 'shop-in-shop' layouts across the stores. These include:
Et Vous - High quality ladieswear brand.
Soon - Relaunch of an old Matalan ladieswear brand in 2007. Product mainly for older market.
Sports Shop - Establishment of an area in store for ladies, mens, and kids selling high quality branded sportswear. Brands available include Fila, Umbro, PGA Tour and Everlast.
Be Beau - Catwalk inspired fashion brand, launched in 2009.
Falmer Herritage - an Abercrombie style range launched in 2011
24/7 - Quality men's casualwear designed by Jeff Banks.
Lee Cooper - Men's casual fashion, relaunched in 2009 with many new lines for the Autumn/Winter seasons.
Influence - Stylish and affordable designer home accessories from big household names including Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, Colin McAllister and Justin Ryan, Anthea Turner, Antony Worrall Thompson, Gino D'Acampo, Linda Barker, Martine McCutcheon, Jane Asher and James Tanner, launched in 2009.

Expansion
As the UK economic downturn took hold in late 2008, value retailers such as Matalan began to benefit from the more cost-aware spending of the UK consumer base, as well as the demise of rivals such as Woolworths and Ethel Austin. This in addition to a strategy of store refurbishment, stock and marketing revision, and debt repayment led to an increased wealth within the company and a steady increase in sales. Increased revenue allowed Matalan to begin expanding again, and opening new stores for the first time in three years. The long term ambition is to expand Matalan's store portfolio to 300 stores in the UK, beginning in 2009 with stores opening in Elgin (Scotland), Colindale (London), and Cheetham Hill (Manchester).
As well as expansion in the UK, Matalan has announced plans to open stores outside the UK for the first ever time. Over the next year, Matalan will be opening fifteen new stores in the middle east in locations including Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

Clearance stores
In order to make sure that new season ranges are given full attention upon launch, Matalan converted a small selection of its stores into clearance outlets. These stores are stocked through stock uplifts from regular branches, where old stock is taken in mass (often the culmination of 2 or more sale periods) and crossdocked to clearance branches. Matalan dustbin stores are generally selected from branches that are nearing the end of their lease or are located in an area which is commercially viable for a store of a clearance nature. At current, Matalan has clearance stores in Blythswood (Renfrew, near Glasgow Airport), Newport, Wood Green (London) and Sunderland. There are also stores in Portadown and Swindon, however these are both due to close.

Distribution
Matalan stores have goods distributed to them from three distribution centres:
Skelmersdale - based adjacent to the head office buildings, the Skelmersdale DC delivers to stores primarily in the north of the UK. The centre is made up of two buildings, one of which crossdocks goods directly to stores. The SDC is also the base of Matalan's logistical operation.
Corby - the most recently opened depot, supplying stores in the south of the UK. Corby DC is owned by Matalan, but is operationally run by logistical contractor Wincanton.
Knowsley - The smallest of the three centres. Primarily for distributing bulk goods. Knowsley also houses a small office complex.
Because Matalan's logistical operation is run by Wincanton, goods are also relayed through Wincanton's depot in Scotland, to ease pressure on Skelmersdale and allow Scottish stores to receive goods more quickly. In the earlier years of Matalan, a distribution centre was also situated in Leyland, not far from the head office in Preston. However, as the company rapidly expanded in size around the turn of the millennium, Leyland was closed and the distribution centre was moved to Skelmersdale along with the head office. Wincanton lost contract on 25 feb 2012, all distribution is in house now.

Official website

Nike



Nike, Inc.  is a major publicly traded clothing, footwear, sportswear, and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, in the Portland metropolitan area. It is the world's leading supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and a major manufacturer of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of US$18.6 billion in its fiscal year 2008 (ending May 31, 2008). As of 2008, it employed more than 30,000 people worldwide. Nike and Precision Castparts are the only Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the state of Oregon, according to The Oregonian.
The company was founded on January 25, 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, and officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1978. The company takes its name from Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Nike markets its products under its own brand, as well as Nike Golf, Nike Pro, Nike+, Air Jordan, Nike Skateboarding, and subsidiaries including Cole Haan, Hurley International, Umbro and Converse. Nike also owned Bauer Hockey (later renamed Nike Bauer) between 1995 and 2008. In addition to manufacturing sportswear and equipment, the company operates retail stores under the Niketown name. Nike sponsors many high profile athletes and sports teams around the world, with the highly recognized trademarks of "Just do it" and the Swoosh logo.

Origins and history
Nike, originally known as Blue Ribbon Sports (BRS), was founded by University of Oregon track athlete Philip Knight and his coach Bill Bowerman in January 1964. The company initially operated as a distributor for Japanese shoe maker Onitsuka Tiger (now ASICS), making most sales at track meets out of Knight's automobile.
According to Otis Davis, a student athlete whom Bowerman coached at the University of Oregon, who later went one to win two gold medals at the 1960 Summer Olympics, Bowerman made the first pair of Nike shoes for him, contradicting a claim that they were made for Phil Knight. Says Davis, "I told Tom Brokaw that I was the first. I don't care what all the billionaires say. Bill Bowerman made the first pair of shoes for me. People don't believe me. In fact, I didn't like the way they felt on my feet. There was no support and they were too tight. But I saw Bowerman make them from the waffle iron, and they were mine."
The company's profits grew quickly, and, in 1967, BRS opened its first retail store, located on Pico Boulevard in Santa Monica, California. By 1971, the relationship between BRS and Onitsuka Tiger was nearing an end. BRS prepared to launch its own line of footwear, which would bear the Swoosh newly designed by Carolyn Davidson. The Swoosh was first used by Nike on June 18, 1971, and was registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on January 22, 1974.
The first shoe sold to the public to carry this design was a soccer shoe named Nike, which was released in the summer of 1971. In February 1972, BRS introduced its first line of Nike shoes, with the name derived from the Greek goddess of victory. In 1978, BRS, Inc. officially renamed itself to Nike, Inc. Beginning with Ilie Năstase, the first professional athlete to sign with BRS/Nike, the sponsorship of athletes became a key marketing tool for the rapidly growing company.
The company's first self-designed product was based on Bowerman's "waffle" design. After the University of Oregon resurfaced the track at Hayward Field, Bowerman began experimenting with different potential outsoles that would grip the new urethane track more effectively. His efforts were rewarded one Sunday morning when he poured liquid urethane into his wife's waffle iron. Bowerman developed and refined the so-called "waffle" sole, which would evolve into the now-iconic Waffle Trainer in 1974.
By 1980, Nike had attained a 50% market share in the U.S. athletic shoe market, and the company went public in December of that year.[9] Its growth was due largely to "word-of-foot" advertising (to quote a Nike print ad from the late 1970s), rather than television ads. Nike's first national television commercials ran in October 1982, during the broadcast of the New York Marathon. The ads were created by Portland-based advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy, which had formed several months earlier in April.
Together, Nike and Wieden+Kennedy have created many print and television advertisements, and Wieden+Kennedy remains Nike's primary ad agency. It was agency co-founder Dan Wieden who coined the now-famous slogan "Just Do It" for a 1988 Nike ad campaign, which was chosen by Advertising Age as one of the top five ad slogans of the 20th century and enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution. Walt Stack was featured in Nike's first "Just Do It" advertisement, which debuted on July 1, 1988. Wieden credits the inspiration for the slogan to "Let’s do it", the last words spoken by Gary Gilmore before he was executed.
Throughout the 1980s, Nike expanded its product line to encompass many sports and regions throughout the world.

Acquisitions
As of November 2008, Nike, Inc. owns four key subsidiaries: Cole Haan, Hurley International, Converse Inc. and Umbro. Nike's first acquisition was the upscale footwear company Cole Haan in 1988. In February 2002, Nike bought surf apparel company Hurley International from founder Bob Hurley. In July 2003, Nike paid US$309 million to acquire Converse Inc., makers of the iconic Chuck Taylor All Stars sneakers. On March 3, 2008, Nike acquired sports apparel supplier Umbro, known as the manufacturers of the England national football team's kit, in a deal said to be worth £285 million (about US$600 million). Other subsidiaries previously owned and subsequently sold by Nike include Bauer Hockey and Starter.

Products
Nike produces a wide range of sports equipment. Their first products were track running shoes. They currently also make shoes, jerseys, shorts, baselayers, etc. for a wide range of sports, including track and field, baseball, ice hockey, tennis, association football (soccer), lacrosse, basketball, and cricket. Nike Air Max is a line of shoes first released by Nike, Inc. in 1987. The most recent additions to their line are the Nike 6.0, Nike NYX, and Nike SB shoes, designed for skateboarding. Nike has recently introduced cricket shoes called Air Zoom Yorker, designed to be 30% lighter than their competitors'.In 2008, Nike introduced the Air Jordan XX3, a high-performance basketball shoe designed with the environment in mind.
Nike sells an assortment of products, including shoes and apparel for sports activities like association football, basketball, running, combat sports, tennis, American football, athletics, golf, and cross training for men, women, and children. Nike also sells shoes for outdoor activities such as tennis, golf, skateboarding, association football, baseball, American football, cycling, volleyball, wrestling, cheerleading, aquatic activities, auto racing, and other athletic and recreational uses. Nike is well known and popular in youth culture, chav culture and hip hop culture for their supplying of urban fashion clothing. Nike recently teamed up with Apple Inc. to produce the Nike+ product that monitors a runner's performance via a radio device in the shoe that links to the iPod nano. While the product generates useful statistics, it has been criticized by researchers who were able to identify users' RFID devices from 60 feet (18 m) away using small, concealable intelligence motes in a wireless sensor network.
In 2004, Nike launched the SPARQ Training Program/Division.
Some of Nike's newest shoes contain Flywire and Lunarlite Foam to reduce weight.
On July 15, 2009, the Nike+ Sports Band was released in stores. The product records distance run and calories expended, keeps time, and also gives runners new programs online they could try running.
The 2010 Nike Pro Combat jersey collection were worn by teams from the following universities: Miami, Alabama, Boise State, Florida, Ohio State, Oregon State, Texas Christian University, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, and Pittsburgh. Teams will wear these jerseys in key matchups as well as any time the athletic department deems it necessary.

Headquarters
Nike's world headquarters are surrounded by the city of Beaverton, but are within unincorporated Washington County. The city attempted to forcibly annex Nike's headquarters, which led to a lawsuit by Nike, and lobbying by the company that ultimately ended in Oregon Senate Bill 887 of 2005. Under that bill's terms, Beaverton is specifically barred from forcibly annexing the land that Nike and Columbia Sportswear occupy in Washington County for 35 years, while Electro Scientific Industries and Tektronix receive the same protection for 30 years.

Manufacturing
Nike has contracted with more than 700 shops around the world and has offices located in 45 countries outside the United States. Most of the factories are located in Asia, including Indonesia, China, Taiwan, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Philippines, and Malaysia. Nike is hesitant to disclose information about the contract companies it works with. However, due to harsh criticism from some organizations like CorpWatch, Nike has disclosed information about its contract factories in its Corporate Governance Report.

Human rights concerns
Sweatshops
Nike has been criticized for contracting with factories (known as Nike sweatshops) in countries such as China, Vietnam, Indonesia and Mexico. Vietnam Labor Watch, an activist group, has documented that factories contracted by Nike have violated minimum wage and overtime laws in Vietnam as late as 1996, although Nike claims that this practice has been stopped. The company has been subject to much critical coverage of the often poor working conditions and exploitation of cheap overseas labor employed in the free trade zones where their goods are typically manufactured. Sources for this criticism include Naomi Klein's book No Logo and Michael Moore documentaries.
During the 1990s, Nike faced criticism for the use of child labor in Cambodia and Pakistan in factories it contracted to manufacture soccer balls. Although Nike took action to curb or at least reduce the practice, they continue to contract their production to companies that operate in areas where inadequate regulation and monitoring make it hard to ensure that child labor is not being used.
In 2001, a BBC documentary uncovered occurrences of child labor and poor working conditions in a Cambodian factory used by Nike. The documentary focused on six girls, who all worked seven days a week, often 16 hours a day.
Campaigns have been taken up by many colleges and universities, especially anti-globalisation groups, as well as several anti-sweatshop groups such as the United Students Against Sweatshops. Despite these campaigns, however, Nike's annual revenues have increased from US$6.4 billion in 1996 to nearly US$17 billion in 2007, according to the company's annual reports.
A July 2008 investigation by Australian Channel 7 News found a large number of cases involving forced labour in one of the largest Nike apparel factories. The factory located in Malaysia was filmed by an undercover crew who found instances of squalid living conditions and forced labour. Nike have since stated that they will take corrective action to ensure the abuse does not continue.
As of July 2011, Nike stated that two-thirds of its factories producing Converse products still do not meet the company's standards for worker treatment. A July 2011 Associated Press article stated that employees at the company's plants in Indonesia reported constant abuse from supervisors.

China Olympics
Nike also caused controversy during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, when its sponsored Chinese athlete, Liu Xiang, withdrew from the Olympic 110 metre hurdles, leaving the track after a false start by another competitor. Liu claimed that he withdrew due an ankle injury. However, an anonymous message was posted on the internet, purportedly from a source close to Nike, claiming that the corporation had forced Liu to withdraw as he was unlikely to win, thereby tarnishing their image. Nike responded by announcing that "we have immediately asked relevant [Chinese] government departments to investigate those that started the rumour".

Environmental record
According to the New England-based environmental organization Clean Air-Cool Planet, Nike ranks among the top three companies (out of 56) in a survey of climate-friendly companies. Nike has also been praised for its Nike Grind program (which closes the product lifecycle) by groups like Climate Counts. One campaign that Nike began for Earth Day 2008 was a commercial that featured basketball star Steve Nash wearing Nike's Trash Talk Shoe, which had been constructed in February 2008 from pieces of leather and synthetic leather waste from factory floors. The Trash Talk Shoe also featured a sole composed of ground-up rubber from a shoe recycling program. Nike claims this is the first performance basketball shoe that has been created from manufacturing waste, but it only produced 5,000 pairs for sale.
Another project Nike has begun is called Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe program. This program, started in 1993, is Nike's longest-running program that benefits both the environment and the community by collecting old athletic shoes of any type in order to process and recycle them. The material that is produced is then used to help create sports surfaces such as basketball courts, running tracks, and playgrounds.
A project through the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found workers were exposed to toxic isocyanates and other chemicals in footwear factories in Thailand. In addition to inhalation, dermal exposure was the biggest problem found. This could result in allergic reactions including asthmatic reactions.

Marketing strategy
Nike promotes its products by sponsorship agreements with celebrity athletes, professional teams and college athletic teams. However, Nike's marketing mix contains many elements besides promotion. These are summarized below.

Advertising
In 1982, Nike aired its first national television ads, created by newly formed ad agency Wieden+Kennedy (W+K), during the broadcast of the New York Marathon. This was the beginning of a successful partnership between Nike and W+K that remains intact today. The Cannes Advertising Festival has named Nike its Advertiser of the Year in 1994 and 2003, making it the first and only company to receive that honor twice.
Nike also has earned the Emmy Award for best commercial twice since the award was first created in the 1990s. The first was for "The Morning After," a satirical look at what a runner might face on the morning of January 1, 2000 if every dire prediction about the Y2K problem came to fruition. The second was for a 2002 spot called "Move," which featured a series of famous and everyday athletes in a variety of athletic pursuits.
In addition to garnering awards, however, Nike advertising has generated its fair share of controversy.

Beatles song
Nike was criticized for its use of the Beatles song "Revolution" in a 1987 commercial against the wishes of Apple Records, the Beatles' recording company. Nike paid US$250,000 to Capitol Records Inc., which held the North American licensing rights to the recordings, for the right to use the Beatles' rendition for a year.
Apple sued Nike Inc., Capitol Records Inc., EMI Records Inc. and Wieden+Kennedy for $15 million.Capitol-EMI countered by saying the lawsuit was "groundless" because Capitol had licensed the use of "Revolution" with the "active support and encouragement of Yoko Ono Lennon, a shareholder and director of Apple."
According to a November 9, 1989 article in the Los Angeles Daily News, "a tangle of lawsuits between the Beatles and their American and British record companies has been settled." One condition of the out-of-court settlement was that terms of the agreement would be kept secret. The settlement was reached among the three parties involved: surviving Beatles George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr; Yoko Ono; and Apple, EMI and Capitol Records. A spokesman for Yoko Ono noted, "It's such a confusing myriad of issues that even people who have been close to the principals have a difficult time grasping it. Attorneys on both sides of the Atlantic have probably put their children through college on this."
Nike discontinued airing ads featuring "Revolution" in March 1988. Yoko Ono later gave permission to Nike to use John Lennon's "Instant Karma" in another advertisement.

Minor Threat advertisement
In late June 2005, Nike received criticism from Ian MacKaye, owner of Dischord Records, guitarist/vocalist for Fugazi and The Evens, and front man of the defunct punk band Minor Threat, for appropriating imagery and text from Minor Threat's 1981 self-titled album's cover art in a flyer promoting Nike Skateboarding's 2005 East Coast demo tour.
On June 27, Nike Skateboarding's website issued an apology to Dischord, Minor Threat, and fans of both and announced that they have tried to remove and dispose of all flyers. They stated that the people who designed it were skateboarders and Minor Threat fans themselves who created the advertisement out of respect and appreciation for the band. The dispute was eventually settled out of court between Nike and Minor Threat. The exact details of the settlement have never been disclosed.

Chinese-themed advertisement
In 2004, an ad about LeBron James beating cartoon martial arts masters and slaying a Chinese dragon with martial arts offended Chinese authorities, who called the ad blasphemous and insulting to national dignity and to the dragon. The advertisement was later banned in China. In early 2007, the ad was reinstated in China for unknown reasons.

Nike 6.0
The company rolled out a new campaign in June 2011 called "Nike 6.0" that was aimed at extreme sport athletes. As part of the campaign, Nike introduced a new line of T-shirts that include phrases such as "Dope", "Get High" and "Ride Pipe" – sports lingo that is also a double entendre for drug use. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino expressed his objection to the shirts after seeing them in a window display at the city's Niketown and asked the store to remove the display. "What we don't need is a major corporation like Nike, which tries to appeal to the younger generation, out there giving credence to the drug issue," Menino told The Boston Herald. A company official stated the shirts were meant exclusively to pay homage to extreme sports, and that Nike does not condone the illegal use of drugs. Nike was forced to replace the shirt line.

Sponsorship
Main article: List of Nike sponsorships
Nike pays top athletes in many sports to use their products and promote and advertise their technology and design.
Nike's first professional athlete endorser was Romanian tennis player Ilie Năstase. The first track endorser was distance runner Steve Prefontaine. Prefontaine was the prized pupil of the company's co-founder, Bill Bowerman, while he coached at the University of Oregon. Today, the Steve Prefontaine Building is named in his honor at Nike's corporate headquarters.
Besides Prefontaine, Nike has also sponsored many other successful track and field athletes over the years, such as Carl Lewis, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Sebastian Coe. However, it is the signing of basketball player Michael Jordan in 1984, with his subsequent promotion of Nike over the course of his storied career, with Spike Lee as Mars Blackmon, that proved to be one of the biggest boosts to Nike's publicity and sales.
During the past 20 years especially, Nike has been one of the major clothing and footwear sponsors for leading tennis players. Some of the more successful tennis players currently or formerly sponsored include: James Blake, Jim Courier, Roger Federer, Lleyton Hewitt, Juan Martín del Potro, Andre Agassi, Rafael Nadal, Pete Sampras, Marion Bartoli, Lindsay Davenport, Daniela Hantuchová, Mary Pierce, Maria Sharapova, and Serena Williams.
Nike was the official kit sponsor for the Indian cricket team for five years, from 2006 until the end of 2010. Nike beat Adidas and Puma by bidding US$43 million.
Nike sponsors some of the leading clubs in world football, including the national teams of Serbia, India, France, Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United States, and Malaysia.
Some of the world's top golf players are sponsored by Nike, among them Tiger Woods, Stewart Cink, Lucas Glover, Michelle Wie, Trevor Immelman, and Paul Casey.
Nike also sponsors various minor events including Hoop It Up (high school basketball) and The Golden West Invitational (high school track and field). Nike uses web sites as a promotional tool to cover these events. Nike also has several websites for individual sports, including nikebasketball.com, nikefootball.com, and nikerunning.com.
Nike is a major sponsor of athletic programs at Penn State and has decided not to abandon that relationship in the wake of the Penn State sex abuse scandal.

Official website

Top 10 Online Free Directory Sites with Page Rank

http://www.directory.classifieds1000.com-PR5
http://www.dmoz.org-PR8
http://www.hotvsnot.com-PR7
http://www.netinsert.com-PR6
http://www.illumirate.com-PR5
http://www.gimpsy.com-PR5
http://www.chiff.com-PR5
http://www.webworldindex.com-PR5
http://www.mavicanet.com-PR5
http://www.jayde.com-PR7


Top 15 B2B Websites with Page Rank

http://www.alibaba.com-PR8
http://www.made-in-china.com-PR7
http://www.indiamart.com-PR6
http://www.dhgate.com-PR7
http://www.globalsources.com-PR6
http://www.ecplaza.net-PR6
http://www.exportpages.com-PR6
http://www.kellysearch.com-PR7
http://www.taiwantrade.com.tw-PR7
http://www.mfg.com/en-PR7
http://www.tejari.com-PR6
http://www.kompass.com-PR7
http://www.tradekey.com-PR8
http://www.tradeindia.com-PR6
http://www.ec21.com-PR6


Top 10 Online Classified Advertising Sites with Page Rank

http://www.craigslist.org-PR7
http://www.gumtree.com-PR7
http://www.hoobly.com-PR7
http://www.backpage.com-PR6
http://www.oodle.com-PR6
http://www.olx.com-PR6
http://www.ebayclassifieds.com-PR5
http://www.usfreeads.com-PR5
http://www.sell.com-PR5
http://www.inetgiant.com-PR5


Top 10 Social Networking Sites with Page Rank

http://www.facebook.com-PR10
http://www.twitter.com-PR9
http://www.linkedin.com-PR9
http://www.myspace.com-PR9
http://www.ryze.com-PR6
http://www.biznik.com-PR6
http://www.efactor.com-PR6
http://www.econnect.entrepreneur.com-PR6
http://www.xing.com-PR8
http://www.tuenti.com-PR8


Top 10 Social Networking Sites with Page Rank

Top 10 Fashion Blog with Page Rank

http://www.style.com-PR8
http://www.jezebel.com-PR7
http://www.hypebeast.com-PR6
http://www.thefrisky.com/index-PR6
http://www.justjared.buzznet.com-PR7
http://www.fashiontoast.com-PR6
http://www.stylelist.com-PR6
http://www.mydailystyle.es-PR6
http://www.styleclicker.net-PR7
http://www.fashionunited.com-PR5


Top 10 Fashion Forum with Page Rank

http://www.askandyaboutclothes.com/forum-PR5
http://www.styleforum.net-PR5
http://www.forums.vogue.com.au-PR6
http://www.forums.bellaonline.com-PR5
http://www.soompi.com/forums-PR4
http://www.boards.askmen.com-PR5
http://www.forums.thefashionspot.com-PR5
http://www.t-shirtforums.com-PR4
http://www.fashion-networks.com-PR4
http://www.gq.com/forums/index.jspa-PR6


Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites with Page Rank

http://www.slashdot.org-PR9
http://www.digg.com-PR8
http://www.del.icio.us-PR8
http://www.reddit.com-PR8
http://www.technorati.com-PR8
http://www.stumbleupon.com-PR8
http://www.blinklist.com-PR7
http://www.furl.net-PR7
http://www.propeller.com-PR7
http://www.faves.com-PR5


Lipsy London



Lipsy London, also known as Lipsy, is a British women’s fashion brand that also operates retail stores.
The company was founded in London in 1990 and was acquired by Next PLC (LSE: NXT) in 2008. It now employs over 450 people and operates 22 retail stores in the UK and the Ireland.
The Lipsy line is also sold through concessions in high street multiples, including Selfridges, House of Fraser and overseas department stores Robinsons in Singapore and Bloomingdales in the USA. The company has wholesale distributors in Sweden, Greece, Germany, France, Italy and South Africa.
Lipsy's headquarters are based in London in Berners Street in the London borough of the City of Westminster, near Oxford Street.

Brief history
1990 - Lipsy founded
2006 - Management buyout
2006 - Launched www.lipsy.co.uk
2007 - Launched Lipsy European Wholesale Division
2007 - Logo changes from lips to L-heart design
2008 - Launched Lipsy accessories
2008 - Launched lifestyle collection
2008 - Launched Lipsy VIP dress collection
2008 - Opened first retail store in London's Brent Cross Shopping Centre
2008 - Lipsy acquired by Next PLC
2009 - Opened a further 12 stores in the UK and ROI
2010 - Launched Pixie Lott Collection
2010 - Launched in Bloomingdale's department stores in the USA
2010 - Launched Lipsy watch collection
2010 - Launched Lipsy fragrance

Stores and concessions
Lipsy opened its first retail store in Brent Cross Shopping Centre, London, in October 2008 and in 2009 opened a further 12 stores. The company currently operates a total of 22 retail stores in the UK and Ireland with further stores planned to open in 2010 in Kingston, Derby, Merryhill, Glasgow-Silverburn and Leeds.
Lipsy branded items are also sold in UK-based international retail chains Topshop, Selfridges and House of Fraser as well as through online and mail-order retailers including Asos.com, Next.co.uk, 3Suisses.fr, otto.de, oli.co.uk and very.co.uk.
In April 2010 Lipsy launched in the USA in the South Coast Plaza, Bergen County and Bridgewater Bloomingdale's department stores. In August 2010 Lipsy opened in a further nine Bloomingdales stores.
In October 2010 Lipsy launched in Robinson department store, Singapore.

Celebrity collections
In April 2010, Lipsy launched a fashion range co-designed by British singer-songwriter Pixie Lott. The first Pixie Collection comprised two ranges: Pixie Festival and Pixie Party. Pixie Lott's second collection for Lipsy was launched in September 2010 and consisted of a new range, Pixie Rocks, and an updated Pixie Party collection.
In June 2010, Kimberly Wyatt, a former member of American pop group the Pussycat Dolls, was featured as the face of Lipsy watches in the company's marketing campaign.

Celebrity fans
Lipsy is well-known for its association with celebrity fashion.
British celebrities who have been photographed wearing Lipsy items or with Lipsy shopping bags include Pixie Lott, Katie Price, Sarah Harding, Alexandra Burke, Mollie King, Lily Allen and Michelle Keegan.
American Lipsy fans include celebrities Paris Hilton, Lady GaGa, Jessica Lowndes, Kourtney Kardashian, Taylor Swift and Kimberly Wyatt.

Lipsy website
The Lipsy official website was launched in 2006, allowing customers to buy online. The website was given a design overhaul in 2009 and in 2010 a video catwalk function was added. In 2010 www.lipsy.co.uk also began stocking items by other fashion brands,including Miss Sixty, Motel Rocks and Religion.

Lipsy logo
Following an extensive rebrand, the Lipsy logo changed from the smeared lipstick image, which had become iconic in the 1990s, to the interlinked L and heart icon in January 2007.

Social media
Lipsy has a fashion and celebrities blog on www.lipsy.co.uk, as well as a Facebook page and a Twitter account. In August 2010, Lipsy launched a competition on Facebook to find the face of its first ever fragrance. The competition attracted over 300,000 voters. The winner was given a modelling contract and other prizes.

Lipsy Magazine
Lipsy launched the first issue of its branded magazine in April 2010. The second issue was released in September 2010. The magazine is available to view as an interactive digital copy on the Lipsy website.

Lipsy London Official Website

PUMA


Puma SE, officially branded as PUMA, is a major German multinational company that produces athletic shoes, footwear, and other sportswear. The company was formed in 1924 as Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik by Adolf and Rudolf Dassler. The relationship between the two brothers deteriorated until the two agreed to split in 1948, forming two separate entities, Adidas and Puma. Puma is currently based in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

The company is known for its football shoes and has sponsored acclaimed footballers, including Pelé, Eusébio, Johan Cruijff, Enzo Francescoli, Diego Maradona, Lothar Matthäus, Kenny Dalglish, Didier Deschamps, Robert Pires, Radamel Falcao, Samuel Eto'o, and Gianluigi Buffon. Puma is the sponsor of the Jamaican track athlete Usain Bolt. In the United States, the company is known for the suede basketball shoe it introduced in 1968, which eventually bore the name of New York Knicks basketball star Walt "Clyde" Frazier, and for its endorsement partnership with Joe Namath.

Following the split from his brother, Rudolf Dassler originally registered the new-established company as Ruda, but later changed to Puma. Puma's earliest logo consisted of a square and beast jumping through a D, which was registered, along with the company's name, in 1948. Puma's shoe designs feature the distinctive "Formstripe", with clothing and other products having the logo printed on them.

The company offers lines of shoes and sports clothing designed by Lamine Kouyate, Amy Garbers, and others. Since 1996 Puma has intensified its activities in the United States. Puma owns 25% of American brand sports clothing maker Logo Athletic, which is licensed by American professional basketball and association football leagues. Since 2007 Puma SE has been part of the French luxury group PPR.

History
Background
Christoph von Wilhelm Dassler was a worker in a shoe factory, while his wife Pauline ran a small laundry in the Bavarian town of Herzogenaurach, 20 km (12.4 mi) from the city of Nuremberg. After leaving school, their son, Rudolf Dassler, joined his father at the shoe factory. When he returned from fighting in World War I, Rudolf received a management position at a porcelain factory, and later in a leather wholesale business in Nuremberg.

Rudolf returned to Herzogenaurach in 1924 to join his younger brother, Adolf, nicknamed "Adi", who had founded his own shoe factory. They named the new business "Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik" (Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory). The pair started their venture in their mother's laundry. At the time, electricity supplies in the town were unreliable, and the brothers sometimes had to use pedal power from a stationary bicycle to run their equipment.

Adi drove from Bavaria to the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin with a suitcase full of spikes and persuaded United States sprinter Jesse Owens to use them, the first sponsorship for an African American. Owens won four gold medals. Business boomed; the Dasslers were selling 200,000 pairs of shoes annually before World War II.

Company split and creation of PUMA
Both brothers joined the Nazi Party, but Rudolf was slightly closer to the party. A growing rift between the brothers reached a breaking point during an Allied bomb attack in 1943. Adi and his wife climbed into a bomb shelter that Rudolf and his family were already in. "Here are the bloody bastards again," Adi said, apparently referring to the Allied war planes, but Rudolf was convinced his brother meant him and his family. When Rudolf was later picked up by American soldiers and accused of being a member of the Waffen SS, he was convinced that his brother had turned him in.

The brothers split the business in 1948. Rudolf moved to the other side of the Aurach River to start his own company. Adolf started his own sportswear company using a name he formed using his nickname—Adi—and the first three letters of his last name—Das—to establish Adidas. Rudolf created a new firm that he called "Ruda", from "Ru" in Rudolf and "Da" in Dassler. Rudolf's company changed its name to Puma Schuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler in 1948.

Early years and rivalry with Adidas
Puma and Adidas entered a fierce and bitter rivalry after the split. The town of Herzogenaurach was divided on the issue, leading to the nickname "the town of bent necks"—people looked down to see which shoes strangers wore. Even the town's two football clubs were divided: ASV Herzogenaurach club supported Adidas, while 1 FC Herzogenaurach endorsed Rudolf's footwear. When handymen were called to Rudolf's home, they would deliberately wear Adidas shoes. Rudolf would tell them to go to the basement and pick out a pair of free Pumas. The two brothers never reconciled, and although both are buried in the same cemetery, they are spaced apart as far as possible.

In 1948, the first football match after World War II, several members of the West German national football team wore Puma boots, including the scorer of West Germany's first post-war goal, Herbert Burdenski. Four years later, at the 1952 Summer Olympics, 1500 metres runner Josy Barthel of Luxembourg won Puma's first Olympic gold in Helsinki, Finland.

At the 1960 Summer Olympics Puma paid German sprinter Armin Hary to wear Pumas in the 100 metre sprint final. Hary had worn Adidas before and asked Adolf for payment, but Adidas rejected this request. The German won gold in Pumas, but then laced up Adidas for the medals ceremony, to the shock of the two Dassler brothers. Hary hoped to cash in from both, but Adi was so enraged he banned the Olympic champion.

The Pelé pact and subsequent affairs
A few months prior to the 1970 FIFA World Cup, Armin Dassler and his cousin, Horst Dassler, sealed an agreement which was dubbed "The Pelé pact". This agreement dictated that Pelé would be out of bounds for both Adidas and Puma. However, Pelé complied with a request by Puma's representative Hans Henningsen to increase the awareness and profile of Puma after he received $120,000 to wear the Formstripes. At the opening whistle of a 1970 World Cup finals match, Pelé stopped the referee with a last-second request to tie his shoelaces before kneeling down to give millions of television viewers a close-up of his Pumas. This outraged Horst, and future peace agreements were called off.

Two years later, during the 1972 Summer Olympics, Puma provided shoes for the Ugandan 400 metres hurdles champion, John Akii-Bua. After Akii-Bua was forced out of Uganda by its military government, Puma employed him in Germany. Eventually Akii-Bua returned to Uganda.

In May 1989, Rudolf's sons Armin and Gerd Dassler agreed to sell their 72 percent stake in Puma to Swiss business Cosa Liebermann SA.

Puma became a public company in 1986, and thereafter was listed on the Börse München and Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Present day
Puma AG has 9,500 employees and distributes its products in more than 120 countries. For the fiscal year 2003, the company had revenue of €1.274 billion. Puma were the commercial sponsors for the 2002 anime series Hungry Heart: Wild Striker, with the jerseys and clothing sporting the Puma brand. Puma ranks as one of the top shoe brands, after Reebok, Adidas, and Nike.

The company has been led by CEO and Chairman Jochen Zeitz since 1993. His contract was extended until 2012 in October 2007.

Japanese fashion guru Mihara Yasuhiro teamed up with Puma to create a high-end and high-concept line of sneakers

Puma is the main producer of enthusiast driving shoes and race suits. They are the primary producer for Formula One and NASCAR clothing. They won the rights to sponsor the 2006 FIFA World Cup champions, the Italian national football team, making and sponsoring the clothing worn by the team. They entered a partnership with Ferrari, Ducati and BMW to make Puma-Ferrari, Puma-Ducati and Puma-BMW shoes. On 15 March 2007 Puma launched its 2007/2008 line of uniforms for a club, and Brazilian football club Grêmio will be the first to use the laser-sewn technology, similar to that worn by Italy at the 2006 World Cup, because their season starts six months earlier than European clubs.

Special editions of King football boots
In 2008 Puma commemorated the 40th anniversary of the "King" model of boots with a special anniversary edition, the King XL (XL is 40 in Roman Numerals), a tribute to Portuguese footballer Eusébio, who scored 42 goals with King boots in 1968, winning the Golden Boot Award as Europe's leading scorer. Puma have continued to release new versions of the King range, and released a version in 2009 to celebrate the history of Italian soccer, and in particular the Puma King XL Italia, in honour of double World Cup winning coach Vittorio Pozzo.

In 2010 a Puma King model was released commemorating the 50th birthday of Diego Maradona, with a model called the Puma King Diego Finale football boot. This edition was created in the colours of La Albiceleste, the Argentina National football team.

Takeover by PPR
In February 2007 Puma reported that its profits had fallen by 26% to €32.8 million ($43 million; £22 million) during the final three months of 2006. Most of the decline in profits was due to higher costs linked to its expansion; sales rose by more than a third to €480.6 million.

In early April 2007 Puma's shares rose €29.25 per share, or about 10.2%, at €315.24 per share. On 10 April 2007 French retailer and owner of Gucci brand Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR) announced that it had bought a 27% stake in Puma, clearing the way for a full takeover. The deal values Puma at €5.3 billion. PPR said that it would launch a "friendly" takeover for Puma, worth €330 a share, once the acquisition of the smaller stake was completed. The board of Puma welcomed the move, saying it was fair and in the firm's best interests. Since 17 July 2007 PPR owns 62.1 % of Puma stock. While PPR owns the majority of Puma's stock, Puma remains an independent company.

In July 2011 the company completed a conversion from an Aktiengesellschaft (German public limited company) to a Societas Europaea, the European Union-wide equivalent, changing its name from Puma AG Rudolf Dassler Sport to Puma SE. At the same time, Franz Koch replaced the long-serving Jochen Zeitz as the firm's CEO, with Zeitz becoming chairman.

Controversy
Employment practices
Organizations promoting fair trade and worker's rights criticize Puma's employment practices in their developing world factories, predominantly relating to workers in China, Turkey, El Salvador, and Indonesia.

Puma, like many globalised corporations, believes that "labour flexibility remains one of the key components to ensure that individual companies survive and grow". These "flexible" labour practices allow the company to manufacture quickly and cheaply, but often under exploitative conditions.

Freedom of association
Puma’s 2009 supplier list included close to 350 suppliers, the majority of which are located in Asia, predominately China, followed by Vietnam. In these locations, Puma reports that the rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining have been difficult to enforce. According to human rights and labour organisations, Puma does not have adequate policies in place to encourage suppliers to recognise workers' union rights. Puma does not require suppliers to allow their workers to form a union, nor does it require suppliers to sign union access agreements.

Puma frequently has short term contracts with its suppliers, which means that at any time it can leave an area, and its workers, if they can source their products more cheaply elsewhere. This lack of stability does not give supplier factories a good incentive to respect workers' rights. For instance, in 2004 Puma decided to stop ordering garments from the Lian Thai factory in Thailand just after the factory had agreed to cease discrimination against trade union members. In another incident, following the formation of an independent union at one of Puma’s Mexican suppliers, the company cut orders from the factory.
Puma has not taken action to minimise the use of short term contracts, though the prevalence of these contracts creates an atmosphere of economic insecurity and makes it difficult for workers to organise.

Low wages
In a number of regions, sportswear workers producing for Puma have been increasingly vocal about the serious inadequacy of their wages. Puma has not yet made a full commitment to pay a living wage. Puma is currently undertaking research into finding a practical solution to the problem of low wages in Asia, and is working with suppliers in Indonesia, India, and Cambodia to assess the feasibility of a minimum living wage. Labour organisations, such as the Asia Floor Wage campaign, hope that this process will lead to the implementation of living wages in the future. In the meanwhile, Puma has admitted that it is still trying to achieving full compliance with the minimum wage at a number of its suppliers.

Steps in the right direction
The company has made some steps towards greater transparency. In 2000 Puma began auditing all of its suppliers on a yearly basis, and makes the results available in its sustainability reports. Since 2005 it has publicly provided a list of its suppliers.

Puma has made a strong commitment to respecting workers rights in some areas. For example, Puma has obtained the Ethical Clothing Australia accreditation for its Australian-made products. This labour-friendly accreditation applies to only a tiny percentage of Puma’s total production.

Environmental practices
In July 2011, Puma – along with other major fashion and sportswear brands including Nike, Adidas, and Abercrombie & Fitch – was the subject of a report by the environmental group Greenpeace entitled 'Dirty Laundry'. Puma is accused of working with suppliers in China who, according the findings of the report, contribute to the pollution of the Yangtze and Pearl Rivers. Samples taken from one facility belonging to the Youngor Group located on the Yangtze River Delta and another belonging to the Well Dyeing Factory Ltd., located on a tributary of the Pearl River Delta, revealed the presence of hazardous and persistent hormone disruptor chemicals, including alkylphenols, perfluorinated compounds, and perfluorooctane sulfonate.

Less than two weeks after the release of the Dirty Laundry report, Puma made a public commitment to deal with the issues raised by Greenpeace. The company's statement asserts that "Puma is committed to eliminate the discharges of all hazardous chemicals from the whole lifecycle and all production procedures that are associated with the making and using of Puma products." Greenpeace also confirmed Puma's commitment to eliminate all releases of hazardous chemicals from its entire product lifecycle, and across its global supply chain by 2020.

Timeline
    1920: Rudolf Dassler and his brother Adolf start making sports shoes
    1924: Foundation of Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik, Herzogenaurach, Germany
    1948: Foundation of Puma Schuhfabrik Rudolf Dassler (1 October), Introduction of the ATOM, Puma's first football shoe
    1949: Rudolf Dassler has the idea of football shoes with removable studs. He begins working on their development and production. Many football experts, like Sepp Herberger, are involved
    1952: Introduction of the SUPER ATOM
    1953: Development of ATOM's successor: the BRASIL
    1958: Introduction of Puma's signature "Formstripe" at the FIFA World Cup in Sweden
    1959: The company is transformed into a limited partnership named Puma-Sportschuhfabriken Rudolf Dassler KG
    1960: Introduction of the technologically advanced vulcanization production technique
    1966: Launch of the WEMBLEY, the predecessor model to the Puma King
    1968: Launch of the legendary KING. Puma is the first manufacturer to offer sports shoes with Velcro fasteners
    1968: Launch of the SUEDE
    1973: Launch of the CLYDE. Designed for basket player Walt "Clyde" Fraizer, as a wider-fitting version of suede model
    1974: Rudolf Dassler dies. His sons Armin and Gerd take over the company's management
    1976: Introduction of the S.P.A.-Technology
    1986: Transformation into a stock corporation
    1989: Launch of the TRINOMIC sport shoe system
    1990: Introduction of INSPECTOR, a growth control system for children's shoes
    1991: Launch of the DISC SYSTEM sports shoe
    1992: Capital increase by DM 20 million, share capital reaches DM 70 million
    1993: Jochen Zeitz is appointed Chairman and CEO, Proventus/Aritmos B.V. becomes majority shareholder
    1994: The first profit since the company's IPO in 1986 is registered
    1996: Puma is listed in the German M-DAX index; introduction of the CELL technology, the first foam-free midsole
    1997: Launch of the CELLERATOR
    1998: Puma starts a cooperation with designer Jil Sander
    1999: Puma becomes an official on-field supplier of the U.S. National Football League (NFL)
    2000: Production of fireproof footwear in partnership with Porsche and Sparco
    2001: Acquisition of the Scandinavian Tretorn Group
    2002: Launch of the SHUDOH
    2003: Majority shareholder Monarchy/Regency sells its shareholdings to a broad base of institutional investors
    2004: Collaborative partnership with world-renowned designer Philippe Starck
    2005: Mayfair Vermögensverwaltungsgesellschaft mbh acquires a total of 16.91% shareholding
    2006: The company is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index; Introduction of the S.A.F.E. concept, a specific tool developed to continuously improve social and environmental standards. Shoe collection in cooperation with Alexander McQueen. Italy would go on to win the 2006 World Cup. Due to Puma's sponsorship of the Italian national team, many of the teams' players wore Puma cleats
    2007: Voluntary public take-over by Pinault-Printemps Redoute; Prolongation of the contract with Jochen Zeitz by five years
    2008: Melody Harris-Jensbach is appointed Deputy CEO; Designer and artist Hussein Chalayan becomes Creative Director, Puma also acquires a majority stake in Chalayan's business and Hussein Chalayan
    2010: Signs two year deals to make the kits of Newcastle United, Motherwell, Hibernian, Burnley & Preston from the 2010–11 season
    2011: Signs a deal to make kits of GNK Dinamo Zagreb from the 2011–12 season. Signs a three year deal with A-League champions Brisbane Roar
    2012: Signs a four year deal to make kits of Barrow from the 2012–13 season.

Official website

Ted Baker

Ted Baker is a British clothing retail company, known for applying twists to its products, and has become a UK designer label through word of mouth rather than advertising.

History
Ted Baker's managing director, Ray Kelvin, started his first store in March 1988 in Glasgow, and opened further stores in Manchester, Plymouth, and Nottingham.[2] Initially Ted Baker exclusively offered men's dress shirts. Kelvin had limited funding available, so rather than advertise, he relied on word of mouth and the creation of a personality to anchor the brand.

In 1990 Ted Baker opened a store in Covent Garden (with additional stores in London's Soho, Nottingham and Leeds) and Kelvin bought the company outright from part-owners Goldberg and Sons. A new range, Ted Baker Woman, was launched in 1995.

Ted Baker has since become a global brand, which produces men's, women's and children's clothing and also fragrances, eyewear and accessories. It sells a range of cosmetics under the name Ted Baker Bodywear; these are marketed exclusively through Boots in the UK. Two Ted Baker branded mobile phones have been released in the UK – the Ted Baker Button and Ted Baker Needle, in association with Samsung and HTC respectively.

Stores in the United Kingdom
Ted Baker has a number of stand-alone stores in the UK. The Ted Baker range is also sold by other retailers (which it refers to as Ted Baker Trustees), in particular in stores of the John Lewis Partnership and House of Fraser. Ted Baker also has stores at Bicester Village Retail Outlet, at Swindon's Great Western Designer Outlet, Portsmouth's Gunwharf Quays and Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet. There is a Ted Baker concession in Selfridge's London, Manchester and the Trafford Centre.

Ted Baker has also launched new ranges in partnership with Debenhams. It is a closely formed partnership with the two companies working together on design, production, and merchandising.

International stores
Ted Baker has stores and outlets in the rest of Europe, United States of America, Australasia, Asia and the Middle East.

Wholesale operations
Ted Baker has expanded its high street presence through its wholesale business which includes Australia, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Norway, Greece, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium as well as the British Isles.

Wholesale operations commenced in 1994 through careful selection of retail stores.

In film
Ted Baker was featured in the 21st James Bond film Casino Royale. A specially designed Ted Baker store was erected, fully merchandised, and dismantled on the film's set in Prague. The entire work took three days. The Ted Baker store is featured in a scene at Miami airport.

Official Ted Baker website