Faith was a British shoe retailer founded in 1964 by

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

accountant An accountant is a practitioner of accounting or accountancy. Accountants who have demonstrated competency through their professional associations' certification exams are certified to use titles such as Chartered Accountant, Chartered Certifi ...

Samuel Faith and his wife. In the following years new stores were gradually added, primarily in the South of England. After Samuel's retirement, his son Jonathan acquired the family business which he subsequently sold to Bridgepoint Capital in December 2004 for £65 million. The company entered

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

in 2010, and

Debenhams Debenhams plc was a British department store chain operating in the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1778 as a single store in London and grew to 178 locations across those countries, also owning the Danish ...

purchased the brand and 115 Faith concessions operating within its stores.

History

In the 1980s the

brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

launched its prosperous 'faith solo' brand, taking styles and ideas straight from the catwalk and selling them to a mainstream audience. The company also began a programme of opening concessions within selected

Dorothy Perkins Dorothy Perkins is an online British women's fashion brand based in the United Kingdom. Formerly a store chain, it sold both its own range of clothes and branded fashion goods until February 2021, when it became part of Boohoo.com, having been ...

and

Topshop TOPSHOP (originally Top Shop) is a British fashion brand for women's clothing, shoes and accessories. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, but went into administration in late 2020 before being purchased by ASOS (r ...

stores. In 1996 a contract was agreed with Topshop for Faith to open a concession in every Topshop store in the UK and Ireland. In the late 1990s Debenhams also approached Faith with a long-term view to becoming the main concession partner for young fashion ladies footwear. This form of expansion therefore became the only means of growth for the business for several years until 2001. By 2001, concessions accounted for 75% of sales mainly through the Arcadia stores of Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and

Miss Selfridge Miss Selfridge is a British fashion brand and former high street store chain which began as the young fashion section of Selfridges department store in London in 1966. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, which we ...

. In the autumn of 2001, Arcadia served notice that they intended to terminate the contract. Faced with this loss of revenue, the company embarked on a substantial programme of opening own-brand stores. Topshop asked Faith to leave its stores in the summer of 2003 as they found there would be a higher profit in producing its own brand of footwear. This led to a huge expansion of both Faith branches and profits. Latterly there was only one Faith concession within

(at

Oxford Circus Oxford Circus is a road junction connecting Oxford Street and Regent Street in the West End of London. It is also the entrance to Oxford Circus tube station. The junction opened in 1819 as part of the Regent Street development under John Nash, ...

). In 2004 there were approximately 1700 employees in the UK and Ireland, with further concessions operating under licence in the Middle East. There was also a division servicing the main UK mail order catalogues, such as

Freemans Freemans is a British online and catalogue clothing retailer headquartered in Bradford, England. Freemans offers a range of products, predominantly clothing, footwear and homewares. History The company was founded as Freemans & Co in 1905 by ...

and

Littlewoods Littlewoods was a retail and football betting company founded in Liverpool, England, by John Moores in 1923. By the 1980s, it had grown to become the largest private company in Europe, but subsequently declined in the face of increased com ...

. The brand celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2004. In December 2004, Faith Shoes was bought for £65 million by private equity group

Bridgepoint Capital Bridgepoint Group plc is a British private investment company listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index. History Bridgepoint was founded as NatWest Equity Partners, a private equity firm part of NatWest. ...

, and some years later entered into a pre-pack administration agreement in 2008, when John Kinnaird bought the business. In April 2010, all stores were closed as part of a new administration procedure. Prior to administration it had 72 stand alone branches, as well as concessions in

Allders Allders was an independent department store operating in the United Kingdom. The original store was established in 1862 in Croydon by Joshua Allder. In the second half of the 20th century, this parent store was developed into a chain of depart ...

, Sunwin House, and

Beatties Beatties was a small British department store group located primarily in the Midlands of England. In 2005, when it had 12 stores, the group was acquired by House of Fraser. On 14 January 2006, the Birmingham store closed, because a similar Ho ...

. Debenhams purchased the 115 Faith concessions trading within its stores in July 2010.

"Hope" store

In April 2010, after Faith Footwear Ltd went into administration, 70 stores were closed, and more than 1700 staff lost their jobs. Inspired by the former Dorchester Woolworth's Store Manager Claire Robertson's success in reopening her store as '

Wellworths Wellworths was a supermarket chain, owned by the Fitzwilton trading in Northern Ireland until 1997. Along with Stewarts/Crazy Prices it was one of the two main supermarkets in Northern Ireland until English-based retailers moved into the marke ...

', the Chelmsford branch of Faith got together and reopened their store on 3 July 2010 as 'Hope'. In the official press release Store Manager Justina Pay stated: "We were inspired by Claire Robertson and her success in turning her old Dorchester Woolworths store into Wellworths, a great example of someone who has had a massive success from a very sad redundancy. Customers were genuine in their sadness that our stores were closing and were concerned as to where they could buy quality shoes from, we knew we had to 'do a Wellworths' and try and bring it back!".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Faith Shoes Clothing retailers of the United Kingdom Clothing companies established in 1964 Retail companies established in 1964 Retail companies disestablished in 2010 Shoe companies of the United Kingdom Clothing brands of the United Kingdom Footwear retailers