Aurora Fashions to undergo major restructuring

Aurora Fashions, the company that owns women’s fashion brands Coast, Oasis and Warehouse, has announced that it is to undergo a ‘fundamental reshaping of its businesses’ over the next 12-18 months. To aid the next phasegrowth,

of its omni-channel Aurora Fashions is making Coast, its occasionwear specialist a standalone business, splitting it from the wider company, while its two young-fashion brands Oasis and Warehouse will sit under a single parent company, Fresh Channel.

To push forward the new restructure, Liz Evans current managing director of Oasis has been promoted to CEO of the new business.

It is hoped that the new set up will allow for a ‘more agile business structure’ that will ‘enable the brands to further embrace omni-channel’ in addition to achieving ‘significant cost savings’.

The separation of Coast as an independent company will also allow the brand to build upon its position as the occasionwear specialist, with plans to open more flagship stores, develop a new website, while continuing its international expansion.

The transition will take place over the next 12-18 months, after which point Aurora will cease to exist.

Aurora Chairman Derek Lovelock said: “Retailing is no longer about gearing your operating model around bricks and mortar, something we have realised as a result of our omni-channel success. Instead, our businesses must adapt and utilise a number of distribution channels to ensure we continue to capitalise on the changing global retail environment.”

Mike Shearwood, Aurora CEO added: “De-layering our businesses enables us to maximise the capabilities we have built through our channels over the last two years. This will allow us to create independent, agile organisations, where the management teams have full control and autonomy to deliver their strategies, so that they can provide their global customer base with more choice.”

The news follows the announcement earlier this week to outsource the public relations for Warehouse to drive brand awareness across the UK. IPR London has been appointed to act as an extension of the Warehouse in-house press team.

Image: Coast