// New Look boss Helen Connolly praises the fashion retailer’s ability to shift and remain agile, citing it as a key reason for maintaining its business
// “Having the agility to change your buy patterns and your category mix has never been more important.”
New Look CEO Helen Connolly said its move “to shift as drastically as consumers do” is how the business has managed to stay afloat over the last three years as Covid-19 and sky-high inflation threatened retailers across the industry.
On changing consumer behaviours, Connolly told Retail Week Live the fashion retailer went from thinking bricks-and-mortar first to omnichannel retail.
“We’ve had to shift quite dramatically as our customers shifted, the trends and what our customer wants changes so dramatically.”
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She touched on shopping habits being flipped during the pandemic-enforced lockdowns where women no longer wanted heels and switched over to trainers.
Now, post-pandemic she said, “people have been released out into the open and going out dresses and heels are back in fashion”.
New Look has had to adjust its buys accordingly and Connolly said the retailer has “an amazing team designed to respond to massive changes in retail.”
“One thing New Look has always done well, right from its conception is being really agile and quick to respond,” she stressed.
She said the business keeps its buys incredibly tight and added that “having the agility to change your buy patterns and your category mix has never been more important”.
Connolly used cargo trousers as a key example, and said that at the moment they are the the retailer’s most profitable line.
“I can’t get enough of them. They are selling out week in week out – they weren’t here last year,” she said.
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