Bella Freud has launched a second collaboration collection with M&S following sell-out success for the offer that launched this time last year.

The new 35-piece collection is more ambitious too as it includes homewares and kidswear, as well as a knitwear, daywear, outerwear and tailoring edit.

So as well as the slogan sweaters for which the brand is known, there’s a double-breasted coat, silk shirt and velvet suit and there are slogan mugs, bowls and tumblers, dog sweaters, kids sweaters and more. 

Given the homewares inclusion, it’s not surprising that the inspiration running throughout is “entertaining at home”. 

Freud said of the new offer: “You want to be a bit dressed up and feel glamorous, but you also want to feel at ease. At the centre of the collection is a velvet suit and around that, there’s wool and cashmere knitwear and silk shirts. I think the styling feels old school and glamorous – it’s dressing down that’s dressed up.”

Ahead of the launch, FashionNetwork.com spoke to Bella Freud’s head of brand, Kate Finlan about the success of last year’s collaboration and the challenges and opportunities the company is facing at the moment.

FashionNetwork.com: How is business faring at the moment?

Kate Finlan: Performing positively. We are up on the year, which is great. I know it’s quite a challenging time for a lot of businesses. So we’re really pleased about that. As a business, our focus is very much DTC, e-commerce, about 70%. We do have one standalone store in London, on Chiltern Street, which is also performing very well. We recently had a CRM event in-store, which was really successful.

FNW: What did that event involve?

KF: We do two collections a year that split into drops. So the new collection was delivered and Chiltern street invited their top clients. We had Bella in conversation with a stylist. Bella talking through the inspiration of the collection and the stylist gave multiple ways to wear it. Quite simple, but very effective. 

FNW: You’ve returned for a second M&S collab — I take it the first one was very successful?

KF: That sold out in 24 hours, and really shone a huge light on the business. We couldn’t believe that it sold out. And we’ve designed their advent calendar for this year. So it’s very nice to continue that partnership with them.

FNW: How big an impact does a collaboration like that have on the main business and do those M&S shoppers become Bella Freud mainline customers?

KF: Initially, a huge impact, but it takes a long time to convert a customer, if you’re not immediately ready to be converted. But we can see just how much we are up year on year from that [and] from other activations that both the business and Bella has been working on. I think brand awareness as a whole increased dramatically. The [M&S} collaboration launched in October last year. And now we can sort of map out fully year on year… we can just see what an impact it has had, which is great.

FNW: Can you give me a percentage as to how much you’re up this year? And are you seeing big challenges as many other brands have reported.

KF: We are currently up just over 15%. America is our second biggest market, and obviously all of the tariffs, the removal of de minimis has had a big impact on us. Our knitwear is made in China just because the quality is better, the craft is better. So initially we [temporarily made] the decision to pull out of the US, just because we didn’t know what the impact on our margins was going to be. But we are seeing significant growth there through e-commerce. We don’t have any wholesale or DTC retail stores in America, but we do have a dedicated US [e-commerce] storefront, so it’s localised. It’s personalised. The growth is coming, and we can see that the interest is there. But everything changes on a sixpence in the US, and it’s more challenging to totally understand profitability in the US, with all of the new extra charges, how much you’re passing on, how much you’re taking back.

FNW: Have you had to put up prices there?

KF: Marginally. We actually onboarded a company who helped with frictionless border trade. So at the moment, we’re pretty happy with the US, although it’s one to watch.

FNW: And the UK? While most of your business is DTC, what about wholesale?

KF: A while ago, we made the decision to [tweak] our wholesale so we are now working with smaller, independent boutiques around the UK, which is great.

FNW: How did the Matches closure affect you and did that help you decide on a revised strategy?

KF: Previously, Matches was our biggest stockist, so we were devastated when that went. We were with all of the majors [but] maybe the set-up wasn’t right for what the business needed now. Matches signified the change for wholesale to us. So we’re working with the much smaller, independents, which is going very well. What we are very good at is our loyal customer base. Our returning customer rate is very high. We are working to deepen that sort of two-way communication with our customers. And I think that’s what’s mirrored with the boutiques that we’re working with. They’ve got that relationship with that customer.