Womenswear outperforms at John Lewis as Boden, Brora and Eudon Choi drive interest

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Sep 12, 2017

The early autumn season is turning out to be fairly good for John Lewis with some new launches helping drive fashion sales at the employee-owned chain strongly higher.

Overall, the department store chain and e-tailer said sales in the weeks to September 9 rose 3.5% to £85.6 million. Its fashion offer easily outstripped that growth with womenswear and menswear doing particularly well. They rose 16.4% and 15.4% respectively.

The womenswear growth was driven by the launch of new products and brands including Boden, which went on sale online and in two stores, as well as luxury Scottish brand Brora, and the company’s own Modern Rarity Eudon Choi collection of coats.

Home sales struggled once again though with a drop of 1.9%, although the firm said it is beginning to see online searches for Christmas products rise. And at the end of last week it launched its online Christmas Shop. It also launched a range of Anthropologie home products in its stores and online for the first time.

Electrical and Home Technology sales did better with a 2.8% rise. Sales of televisions were particularly strong due to the popularity of new Sony Smart TV ranges and it saw strong demand for mobile phones.