Amongst all of the doom and gloom over High Street sales figures, including the rumoured store closures of La Senza and Blacks in the new year, there is one store at least that is doing well – Reiss has seen its profits double this year thanks to a little help from their biggest fan – Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton.
In the months since the engagement announcement and wedding the Duchess has hardly hidden the fact that the High Street store is one of her favourite places to shop, choosing to wear their outfits for events such as her official engagement photos by Mario Testino (photos which were beamed across the world – nice free publicity there!) and her official state visit to Canada. She also chose the Shola dress, a nude knee length number with cap sleeves, to meet the Obamas during their visit to London in the Summer, causing the website to crash several times as people raced to buy the £175 dress before it sold out. In the summer she selected a cream Peacock Reiss dress for the races and caused another sell out.
Helped by their famous fan Reiss have doubled their profits from £4.3m last January to a cool £8.5m this year.
Wow.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Reiss also reported that their sales had been boosted from £77.7m to £87.6m. The brand, which is still family owned, also credits the launch of their new 1971 collection and tighter cost controls with helping to achieve these results.
Looks like a good start to 2012 for Reiss!
