T.M.Lewin is pushing ahead with its high street comeback, with two new stores set to open next month.
The stores will open in London Victoria and at Bluewater shopping centre in Kent in November, taking its estate to seven stores. The openings follow five launches over the past 18 months as T.M.Lewin rebuilds a physical presence that disappeared after its collapse in 2020.
Its current portfolio comprises Bow Lane, Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf in London, alongside Outlet Shopping at The O2 and St Albans. T.M.Lewin is also looking for further opportunities in central London, although managing director Dan Ferris said high rents continued to limit the number of viable sites.
Ferris told The Times that T.M.Lewin would pursue locations where it could generate attractive returns, rather than chase store numbers for their own sake.
Tie sales rose more than 200 per cent year on year over the summer, while T.M.Lewin’s sales mix is now broadly evenly divided between formal and casual clothing. Casualwear accounted for about 30 per cent of the business when Ferris discussed the company’s strategy in late 2025.
“The tie has died about ten times now and then it keeps coming back,” Ferris said.
T.M.Lewin has broadened its range in recent years beyond the shirts and suits for which it is best known, adding chinos, polos, gilets, knitwear, rugby shirts and T-shirts as men’s working wardrobes have become less rigid.
Its return to bricks and mortar began in April 2025 with a store on Bow Lane near St Paul’s Cathedral. The opening marked T.M.Lewin’s first move back onto the high street after all 66 of its remaining shops closed when the company fell into administration during the pandemic.
T.M.Lewin was subsequently bought out of administration by Torque Brands, part of US private equity firm Stonebridge, before entering administration again in 2022 and undergoing a restructuring and brand reset.
The current expansion is deliberately more restrained than T.M.Lewin’s previous store strategy. At its peak in the mid-2010s, the shirtmaker operated more than 150 locations, compared with the seven it will have once Victoria and Bluewater open.
Ferris said the emphasis was now on a smaller group of high-performing stores working alongside a strong ecommerce operation, rather than recreating the scale of its former estate.
Stores also give T.M.Lewin an opportunity to sell beyond its core shirt offer, with customers visiting for workwear increasingly being encouraged towards knitwear, chinos and other wardrobe staples.
Further expansion will depend partly on property economics. Ferris pointed to both rents and business rates as barriers to investment and has called on the government to address the cost burden facing high street businesses.
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