Richard Shops was a British high street retailer of women's fashion.

History

The business was created in 1936 by John Sofio, who modelled the business on the US company Learner Brothers. The company was bankrupt by 1941 and was purchased by

Charles Clore Sir Charles Clore (26 December 1904 – 26 July 1979) was a British financier, retail and property magnate, and philanthropist. Life and career Clore was of Lithuanian Jewish background, the son of Israel Clore, a Whitechapel tailor who had emi ...

for £45,000, who subsequently expanded the business before selling it on for £800,000 in 1949 to

United Drapery Stores United Drapery Stores, or UDS, was a British retail group that dominated the British high street from the 1950s to the early 1980s. Early history In 1925, Charterhouse Bank set up Charterhouse Investment Trust. The trust started buying up dep ...

. Richards was managed by Rudy Weil until his retirement in the mid-1970s. From the 1960s to the 1990s, an expansion of the number of stores saw it as a ubiquitous part of almost every British high street and shopping centre, selling fashion clothing designed to appeal to young women. In the 1970s a hugely popular television advertisement began to appear with a memorable jingle, also used for radio advertisements on

Capital Radio Capital London is a radio station owned and operated by the Global media company as part of its national Capital FM Network. As Capital Radio it was launched in the London area in 1973 as one of Britain's first two commercial radio stations. I ...

. In 1983 UDS was sold to

Hanson plc Hanson UK, formerly Hanson Trust plc, is a British-based building materials company, headquartered in Maidenhead. The company has been a subsidiary of the German company HeidelbergCement since August 2007, and was formerly listed on the London S ...

. Hanson started selling off parts if UDS to pay for its purchase. Fellow UDS bedfellow John Collier was purchased in a management buyout, but Richard Shops' management were unable to raise the capital and it was bought by the newly formed retail group Habitat/Mothercare plc, and became part of

Storehouse plc Storehouse plc, traded as Storehouse, was a large UK retail business formed by Terence Conran through the merger of various high street chains. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index before it ...

after the merger of Habitat/Mothercare with

British Home Stores British Home Stores, commonly abbreviated to BHS and latterly legally styled BHS Ltd, was a British department store chain, primarily selling clothing and household items. In its later years, the company began to expand into furniture, electron ...

in 1986. With the financial troubles suffered by the Storehouse group in the late 1980s, Richard Shops began to lose direction at a time when the high street was becoming a more competitive place for fashion retailers. Since 1972 the men's clothing retailer Burton had been expanding its chain of women's fashion stores under the

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 ...

brand, and in 1979 it acquired Richard Shops' long-time rival

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 ...

. A more direct assault on Richard Shops came in 1984 from the Burton Group, as Burton was now called, when it launched the unisex fashion chain

Principles A principle is a proposition or value that is a guide for behavior or evaluation. In law, it is a rule that has to be or usually is to be followed. It can be desirably followed, or it can be an inevitable consequence of something, such as the la ...

. Not only did Principles manage to capture something of the mood of the late 1980s in its designs, but it represented the most direct assault to date by Burton on the largely

middle-class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Comm ...

customer base of Richard Shops. In 1985, Richard Shops had to cancel a contract with South African suppliers over campaigns against apartheid. In 1988 Storehouse appointed a new chief executive, Michael Julie

with Sir

Terence Conran Sir Terence Orby Conran (4 October 1931 – 12 September 2020) was an English designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer. He founded the Design Museum in Shad Thames, London in 1989 The British designer Thomas Heatherwick said that Conran " ...

becoming chairman, and the group was reorganised into three divisions, with Richard Shops sharing 'Speciality Retailing' with the group's brands

Mothercare Mothercare plc is a British retailer which specialises in products for expectant mothers and in general merchandise for children up to eight years of age. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap In ...

, Blazer, Anonymous, and Jacadi. In 1992 Richard Shops was sold to the British retailing giant

Sears plc Sears plc was a large British-based conglomerate. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was acquired by Philip Green in 1999. History The business was founded by John and Willi ...

(not to be confused with the American stores of the same name), the then owner of the London department store

Selfridges Selfridges, also known as Selfridges & Co., is a chain of high-end department stores in the United Kingdom that is operated by Selfridges Retail Limited, part of the Selfridges Group of department stores. It was founded by Harry Gordon Selfridge ...

, and the women's clothing retailers Wallis,

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 ...

and Outfit. In 1999 Sir

Philip Green Sir Philip Nigel Ross Green (born 15 March 1952) is a British businessman who was the chairman of the retail company the Arcadia Group. He owned the high street clothing retailers Topshop, Topman and Miss Selfridge from 2002 to 2020. As of Ma ...

, who had acquired Sears plc, transferred Richard Shops, along with Wallis, to the

Arcadia Group Arcadia Group Ltd (formerly Arcadia Group plc and, until 1998, Burton Group plc) was a British multinational retailing company headquartered in London, England. It was best known for being the previous parent company of British Home Stores (BH ...

which immediately announced the closure of all branches of Richard Shops, or their conversion to other Arcadia brands.

References

External links

article from Funding Universe

{{Arcadia Group Clothing retailers of the United Kingdom Retail companies established in 1927 Retail companies disestablished in 1999 Defunct retail companies of the United Kingdom